Most comparison guides for business marketplaces give you a feature grid and 10 products ranked one to ten. The ranking is the least useful part, because there is no best B2B marketplace platform. Some platforms just fit better with the way your business sells, and one of those will be the best for you.
So this guide sorts ten platforms by what you are buying: who owns the code, what you pay as the marketplace grows, and how much of your own buying rules you can build in. I have spent seven years in commerce, most of it delivering marketplace builds, and those three things decided how those projects went.
Key insights
- B2B marketplace software runs an online marketplace where multiple sellers trade with business buyers. On top of what a B2C marketplace does, it has to handle purchase orders, contract pricing per customer, net terms, and approval chains.
- B2B software comes in five types: SaaS overlay, full-stack SaaS, self-hosted, extension on an eCommerce platform, and open source.
- The cost of a B2B marketplace varies by platform type, but usually includes: the licence, a share of your sales where the vendor charges one, the second commerce platform an overlay needs underneath it, and implementation with integrations.
- To choose the best B2B marketplace platform for your business, work out what it costs at three times your current volume, who owns the code and the data, how much of your own buying rules you can build without the supplier, and how much B2B you get ready to use. Then compare the ten platforms below against your answers.
What is B2B marketplace platform? 2026 data, benefits, differences from B2C, types & features
B2B marketplace platform is the software that runs a business-to-business online marketplace, where multiple sellers trade with business buyers in one place. It is the storefront buyers browse, the portal vendors work in, the admin panel your team works in, and the system that splits one order between suppliers and pays each of them.
B2B marketplace statistics: what the data shows in 2026
US B2B eCommerce sales reached $2.93 trillion in 2025, up 13% year on year, according to Digital Commerce 360's figures, which also put more than 90% of US B2B transactions on electronic channels.
Marketplaces specifically are growing fast off a small base. Digital Commerce 360 estimated US B2B marketplace sales at $351 billion in 2024, up 35%, with the number of vertical B2B marketplaces rising from around 75 five years earlier to roughly 500. Amazon Business alone reached $60 billion in annualised gross sales by mid-2026.
In the EU in 2024, about 45% of enterprises that sell online sold through a marketplace, and marketplaces produced 1.3% of total enterprise turnover against 7.1% from their own websites, according to Eurostat's figures. Among manufacturers that sell online, marketplace use has sat between 33.9% and 35.4% every year since 2021. Among wholesalers, it has sat between 35.3% and 36.9%.
Selling on somebody else's marketplace is common, and it brings in very little. The money is on the channel you control. That is the argument for running your own, and the reason the platform under it has to fit your business.
Key benefits of building B2B marketplaces
Businesses build B2B marketplaces for three main reasons.
1. Procurement gets faster on both sides
A marketplace digitises procurement processes and wholesale relationships that used to run on phone calls, emails and PDF price lists. Business buyers find new suppliers, compare options and raise purchase orders without anyone picking up a phone, and ordering runs around the clock instead of during your sales team's hours. This channel costs less to run than the sales team it supports, which is the operational efficiency argument.
2. The assortment grows without the inventory
Independent suppliers list their own products, so your catalogue grows without you buying stock. For a distributor, the range stops being limited by your warehouse and starts being limited by your supplier network.
3. Sellers reach business customers they could not reach alone
For suppliers on your platform, a marketplace is a cheaper way to find new business customers. That is why they join. B2B order values are typically far higher than consumer ones, and orders repeat. A few dozen corporate accounts placing regular bulk orders can carry a marketplace that would need thousands of consumers to make the same money.
How is a B2B marketplace platform different from a B2C one?
A B2B marketplace platform has to handle five things a B2C platform does not include.
- Punchout. Your buyer's procurement system opens a session inside your catalogue and hands the cart back as a requisition. That handover runs on cXML or OCI.
- Contract pricing. One price per product stops being enough. Each customer can have their own agreed price list, and the platform has to know which price to show to each buyer.
- Payment terms. Payment moves from a card at checkout to net terms. Credit checks, invoices and chasing late payments move into the platform with it.
- Buyer accounts and approval levels. One company can have many buyers under one account. A purchase often needs a second signature before it becomes an order, so the platform has to store approval workflows.
- Quotes and reorders. The basket is often a request for quote (RFQ), or a repeat of last quarter's order. Both need their own flow in the platform.
Our guide to building a B2B marketplace goes through all five in more detail.
What are the types of B2B marketplaces?
Vertical or horizontal
A vertical marketplace serves one industry: chemicals, medical supplies, electrical components, raw materials. Product data, certificates, and compliance rules are deep and specific to that industry.
