Buyer’s guide
What a modern distribution platform should actually do
A practical checklist for teams evaluating distribution software in 2026 — and where Distribu fits among the options.
What to know about distribution platform
A distribution platform is the system you run your B2B order book on — the place where your catalog, your customers, your pricing, your stock, and your orders all live in one record. For most small-and-mid distributors, it replaces a mix of spreadsheets, a shared inbox, an accounting tool, and whatever the last intern built in Airtable.
The tools in this category range from $30/month SaaS up to six-figure ERPs. The real question isn't price or features in the abstract — it's whether the platform fits the way your ops team already works, and whether it scales without forcing a rewrite when your catalog triples or you add a warehouse.
Evaluating tools
What to look for
Ask these of every tool in your shortlist — including ours.
- 1
A customer portal your buyers will actually use
If customers still have to email orders, you haven't removed the work — you've just moved it. A real distribution platform gives each buyer a login, their own prices, their own credit limit, and a clear view of what's in stock. Extra points if it supports multiple users per customer account with distinct roles.
- 2
Inventory you can trust at the close of the month
Stock numbers drift. The question is how quickly and how silently. Look for per-SKU stock-movement ledgers (who changed what, when, why) instead of opaque counters, and make sure manual adjustments get attributed the same way as orders and returns.
- 3
One order pipeline across every surface
Distributors take orders from reps on the phone, buyers in a portal, and sometimes an API. If those three paths land in three different tools, reconciliation eats your Fridays. Pick a platform where a portal order and a rep-entered order are the same row with the same state machine.
- 4
A developer surface that's not an afterthought
You will integrate — with QuickBooks, with a shipping tool, with whatever your ERP is. Scoped API keys, signed webhooks (HMAC + rotation), and per-endpoint rate limits are the difference between a clean integration and a cron-job graveyard.
- 5
Pricing that matches how you operate
Per-seat SaaS punishes you for inviting your warehouse team. Percentage-of-GMV pricing punishes you for being successful. Flat-tier pricing on meaningful limits (orders, storage, integrations) tends to age best.
How Distribu handles it
What you get on day one
A branded storefront at your own slug
Your customers sign in at distribu.app/store/{your-slug} and see a catalog priced for them, with their credit limit and address book already wired up. Multi-user accounts support ADMIN / BUYER / VIEWER roles, so one company can have a controller who approves orders and buyers who just place them.
See the storefront →An audited stock-movement ledger
Every adjustment — new orders, returns, manual edits, CSV imports — lands in a stock-history row with actor, timestamp, and reason. Finance and production close the books from the same data, and a missing unit always has a row to explain it.
Inventory docs →One order queue across every channel
Orders from the storefront, the staff dashboard, and the REST API all hit the same queue with the same server-side semantics — stock decrements, tax applies, webhooks fire. You move them through submitted → processing → shipped → delivered from whichever surface you're in.
Order docs →A REST API and signed webhooks in the base plan
Nine permission scopes per API key, per-key rate limits, and twelve webhook events with HMAC signatures and zero-downtime secret rotation. Anything the dashboard does, your code can do — no upsell required.
API reference →Flat tiers, no per-seat and no transaction fees
Distribu prices on orders and integrations, not on how many staff users you invite or what your GMV looks like. Every plan includes the full B2B feature set — per-buyer prices, credit limits, API, webhooks — with no 'Enterprise-only' asterisks.
See pricing →Frequently asked
What is a distribution platform?
A distribution platform is B2B software that handles the order book, catalog, pricing, inventory, and customer portal for a wholesale or distribution business. It sits between your accounting tool and your customers, and replaces the spreadsheets-plus-inbox stack most small distributors start with.
How is a distribution platform different from an ERP?
An ERP (SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics) tries to cover finance, HR, manufacturing, and distribution in one package and usually requires a six-figure implementation. A focused distribution platform covers only the order-and-inventory loop, self-serves in a weekend, and integrates with the accounting tool you already use.
Do I need a distribution platform if I only have a few dozen customers?
Probably, once two or more people are editing stock or taking orders. The failure mode of spreadsheets is silent — you ship a unit that was already sold, or a refund doesn't get posted back to stock. A platform with an audited ledger catches both, and most modern tools cost less than the hours lost to reconciliation.
Can a distribution platform replace my accounting software?
No — and you shouldn't want it to. The better tools sync cleanly to QuickBooks Online, Xero, or your ERP and keep a single source of truth per job: orders + inventory in the platform, journals + tax in accounting.
How long does implementation take?
For small distributors on a self-serve platform like Distribu, most teams go live in under a week — the bottleneck is usually cleaning up the product CSV. Mid-market ERPs with dedicated implementations typically take 3-6 months and a five-figure services budget.
See it in your own tenant
14-day trial, no credit card. Or walk through it with us first — 20 minutes, your catalog, your questions.
Built for
Built for
Wholesale distributors
Per-buyer price lists, credit limits, and one shared order queue. Your reps, your ops team, and your customers all look at the same record.
Built for
Small manufacturers
Audited stock movements so finance and production read from the same ledger. Webhooks so your ERP and MRP stay in sync without brittle CSV cron jobs.