Dealer Portals
Dealer Price Tiers Without the Spreadsheet
How to set up dealer pricing tiers for custom home products so each trade account sees its own price online, with no spreadsheet to keep in sync.
Dealer pricing tiers work best when they are a property of the account, applied automatically to your one retail catalogue, so a dealer logs in and sees their price on every product without anyone looking it up. The spreadsheet that maps dealers to discounts can then retire, because the ordering system holds that mapping and applies it on every line.
The spreadsheet problem
Most manufacturers that sell to the trade have a version of the same file. Rows of dealer names, a column for their discount, maybe a second column for "special pricing on Shaker doors" that someone negotiated two years ago.
The file works until it does not. Someone updates retail prices in the production system and forgets the dealer sheet. A sales rep promises a dealer a better tier on the phone and never tells the office. Two people have two copies open. Quotes go out at the wrong price and nobody notices until the dealer does.
The fix is to stop keeping prices in two places. Your catalogue holds one set of prices and rules. Each dealer account carries a tier. The system does the math.
Common ways to structure dealer pricing tiers
There is no single right model. Here are four common structures in made-to-measure manufacturing:
| Model | How it works | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage off retail | Tier A gets 30% off, Tier B 35%, Tier C 40% | Simple catalogues, fast setup |
| Fixed multiplier on cost | Each tier is cost times a set factor | Shops that price from material and labour |
| Category-level tiers | Different discount on doors, drawer fronts, panels | Mixed product lines with different margins |
| Account override | A specific dealer has a negotiated price on a few items | Large accounts with contracts |
A percentage model plus a small number of overrides is often enough. That keeps the system easy to explain to dealers and easy to audit.
Keep tiers few and named
Three or four tiers is plenty for most businesses. Name them by what they mean ("Trade", "Volume", "Distributor") instead of by number, so a new staff member can understand the logic without a training session.
Deciding which dealer gets which tier
Tiers should follow a rule your team can state in one sentence. Some options:
- Annual volume. Dealers who order above a set dollar amount per year move up a tier at review time.
- Order commitment. Dealers who commit to a minimum monthly order get a better tier.
- Business type. Cabinet makers, kitchen designers and general contractors each get a tier that reflects how they buy.
- Payment behaviour. Accounts that pay on time keep their terms and tier. Late payers move to card-only.
Whatever you pick, write it down and review it on a schedule. A tier that is never reviewed becomes a permanent discount.
What the dealer should see
When a dealer logs in, the experience should be simple:
- Every product shows their price, already calculated.
- The retail price is either hidden or shown as a reference, depending on your preference.
- The order total, deposit or terms all reflect their tier.
- Their quotes and past orders keep the price they were placed at, even if you change tiers later.
That last point matters. If you raise prices in the new year, a quote saved in December should not silently change. Dealers need to trust the number they saw.
Pricing changes without chaos
Price increases are where spreadsheets cause the most damage. With tiers attached to accounts, a price change is one update to the catalogue, and every dealer's price follows automatically.
A clean process for a price change looks like this:
- Decide the new retail prices and the effective date.
- Email dealers in advance with the date.
- Update the catalogue on the effective date.
- Honour saved quotes according to your stated policy. If you hold prices on quotes, the system should record that hold.
If you sell to homeowners too, the same catalogue update covers your retail checkout. That is the main argument for running one catalogue across both channels.
Tiers and terms go together
Price tiers often travel with payment terms. A top-tier distributor might also have Net 30 and a higher approval limit. A new account might start at the entry tier, paying by card, until they have a few orders behind them.
Treat tier and terms as two separate settings on the account, reviewed at the same time. The mechanics of terms, POs and credit limits are covered in Net 30, POs and credit limits, and the full portal picture is in what a B2B dealer portal should do.
How Inlay handles this
- Each dealer account in the Inlay dealer portal is assigned a price tier, applied automatically to your catalogue on every line.
- Dealers log in and see only their own pricing; they never see another account's tier.
- The same catalogue powers your homeowner checkout, so a price change is made once.
- Accounts can also carry PO numbers and Net 15, 30 or 60 terms invoiced through your own Stripe account.
- The dealer portal is included in the Showroom plan ($299/mo) and Multi-brand plan ($599/mo).
Book a 20-minute demo to see dealer tiers set up on your own catalogue.