A horizontal marketplace spans multiple industries around a category every business buys, such as office supplies or maintenance parts.
Vertical marketplaces need catalogue depth, horizontal ones need breadth and search.
Many-to-many or one-to-many
These are the two business models most B2B marketplaces run on.
A many-to-many marketplace lets many suppliers trade with many buyers.
A one-to-many wholesale marketplace is run by a single operator who picks the suppliers, and it is where most manufacturers and distributors start, because they already have the buyers.
Local or global
A local marketplace keeps trade in one region, so tax and shipping stay simple. It suits small businesses and independent retailers trading with each other.
A global marketplace brings multi-currency pricing, cross-border tax, and international shipping into the first release.
What features should a B2B marketplace platform have?
What are the types of B2B marketplace software?
B2B marketplace software comes in five types. The difference that separates them is who operates the servers.
1. SaaS marketplace overlay
The marketplace is hosted by the supplier. It handles supplier onboarding, order routing, and commissions, and it expects an eCommerce platform underneath that you buy and set up separately, usually Salesforce Commerce Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, or Adobe Commerce. You pay for two systems and keep both in sync.
2. Full-stack SaaS
The eCommerce platform and the marketplace in one product, hosted by the supplier. One contract, one supplier, automatic updates, and a limit on what you can change that you will reach eventually.
3. Self-hosted
You licence the code and run it on your servers or in your own cloud. What you may do with that code is set by the licence. This group runs from enterprise products down to cheap one-time licences.
4. Self-hosted + extensions
The product is an eCommerce platform that you licence and run yourself. It has no marketplace of its own, and the only way to get one is a third-party extension. You get strong B2B features and a marketplace that belongs to somebody else's release cycle.
5. Open source
The marketplace is on your servers with the full code and no licence fee. Usually you will need developers or an implementation partner.
Our general marketplace software comparison covers the same five types for B2C and mixed marketplaces.
How much B2B marketplace software cost by type?
B2B marketplace platform costs depend on the software type.
What does open-source B2B marketplace software cost?
Open-source B2B marketplace software costs the setup, the servers, and the people who maintain it. The licence is zero and stays zero, no matter how much you sell.
The difference that grows over time is that nobody takes a share of your sales. A GMV fee means a good year turns into a bigger invoice.
What does SaaS B2B marketplace software cost?
Hosted B2B marketplace software costs a subscription, priced deal by deal. The price depends on your volume, the modules you take, and how long you sign for.
Check the subscription against three years of your own growth plan, and add the work to connect the platform to the ERP you already run.
What does SaaS B2B marketplace overlay cost?
SaaS overlay costs three things: the licence, a share of your marketplace GMV, and the eCommerce platform underneath that it does not replace. The third one surprises people, because it has its own licence, its own setup cost, and its own upgrades.
What does a self-hosted B2B marketplace cost?
A self-hosted licence costs a subscription or a one-time fee, plus your own servers and maintenance. Add a maintenance budget and the upgrade work.
Top 10 B2B marketplace platforms compared (2026)
Ten platforms, sorted by type. Under the table, each section says who the platform is for and what to check before you use it.
Methodology: How I compared these platforms
I scored every platform on four criteria.
1. What it costs as you grow
The price at your current volume matters less than the price at three times that volume. A fee taken as a share of your sales grows as fast as the marketplace does.
2. Ownership
Can you read the code, is the data on servers you control, and what does it cost to leave the platform? This decides whether you can change your mind later.
3. Flexibility
How much of your own buying rules you can build without asking the supplier. This matters more in B2B than in B2C, because agreed prices and approval rules are different for every customer you have.
4. B2B features you get
What works on day one vs. what you have to build yourself.
I did not measure support quality, partner networks, or roadmap promises. They decide how an implementation goes, and you cannot check any of them from the outside.
I quote a figure only where the supplier publishes one.
1) Mercur
Mercur is the complete marketplace platform with a ready-to-use storefront, dashboard for sellers, and admin panel. You can fully read, change, and keep the code. Your data always sits on your own servers.
The open-source edition has no licence fee, so the platform costs stay at zero. Mercur Enterprise adds advanced financial and operational controls, vendor integrations, and a team accountable for maintaining the licensed platform, with enterprise-grade security and no GMV-based fees.
That matters more in B2B than in consumer marketplaces. Agreed prices, approval rules, and procurement integrations are different for every customer you have. With the code open, you build them when you need them instead of waiting for a supplier to add them.
On the B2B side, Mercur covers, among others: company accounts, shared carts inside a company account, wallets for a company account, a ledger, transaction history you can export, requests for quotes, and a split between the seller who publishes offers and the publisher who owns the master products.
