The fundamental difference

With Shopify, the platform is the system of record. Products, prices, and customers live in Shopify; your client's ERP synchronizes alongside it. You build and maintain that bridge.

With Marcando, the ERP remains the system of record. Items, customer-specific pricing, volume discounts, inventory, credit limits, and orders are bidirectionally linked. That integration is our product: we build and maintain it. You build on top of it.

In both cases, the project remains yours: your design, your stack, your client relationship. The difference lies in what you get and what you have to build yourself.

Building on the API: your project remains your project

This is the point missing from many comparisons. Choosing Marcando does not mean handing the project over to a SaaS provider. You build your own front-end, in your own stack, against our GraphQL API, exactly as you currently build headless against the Shopify Storefront API. Partners have already used it to build custom shops, CRMs, configurators, and quote generation tools. The documentation is open at api.marcando.be/docs.

The difference is not in the API quality; Shopify's APIs are excellently documented, with plenty of tooling and community support. The difference is in what lies behind the API. If you ask Shopify "what does this item cost for this specific customer," that price must first exist as a catalog in Shopify, synchronized from the ERP via a bridge you build. If you build directly against an ERP API, you get raw lists back: all items, all price lists, all discounts, all warehouses, after which the resolution logic, data layer, and sync are your work.

With Marcando, that puzzle has already been solved and maintained for each ERP. One call provides one usable answer: price, volume discount, inventory, and credit. If you don't want to build everything yourself, you can drop our building blocks, such as Checkout and Promotions, into your own front-end. Ready-made options are also available for projects without a development budget.

Customer-specific pricing

Since April 2026, every Shopify plan has basic B2B features, and for a client with three or four price levels, that suffices. The bottleneck is the client whose every buyer has their own contract prices, volume discounts, and time-bound agreements in the ERP. On Shopify, you translate that into hundreds of static catalogs, with hard limits outside of Plus, and a synchronization process you have to keep running. With Marcando, that same price is resolved live from the ERP, without a second copy.

Documents: quotes, invoices, credit

In B2B, quote → order → invoice is your client's daily process. Shopify has no native quotes, invoicing, or accounts receivable management on any plan; in practice, this becomes a stack of apps or custom work, and therefore scope you have to estimate. With Marcando, that flow is standard in the platform, right down to invoices with payment status in the customer portal.

Furthermore, since January 1, 2026, structured e-invoices via Peppol are mandatory for B2B transactions between Belgian VAT-registered companies. In the Marcando model, your client's ERP remains the invoicing system that carries that obligation, while the portal displays the invoice and payment status.

Maintenance: who carries what after go-live

A custom integration on Shopify is never finished. Shopify releases a new API version every quarter; the summer 2026 release contained breaking changes for every headless build, and the old customer account system was phased out in early 2026. That maintenance is on your schedule and your client's invoice, or it eats into your margin.

With Marcando, the ERP layer is our maintenance: updates, sync, and roadmap are included in the subscription. Your seniors build what sets you apart, not what you have to maintain. It also makes your quote sharper: no risk item for custom integration, just a predictable subscription.

When do you build on Shopify?

• The client's project is primarily B2C or D2C.

• The pricing model fits within a handful of price lists.

• Growth must come from marketing, SEO, and conversion, leveraging the app ecosystem.

•    Your client sells internationally to a broad consumer audience.

When should you build on Marcando?

•    Your client's ERP is the source of truth and must remain so.

•    Every customer has their own pricing, volume discounts, and credit terms that must be accurate in real-time.

•    Quotes, invoices, and approval workflows are part of the daily process.

•    Sales representatives place orders on behalf of customers.

•    Your client primarily operates in B2B, possibly with a DTC component on the side.

•    You don't want integration maintenance in your fixed costs, and your client wants a single, predictable license.

What else you should know

To be fair, this is also part of the picture.

•    Scale. Marcando is a Belgian company of 13 people with 200+ clients. Shopify is a publicly traded company. Continuity is a valid question for both you and your client; ask us, and we will provide a concrete answer.

•    Ecosystem. ±20 extensions versus 17,000+ apps. If the project relies heavily on marketing and conversion tooling, you are better off with Shopify.

•    B2C.Marcando can handle B2C and DTC, but it is less geared towards it than Shopify. Primarily B2B with a bit of DTC on the side: that works fine. Primarily a consumer brand: build it on Shopify.

•    Checkout. We host it for you. You can integrate it as a component in your own front-end, but you cannot rebuild it entirely from scratch.

Conclusion

Both platforms excel at what they were built for. The question isn't which API is better, but which problem your client's project is solving: launching a brand to a broad audience, or automating the ordering process for an established B2B customer base on top of an ERP. Marcando is built for the latter, and we offer a partner model with financial incentives for agencies that build on it or refer clients.

Unsure about a specific project? Run it by us, even if the answer turns out to be Shopify. Schedule a call

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