Private Catalogues in Magento B2B: How to Show Different Products and Prices to Different Customers
by Rahul Basu
August 14,2026
Most B2B sellers don't actually sell on one set of terms. A manufacturer might quote one price to a strategic distributor, a different price to a regional dealer, and a third price to a smaller trade account buying the same SKU. Some customers are contractually approved for a narrow product range; others should see the full catalogue. None of this maps onto the “one price, one catalogue, same for everyone” model that most public ecommerce sites are built around.
That raises a practical question for anyone running or evaluating Magento for B2B: how do you show the right products and the right prices to the right customers, without standing up a separate store for every commercial arrangement?
Magento B2B can support this through a combination of company and customer account structures, catalogue controls, customer groups and pricing rules. Exactly how much of this is available out of the box, versus built through custom development, depends heavily on the Magento edition in use and how the implementation is architected — which is what the rest of this article works through, alongside private catalogues, customer segmentation, pricing models, common pitfalls, and the Magento Open Source vs Adobe Commerce decision.
Separate stores are usually the better call when companies have genuinely different brands, legal entities, markets or technical infrastructure — private catalogues aren't a universal answer, just the right tool when the customer base, while varied, is still fundamentally one business.
What is a private catalogue in Magento B2B?
A private B2B catalogue is a controlled product assortment that's only visible to selected customers, companies or customer groups — rather than the full catalogue every visitor to a public storefront would see.Public catalogue vs private B2B catalogue
| Capability | Public Catalogue | Private B2B Catalogue |
| Product visibility | Broad / public | Selected customers |
| Pricing | Standard pricing | Negotiated / customer-specific |
| Customer access | Everyone | Authorised accounts only |
| Product assortment | General | Customer-specific |
| Contract products | Limited | Supported through configuration |
Private catalogue vs shared catalogue
It's worth being precise about terminology here, because the two terms get used loosely. “Shared Catalogue” is the name of Adobe Commerce's specific native B2B feature for assigning a defined product assortment and pricing to a company. “Private catalogue” is the broader, more general term used across the industry to describe any restricted or customer-specific catalogue — which might be built through Adobe Commerce's Shared Catalogue feature, or through customer-group rules and custom development on Magento Open Source. The two aren't strictly interchangeable, even though they get treated that way in a lot of marketing copy.Why B2B companies need different catalogues for different customers
The need for segmentation almost always traces back to how the commercial relationship actually works, not to a technology preference.- Negotiated customer contracts — a major distributor may have prices no smaller buyer is entitled to see
- Geographic restrictions — certain products may only be sellable in specific countries or territories
- Dealer and distributor networks — dealers may get access to SKUs or bundles that direct customers never see
- Customer-specific assortments — one account might be authorised for 300 SKUs, another for 80
- Volume-based agreements — pricing and purchasing conditions that shift with order volume
- Multiple brands or business units — different catalogue experiences without maintaining entirely separate platforms
How do private catalogues work in Magento B2B?
At a conceptual level, the flow is straightforward: a customer logs in, Magento identifies their account or company, the catalogue rules assigned to that account are applied, the approved products appear, negotiated pricing is displayed, and any relevant payment or shipping rules apply through to checkout.Customer identification
Authentication ties the visitor to a specific customer or company account, which is what everything downstream depends on.Catalogue assignment
The appropriate product assortment is associated with that customer or company — whether through a Shared Catalog, a customer group, or custom logic.Product visibility
Magento determines which products and categories that account is allowed to see, hiding everything else rather than merely de-emphasising it.Price assignment
The relevant pricing rule or negotiated price is applied and displayed against every visible product.Checkout rules
The same account context can extend into payment methods, shipping options and purchasing permissions, so the experience stays consistent from browsing through to order submission.How to show different products to different B2B customers
Restrict products by customer group
Customer groups are the most common starting point — segmenting accounts and controlling which products each segment can see.Create customer-specific product assortments
Some relationships need a genuinely unique SKU list rather than a shared segment, particularly for large contract accounts.Restrict categories
Whole categories can be hidden from customers who shouldn't see them at all, rather than filtering at the individual product level.Control visibility after login
Login-gated B2B storefronts can withhold pricing and, in some cases, product visibility entirely until a customer authenticates.Create private or contract catalogues