What to check: you need developers or an implementation partner to customize it to your needs.
2) Mirakl
Mirakl is the biggest enterprise marketplace overlay on the market. It is an overlay, so it runs the supplier side and expects an eCommerce platform underneath that you license and implement separately. You pay a licence plus a share of marketplace GMV. Mirakl publishes no figure.
What to check: work out the GMV share against your own three-year plan before you sign, because it grows with the marketplace. Ask which second platform you need live on day one and add its licence to the quote. Our Mercur vs Mirakl comparison sets the two side by side.
3) Spryker
Spryker was built for complicated B2B and enterprise marketplaces, and quotes, customer-specific catalogues, and approval chains come with the product.
It runs as a platform service under a closed licence. You get access to the module code under their terms, which is a different thing from open source. Pricing is negotiated. Spryker's own pricing page carries no figure, and the one public number is the AWS Marketplace listing at $900,000 for a 12-month contract, with custom pricing available through the vendor.
What to check: this is an enterprise commitment in budget and in team size. If your B2B needs are big but standard, Spryker covers more of them on day one. If they are big and unusual, ask which ones are settings and which ones are custom development.
4) OroCommerce
OroCommerce is a B2B eCommerce platform with a marketplace product on top, built by the people who built Magento. For manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors with complicated sales processes, it has the strongest built-in B2B features of the open-source options here, and a CRM comes with it. The marketplace is the newer half of the product.
On pricing, Oro's own page promises fixed license fees (no transaction or GMV charges), which puts it with the platforms that do not tax your growth. No figure is published, so the number still has to come from them in negotiations.
What to check: whether you are buying a marketplace, or a B2B eCommerce platform that can also run one. Decide whether that difference matters to you.
5) VTEX
VTEX puts the eCommerce platform and the marketplace on one contract, so you avoid the two-supplier problem that overlays create. It is strongest in Latin America and is growing in Europe and North America.
It is a hosted suite, so the marketplace is one part of a larger product you buy whole. You change things through settings and APIs, and the data sits in their cloud. You pay an enterprise contract for the suite, and no figure is published.
What to check: whether the whole suite fits you, because you are buying all of it. Ask for reference customers running B2B marketplaces in your region, because how strong they are varies by region.
6) Marketplacer
Marketplacer sits in the same place as Mirakl, usually at a lower entry price, with the price agreed deal by deal. It suits an established brand adding outside suppliers to a site that already sells, because the eCommerce platform stays where it is.
Like any overlay, it needs an eCommerce platform underneath. Nothing about the price is published.
What to check: it has more retail experience than complicated B2B with heavy integrations. If punchout and procurement integration matter to you, ask for a live example that has both.
7) Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce has B2B features built in, like company accounts, requisition lists, and quotes. If your B2B catalogue already sits in Adobe, adding to it is quicker than moving everything to a new platform.
Adobe has no marketplace of its own. The only way to get one is a third-party extension, which means upgrades get harder, you depend on the extension supplier, and maintenance costs grow. The licence price is not published and rises with your order volume.
What to check: which Adobe edition you are being quoted, because the hosted one does not take marketplace extensions at all. Then ask who keeps the extension working through the next Adobe upgrade, and what happens to your marketplace if they stop. Our write-up on marketplaces built in Magento covers the pattern in detail.
8) Virto Commerce
Virto Commerce is a .NET eCommerce platform with a B2B marketplace product, and customers get access to the code. That puts it closer to the ownership end of this list than the hosted options.
Like OroCommerce, it started as an eCommerce platform, and the marketplace sits on top of that. The price is not published.
What to check: whether your developers work in .NET. That one fact decides more here than any feature comparison.
9) CS-Cart Multi-Vendor
CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is the simple self-hosted option. You get the code, you run it on your own servers, and nobody takes a share of your sales. The price is on their website: $725 a year for Standard, then $1,449 and $3,599, or a one-time licence from $3,590.
It is an old PHP product, and it looks old next to newer platforms. Its B2B features are weaker than anything in the top half of this list.
What to check: whether your B2B needs are small enough. For a regional wholesaler with a simple supplier catalogue, this is a fair place to start. For agreed prices and approval chains, it is not.
10) Yo!Kart B2B
Yo!Kart was built as marketplace software from the start. You buy it once and run it on your own servers, and there is a B2B edition for wholesale and trade marketplaces. It sits between cheap plugins and enterprise platforms, in features and in price.
The code is closed even though you host it yourself, so you own the servers and not the software. The price is not published.
