Shopify B2B Draft Orders Show Retail Prices: Check the Purchasing Entity

Why a customer ID can give the wrong context

A company contact is also a customer record, but the customer alone does not identify which business location is purchasing. A buyer may represent several locations with different catalogs, addresses, payment terms, or tax settings. A draft created with purchasingEntity.customerId is not equivalent to one created with purchasingEntity.purchasingCompany.

If the wrong price appears, verify the purchasing entity before adding manual discounts or hard-coding wholesale prices.

Supply the complete B2B purchasing entity

For a B2B draft, DraftOrderInput.purchasingEntity.purchasingCompany expects three IDs: companyId, companyLocationId, and companyContactId. The contact must belong to the company and be authorized for the location. A simplified input object looks like this:

{
  "purchasingEntity": {
    "purchasingCompany": {
      "companyId": "gid://shopify/Company/111",
      "companyLocationId": "gid://shopify/CompanyLocation/222",
      "companyContactId": "gid://shopify/CompanyContact/333"
    }
  },
  "lineItems": [
    { "variantId": "gid://shopify/ProductVariant/444", "quantity": 2 }
  ]
}

Those IDs are placeholders. Do not derive them from company names, customer tags, or shipping addresses.

Calculate first, create second

Use the GraphQL Admin API draftOrderCalculate mutation with that input to preview the actual draft pricing before sending anything to a buyer:

mutation PreviewB2B($input: DraftOrderInput!) {
  draftOrderCalculate(input: $input) {
    calculatedDraftOrder {
      totalPriceSet { presentmentMoney { amount currencyCode } }
      lineItems { sku discountedTotalSet {
        presentmentMoney { amount currencyCode }
      } }
    }
    userErrors { field message }
  }
}

Pass the JSON object as the input variable. Once totals are correct, call draftOrderCreate(input: $input) with the same buying context. Check userErrors in both responses; an HTTP 200 does not mean the mutation succeeded.

Other reasons a B2B draft price differs

• Wrong location: the buyer is linked to a different company location with another catalog.
• Catalog coverage: the variant may not be published or priced in the catalog assigned to that location.
• Custom item or override: manually priced lines are not the same as ordinary variant pricing. Check any line-item price overrides.
• Currency and taxes: compare prices in the same presentment currency, and distinguish unit price from totals after discounts, tax, and shipping.
• Contact mapping: an email address or customer tag is not a reliable replacement for a real CompanyContact ID.

Also remember that draft orders do not reserve inventory automatically; reservation is a separate option. And Shopify’s draft order input does not support subscription selling plans. Neither should be silently simulated as a regular B2B draft line.

Sources and further reading