Hide or show a payment method based on customer tags in Shopify (invoice only for B2B)

In short

“Pay by invoice”, “Net 30”, “Purchase order” — in Shopify these are manual payment methods. They are either active for all customers or for none; there is no setting for “wholesale only” or “returning customers only”. The fix is a payment customization (a rule that runs at checkout): customers get a tag, the rule hides the payment method for everyone without that tag. These rules run as a Shopify Function on any plan — but only through an app from the App Store.

The problem, in merchants’ words

The Shopify Community has asked this for years in every variation: “Hide or show payment method based on customer tags”, “different payment methods for B2C and B2B customers”, “restricting payment method based on customer tag/email”, “hiding payment methods from certain customers while using a wholesale pricing app”. The reason is always the same: invoice or net terms are essential for trade customers — and a risk with everyone else.

The native way in Shopify

Create the manual payment method: Settings › Payments › “Manual payment methods” › “Create custom payment method”. Name it (e.g. “Pay by invoice”), add details and payment instructions, activate. Orders arrive as “Payment pending” until you mark them paid.

Tag your customers: Customers › open a customer › Tags, e.g. b2b or wholesale. In bulk via the customer list or CSV import.

That’s it — Shopify offers nothing more here. The tag exists, but nothing links it to the payment method.

Where Shopify stops

• Manual payment methods have no conditions. The settings offer no field for country, customer, cart total or tag. Active means visible to everyone.
• Shopify’s own solution is Plus-only. Shopify’s “Checkout Blocks” app can hide payment methods by customer tag — but only on the Shopify Plus plan. On Basic, Shopify and Advanced the feature stays locked.
• Workarounds are clumsy. Draft orders with invoice payment created by hand, a second store just for wholesale, a password-protected section — all real answers from the Community, all with extra effort and no clean checkout.

The Help Center says it plainly: to hide, rename or reorder payment methods, install a payment customization app from the Shopify App Store. Public apps with Shopify Functions run on every plan.

How a payment rule solves it

The rule is a single line:

When the customer does not have the tag b2b or wholesale, then hide “Pay by invoice”.

What the customer sees: a first-time buyer gets PayPal, credit card, Klarna and bank transfer. The tagged wholesale customer additionally sees “Pay by invoice” — and, if you want, at the top and pre-selected.

Technically the rule uses Shopify’s Payment Customization Function: at checkout Shopify hands the Function the customer’s tags (customer.hasAnyTag), the Function answers with “hide”. That happens on Shopify’s infrastructure, without a detour via third-party servers, without touching the theme. Uninstall the app and checkout is back to default.

Variations with the same mechanism:

Goal	Rule
Invoice only for wholesale	tag wholesale missing → hide invoice
Bank transfer only for new customers	tag returning present → hide bank transfer
Direct debit only for approved accounts	tag debit-ok missing → hide direct debit
Invoice from the second order onwards	number of previous orders < 1 → hide (the Function exposes numberOfOrders)
Net terms only for Shopify B2B companies	no purchasing company → hide (Plus B2B)

Things to watch

• Spell tags exactly. B2B and b2b are two different tags — pick one convention.
• Guest checkouts have no tags. Customers who want invoice payment need to log in or check out with their known email address.
• Draft orders are excluded: Shopify does not apply payment customizations to draft orders — where you can set invoice payment by hand anyway.
• Limit: Shopify allows up to 25 active payment customizations per store across all apps. This rule needs one.