This is where negotiated B2B agreements get implemented directly in the platform, tying a defined assortment to a specific account. A simple illustration: Distributor A might see 2,000 products, Dealer B sees 750, and Enterprise Customer C sees only the 180 products approved under their contract — all three running against the same underlying Magento environment rather than three separate installations.How to show different prices to different Magento B2B customers
Customer group pricing
Pricing tied to a customer segment rather than an individual account — useful when many accounts share the same commercial terms.Tier pricing
Quantity-based pricing on a single SKU, for example €100 for 1–9 units, €92 for 10–49 units, and €84 from 50 units upward.Company-specific pricing
Negotiated pricing tied to one enterprise account rather than a broader group.Catalogue-specific pricing
Pricing that travels together with a customer-specific product assortment, so the price list and the product list stay in sync.Contract pricing
Prices agreed directly through sales negotiation, often needing to be reflected in Magento without manual re-entry for every account.Quantity and volume discounts
Structured B2B discounting is generally more deliberate than a simple promotional discount rule — it's built around order volume thresholds agreed with the customer.ERP-synchronised pricing
For many B2B sellers, the price a customer should see doesn't originate in Magento at all — it lives in the ERP or CRM system that manages the commercial relationship: SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics, or another ERP or PIM platform. Getting that pricing into Magento accurately and on a reasonable refresh cycle is usually one of the more technically demanding parts of a B2B catalogue project (see our Magento & SAP Business One integration work for more on this), and it's worth scoping early rather than treating it as an afterthought once the storefront design is finished.Practical example: one Magento store, three B2B customers
Customer A — small retailer
Standard wholesale assortment, standard dealer pricing, a €500 minimum order, and payment by card or bank transfer.Customer B — national distributor
Full catalogue access, negotiated distributor pricing, a €5,000 minimum order, and payment on invoice or company credit.Customer C — enterprise account
Only contract-approved products, individual contract pricing, net-30 invoice terms, and multiple purchasing employees operating under the one account. One Magento installation does not necessarily mean one identical storefront experience.Private catalogues vs running multiple Magento stores
| Factor | Private Catalogue Approach | Separate Stores |
| Administration | More centralised | Multiple environments and workflows |
| Product data | Shared where appropriate | Often duplicated |
| Customer pricing | Segmented | Store-specific |
| Inventory | Easier to centralise | Can become fragmented |
| Maintenance | Potentially lower | Usually higher |
| UX flexibility | Segmented | Maximum separation |
| Best for | Related B2B customer groups | Fundamentally different businesses |
Magento Open Source vs Adobe Commerce for private B2B catalogues
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce's native B2B module includes the capabilities most relevant here: Shared Catalogues, company accounts, company roles, negotiated quotes, requisition lists, purchase orders and company credit — available without custom development.Magento Open Source
Magento Open Source does not include Adobe Commerce's native Shared Catalogue feature set. It can still be extended to deliver similar outcomes through custom development, third-party B2B extensions, customer-group logic, custom catalogue permissions, pricing modules and ERP integration — at the cost of more build and maintenance work sitting with the business or its agency rather than Adobe.Which option should a business choose?
The decision usually comes down to budget, the complexity of the pricing and catalogue logic needed, the number of distinct customer segments, how much native functionality genuinely covers the requirement, appetite for custom development, integration needs, and expected scale. Neither edition is the automatically correct choice — it depends on how far the requirement sits from Adobe Commerce's out-of-the-box B2B feature set.Private catalogues + company accounts: a better B2B buying experience
A private catalogue rarely does its job in isolation. It tends to work alongside multi-user company accounts, roles and permissions, purchase approval workflows, quick ordering by SKU, requisition lists, request-for-quote functionality and company credit — together, these form the broader purchasing experience a serious B2B account actually expects.Connecting Magento private catalogues with ERP and PIM systems
ERP as the source of customer pricing
A typical flow runs from the ERP, to the customer record, to the contract, to the price list, and finally into Magento.PIM as the source of product information
Product data typically flows from the PIM through attributes and categories into Magento, keeping product content consistent regardless of which catalogue a customer sees.Magento as the commerce experience layer
Magento's job in this arrangement is the buyer-facing experience — presenting whatever the ERP and PIM have determined a given account should see.Keeping prices and inventory synchronised
This is where API and integration architecture decisions matter most. Outdated pricing is a bigger problem in B2B than in consumer ecommerce, because B2B customers are often ordering against a contract they expect to be honoured exactly, not a promotional price they'll shrug off if it changes.Benefits of private catalogues in Magento for B2B
Protect negotiated pricing
Customers only ever see prices relevant to their own commercial relationship with the business.Simplify purchasing
