--- title: How to set and enforce a minimum order value for wholesale Metadescription: Deciding a minimum order value is easy; enforcing it is the hard part. How to stop wholesale customers placing orders too small to be worth fulfilling. Display description: Deciding a minimum order value takes about five minutes. Making customers actually respect it is the part that drags on for months. author: Dan Edwards author_role: Founder author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer published: 2026-05-31 --- # How to set and enforce a minimum order value for wholesale By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder. A minimum written into your price list or email footer is a suggestion. A minimum that stops the order from going through is a rule. Most advice on this only covers the first part - the number - and skips the part that does the work. ## How to pick a minimum order value The minimum is the floor where a delivery stops losing money. Work out what one drop costs you to fulfil - the fuel and time to drive it out, plus the time to pick and pack it - then set the minimum comfortably above that so there's margin left over once the order is served. Round it to a clean number. Most wholesalers run a single figure for everyone and only adjust for the odd outlier. Don't agonise over it. It's a setting, not a tattoo - you can move it whenever the maths changes. ## A minimum in your terms is only a suggestion A number in your price list, your signature, or your terms relies on the customer remembering it and choosing to comply. Plenty won't. So a small order lands, and now you pick between two bad options. Fulfil it at a loss, or send the "sorry, you're under our minimum" message and have the awkward conversation. Either way you've just done by hand the admin a rule should have done for you. That's why choosing the number is maybe a tenth of the job. The other nine tenths is enforcement. ## The minimum has to live where the order is placed The only place a minimum reliably holds is the moment the order is created. It has to be checked before the order reaches you, and an under-minimum order has to be refused outright, not waved through for you to sort out later. If the customer can still submit an order below your minimum, it isn't a minimum. It's a preference they're free to ignore. ## Different customers can need different minimums A cafe round the corner and a customer two hours away don't cost the same to serve. A flat minimum that works for the near one quietly loses money on the far one. So the floor often needs to vary - a higher minimum for the distant or expensive-to-reach accounts, your standard one for everyone else. ## How Wholesale Handler enforces a minimum order Every customer has a minimum spend, set on the order profile they belong to. Put your standard figure on your default profile once and it applies to everyone. When a customer builds their order, a progress bar shows the running total against your minimum and fills as they add items. The Place order button stays disabled until they reach it. They can't submit an order below your minimum, so a too-small order never lands on your desk to chase or apologise for - the customer just adds another item to get there. You can waive the delivery charge for any order that meets the minimum spend. A customer sitting just under it then has a reason to add another item rather than send a part-order - the delivery charge disappears at the point you want them to reach. For accounts that cost more to serve, you don't have to raise the floor for everyone. Put those customers on their own order profile with its own minimum spend. You can run up to 10 profiles - your standard customers on the default, the distant or expensive ones on a profile with a higher minimum - and changing a profile updates every customer on it at once. The minimum is measured on the value of the goods, before delivery and tax, so it reflects what the customer is actually buying rather than what the trip happens to cost on the day. When you need an exception, you have one. Placing an order for a customer yourself - a genuine top-up between deliveries, say - you can switch that one order from Enforce to Allow below and let it through, without changing the customer's normal minimum. Standing orders are covered too. A recurring order that would come in under the minimum is held and flagged rather than placed quietly, so a regular weekly slot can't silently drop below your floor without you knowing. ## What enforcing a minimum actually buys you The system says no so you don't have to. No awkward message, no delivery run that lost money before it left, no order you'd rather not have fulfilled. The minimum stops being a line in your terms that you police by hand and becomes a rule that polices itself. ## Q&A **Q: What is a good minimum order value for wholesale?** A: It depends on what a delivery costs you to fulfil, but real figures cluster by type of business. Small makers selling locally to a handful of cafes or shops often set $30 to $100. Brands taking opening orders through a marketplace land around $100 to $150. Coffee roasters commonly run about $100 a delivery, and produce and broadline distributors running delivery routes sit higher, roughly $250 to $500. Cover your delivery and pick-and-pack cost with margin on top, set one figure for most customers, and use a higher one only for the accounts that cost more to reach. **Q: How do I stop wholesale customers ordering below my minimum?** A: Enforce it where the order is placed, not in your terms. A number in your price list is a suggestion a customer can forget or ignore. Wholesale Handler shows the customer a progress bar towards your minimum and keeps the Place order button disabled until they reach it, so an under-minimum order can't be submitted in the first place. **Q: Can I set a different minimum order for different customers?** A: Yes. Keep your standard minimum spend on your default order profile, then put the accounts that cost more to serve on a separate profile with its own higher minimum. Updating a profile updates every customer on it at once. **Q: Does the minimum order value include delivery and tax?** A: In Wholesale Handler the minimum is based on the value of the goods, before delivery and tax. That keeps it tied to what the customer is buying rather than to the delivery charge, which can vary. **Q: Can I let one order through below the minimum?** A: Yes. When you place an order for a customer yourself, switch that order from Enforce to Allow below and it goes through under the minimum - useful for a genuine top-up - without changing the customer's normal setting. Orders the customer places for themselves still have to meet the minimum.