B2B and wholesale: which accounts can connect an agent, what happens to trade pricing, and private catalogues Free & Pro

A trade customer’s assistant reordering last month’s stock is as natural a use of a personal agent as a consumer reordering coffee, and it runs into three things consumer stores do not have: custom account roles, pricing that depends on who is asking, and catalogues that are not public. This page says how Agent Adapt on WooCommerce behaves with each, with facts from the plugin as it ships on 13 October 2026. Some of it needs a developer.

Which accounts can connect an agent

By default, an account can be connected to an agent only if it has the customer or subscriber role and none of a list of capabilities that would make it a staff account (managing options or WooCommerce, editing orders, posts, pages or users, installing plugins, and others). Checked at the consent page, at every token use and on every API request.

Wholesale plugins usually give trade customers their own role, such as a "wholesale customer" role. That role is not in the default list, so those accounts are refused at sign-in, with the message that the account cannot be connected. A developer can admit the role with the agentadapt_eligible_roles filter. The capability check still applies after that: an account with staff capabilities is refused whatever its role, and that cannot be filtered away. Admit a role only if its accounts are genuinely customers. See Which accounts can connect.

Trade pricing

A signed-out agent is a guest, and sees the prices a guest sees. Once the customer has signed in and approved the agent, the agent’s calls run for that customer, but whether a wholesale-pricing plugin applies its prices inside an agent’s cart depends on how that plugin decides the price (by role, by user, by a session flag) and is untested. Before telling trade customers to use their assistants, place a test order through an agent for a trade account and check the cart totals. If the prices are retail, say so in your terms until it is resolved, because the agent quotes the cart’s totals to the customer.

Minimum order quantities and values enforced by a plugin still apply, because the agent’s cart is a real WooCommerce cart and the customer completes the order on your checkout, where such rules are usually enforced. A plugin that refuses an item at the moment it is added makes the agent’s request fail with "the store would not add that", without the plugin’s reason, so say your minimums on your terms page, which agents read.

Private catalogues

Products set to hidden catalogue visibility are never served to agents, in search or by ID, and this is the one reliable way to keep a trade-only line out of every agent’s reach. Catalogue visibility plugins that hide products from guests but show them to logged-in trade users are untested through the agent API; assume a product that is visible to a guest is visible to an agent. A developer can change the hidden-product rule with a filter, on purpose.

Purchase orders and invoicing

Purchase-order and invoice payment gateways are checkout features. The agent hands the customer a link to your checkout, where those gateways appear as they do for any trade customer. The agent does not choose a payment method and does not see payment details.

Orders and reorders

With the account connected, an agent can list the customer’s orders, read each one (items, quantities, totals, status, shipping method, addresses), reorder a past order into the cart, and cancel an unpaid order where WooCommerce would let the customer. For a trade customer whose month is "the same as last month, plus", that is the useful part.

Pro for B2B stores

• Allowlist mode admits only agents you have ticked, which suits a store whose customers are known businesses.
• Address changes with the customer’s approval of exact terms, for accounts with several delivery addresses, change the saved billing or shipping address; orders already placed keep theirs.
• Agent insights show which agents bring which orders and revenue.

See Merchant policy.

What to set up

1. Decide whether trade roles should be admitted, and have a developer add the filter if so.
2. Test trade pricing through an agent before announcing anything.
3. Hidden visibility for trade-only lines you do not want in any agent’s cart.
4. SKUs on everything; trade customers reorder by code.
5. Minimum-order rules stated on your terms page, which agents read.

Common questions

Can a buyer’s assistant use our company account that several people share?

It can connect to one WordPress account, with that account’s approval. Whether several people share it is your arrangement; each connection shows up under that account’s Connected agents.

Can an agent see our negotiated prices?

Only if the pricing plugin applies them inside the agent’s cart, which is untested. Test it.

Will an agent see products hidden from guests by our wholesale plugin?

Treat anything visible to a guest as visible to an agent, and use WooCommerce’s own hidden visibility for what must stay private.

Can it pay on account?

It cannot pay at all. The customer completes the order on your checkout, where account payment appears as usual.