Buyers see the products they're actually authorised or expected to purchase, rather than filtering a full catalogue themselves.Reduce manual sales administration
Fewer repetitive requests for price sheets, availability checks and one-off quotes landing on the sales team.Improve customer experience
Each account gets a purchasing environment that actually matches their relationship with the business.Support complex distribution models
Manufacturers can serve distributors, dealers and enterprise accounts differently, without operating separate platforms for each.Centralise ecommerce operations
Shared commerce infrastructure stays in place even as customer experiences diverge.Common Magento B2B private catalogue challenges
Overcomplicated customer segmentation
Too many overlapping groups and rules become difficult to maintain and easy to get wrong — segment around real commercial distinctions, not every possible variation.Conflicting pricing rules
When multiple pricing mechanisms apply to the same customer, it needs to be clear which one wins, and that logic needs to be tested, not assumed.Incorrect product visibility
Products leaking into the wrong catalogue, or the right catalogue missing products, tends to surface through customer complaints rather than internal testing unless it's checked deliberately.ERP and Magento pricing mismatches
Sync timing and mapping errors between systems are a recurring source of price discrepancies at checkout.Cache and indexing considerations
Customer-specific pricing and catalogues interact with Magento's caching and indexing layers in ways that need to be accounted for in the architecture, not patched in afterward.Performance with large catalogues
Segmentation logic running across a large product catalogue and a large customer base needs performance testing at realistic scale.Testing customer permissions
Every customer group and account-specific rule needs to be tested from the customer's point of view, not just verified in the admin panel.Maintaining thousands of customer-specific prices
At scale, this is rarely sustainable as a manual process — it needs a defined source of truth and a reliable sync process.Security and data considerations for private B2B catalogues
This is an area that's easy to under-invest in, because a restricted catalogue can look secure in the storefront navigation while still being reachable through a direct URL or an unprotected API endpoint.- Authentication and authorisation for every account and role
- Catalogue permissions enforced consistently, not just in the menu
- Price confidentiality between customer segments
- Company-user permissions within a single account
- API security for any integration touching pricing or catalogue data
- Reliable data synchronisation between Magento, ERP and PIM
- Testing restricted URLs directly, not just the navigation that leads to them
- Preventing unauthorised catalogue exposure through search, sitemap or cache
When does your business need private catalogues?
Private catalogues are worth considering when:- Different customers negotiate different prices
- Customers have different approved product ranges
- You operate dealer or distributor networks
- Contract products should only be visible to selected accounts
- B2B prices should stay hidden from consumer traffic
- Different regions receive different products
- ERP price lists already differ by customer
- Sales teams spend significant time preparing price lists manually
- Multiple customer types need to share one ecommerce platform
Why work with a Magento agency for complex B2B catalogues?
Implementing this properly is rarely a matter of installing one extension. A Magento agency should be evaluating catalogue architecture, the right Magento edition, customer and company hierarchy, pricing architecture, ERP integration, PIM integration, permissions, checkout rules, performance, API architecture, security and testing before writing a line of code.Questions to ask a Magento agency
- Have you implemented customer-specific B2B catalogues before?
- Do we actually need Adobe Commerce, or can Magento Open Source meet our requirements?
- Where should pricing be mastered — Magento or the ERP?
- How will catalogue permissions be enforced?
- Can the architecture support thousands of customer-specific prices?
- How will ERP, PIM and Magento data stay synchronised?
- How will B2B catalogue rules affect performance?
- How will permissions and pricing be tested before launch?
How Ingold Solutions can build a Magento B2B catalogue strategy
Our approach starts with the business requirements, not the feature list: understanding the commercial relationships that need to be reflected, then working through Magento architecture, B2B functionality, ERP and PIM integration, custom development where it's genuinely needed, QA and deployment, and optimisation once the platform is live. The objective isn't simply creating different price lists. It's building a system where products, customers, permissions, pricing and business rules work together reliably — across a Magento agency engagement that covers the platform decision, the catalogue architecture and the integrations that keep it accurate.Conclusion: build a more personalised B2B buying experience with Magento
The purpose of a private catalogue isn't to hide products for its own sake. It's to give every B2B customer the assortment, pricing and purchasing conditions that actually correspond to their commercial relationship with the business — without forcing the company to run and maintain a separate storefront for every arrangement it has negotiated. If you're weighing up Adobe Commerce, Magento Open Source plus custom development, or another architecture entirely, that's worth working through with a Magento agency that has actually built customer-specific B2B catalogues before, rather than guessing at the right approach from a feature list.