What to check: how many integrations exist for the systems you need connected.
How to choose the right B2B marketplace platform?
Start with the decisions you cannot undo later: the type of platform, who owns the code and the data, and what you pay as the marketplace grows. Features come after those. You can add a feature easily later, but you cannot simply swap the foundation.
What do you get out of the box, and what do you have to build yourself?
Out of the box means the platform already has the features you need. Build yourself means you have to build the custom feature yourself and add it to your platform, but only if the source code is available.
Most B2B platforms cover the same standard list.
- Company accounts with several buyers under one roof.
- Invoices and net terms instead of a card.
- A price list per customer group.
- A quote request that turns into an order.
- Volume discounts.
- A catalogue that shows different products to different customers.
The trouble starts with the parts that are specific to your industry or workflows. Here are a few examples I see often:
- Your discount rules. Not "a discount per customer group", but the actual rule you agreed on: this customer gets 12% off, except on three product lines, and only above 50 units, and the rate changes in January.
- Your approval chains. Your customer's internal structure decides who signs off. One buyer needs a manager above $5,000. Another routes everything through a central procurement team, whatever the amount.
- Punchout into a specific system. cXML and OCI are standards, and every implementation still needs the fields mapped to what that one buyer's Ariba or Coupa expects.
- How an order splits. One basket, three suppliers, one of which is your own warehouse, with different delivery times and separate returns.
- Prices that depend on several things at once. The contract, the region, the currency, and the delivery terms all move the number, and they move it together.
Ask yourself if your B2B needs are the same as everyone else's in your industry, or specific to the customers you already have. If they are specific, own the code, because the rules that matter to you might never be on a SaaS vendor's roadmap.
What questions should you ask the vendor?
Before committing to the platform, ask the vendor these six questions.
- Does the platform run the eCommerce side itself, or does it need a second platform underneath? Ask for the full list of systems you need live on day one.
- What does it cost at three times my current volume? Work it out before you sign, because a GMV share goes up with your business growth.
- Can one order hold products from several suppliers, with separate deliveries and returns? Ask them to show it in the admin panel.
- How does the platform store a price? If the answer is one price per product, every agreed deal turns into custom work.
- Can I export suppliers, orders, catalogue, and customers myself?
- How long is the contract, how do I leave, and how much can the price rise at renewal?
Summary: Which B2B marketplace platform fits your business?
If your project has to get through enterprise procurement and the budget is there, Mirakl and Mercur Enterprise are the two names that get through. However, Mirakl keeps the code closed and costs more as you sell more.
If you already run a B2B eCommerce platform and want a marketplace on top, OroCommerce and Virto Commerce are the quickest routes.
If your needs are simple and the budget is tight, CS-Cart Multi-Vendor and Yo!Kart will run a basic supplier marketplace.
If what you care about is owning the software and keeping the cost flat, open source is the only type here where the licence stays at zero, and the code stays yours. Here I recommend Mercur.
If you want to start from your own situation instead, talk to the marketplace experts about scope, timeline, and what an MVP should cover.
Frequently asked questions on B2B marketplace platforms
What is a B2B online marketplace?
B2B online marketplace is a website where several independent suppliers sell to business buyers in one place, and an operator runs the rules. Amazon Business and Alibaba are good examples. The marketplace is the business. The B2B marketplace platform is the software underneath it.
What are examples of B2B software?
B2B software covers every system a company uses to sell to, or buy from, other businesses. The usual ones are ERP for stock, orders, and finance; CRM for customers and deals; procurement tools such as Ariba or Coupa on the buying side; eCommerce platforms such as Adobe Commerce or OroCommerce for selling your own catalogue; and B2B marketplace platforms such as Mirakl or Mercur for selling other suppliers' catalogues alongside your own.
Which B2B marketplace platform is the best?
For enterprise programmes that have to pass procurement, Mercur Enterprise and Mirakl are the most established B2B marketplace software. If you already run a B2B eCommerce platform, OroCommerce and Virto Commerce add a marketplace to it. For a small budget and simple needs, CS-Cart Multi-Vendor will run a basic supplier marketplace. If you want to own the code and keep the licence at zero, an open-source platform like Mercur is the only type here that does both.
What is the difference between a B2B marketplace platform and B2B eCommerce software?
B2B eCommerce software sells your own catalogue to business buyers, while a B2B marketplace platform adds third-party suppliers selling alongside or instead of you. That means supplier onboarding, commission rules, orders that span several suppliers, and settlement across them. Some platforms do both natively, but overlays do only the marketplace half and need a commerce engine underneath.
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