What is Tiered Pricing?

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Tiered pricing changes the unit price or discount according to a defined pricing tier, customer group, or purchase quantity. In B2B commerce, tiers are often combined with contracts, customer accounts, volume rules, or ERP-managed price lists.

A tier can be based on the customer’s status, order volume, quantity purchased, or another predefined threshold. For example, a reseller at Gold level may receive a deeper discount than a Standard account, or the unit price may decrease when the buyer crosses quantity bands. The important point is that the rule is explicit and repeatable rather than negotiated separately for every transaction.

Tiered pricing usually requires clear definitions of:

• What determines the tier — customer class, annual spend, quantity, or another measurable condition.

• Which products or categories the tier applies to and whether exceptions exist.

• How tier rules interact with contract prices, promotions, and minimum margin controls.

• When customer tier changes take effect and which system owns that classification.

For B2B ecommerce, tiered pricing can make wholesale rules transparent and scalable, but overlapping pricing logic can become hard to explain. Merchants should define precedence so the same order does not receive conflicting contract, volume, and promotional discounts. Buyers should also be able to see how the applicable price was determined where that transparency is commercially appropriate.

Example: A merchant can define reseller tiers where Gold accounts receive 20% off and Silver accounts 12%, then layer product-specific exceptions without manually negotiating every order.