If you've been evaluating B2B ordering software for your distribution business, you've probably come across BlueCart. It's a well-funded platform and it shows up in a lot of search results. But BlueCart and Wholesail are solving fundamentally different problems — and for most independent distributors, the difference matters a lot.
What BlueCart Actually Is
BlueCart is a procurement and ordering platform built primarily for restaurants. The core idea is that a restaurant manager can use BlueCart to manage all their supplier orders in one place — different vendors, different invoices, one interface. It's a good concept for the restaurant buyer side.
The problem for distributors: BlueCart is a marketplace you join. When your buyers use BlueCart, they're logging into BlueCart — not into your portal. Your brand, your relationship, your pricing — all of it sits behind a third-party interface that also shows your competitors. You are one of many suppliers on their platform.
This creates several practical issues:
- Your buyers can compare you to competitors with one click
- You don't control the ordering experience or interface
- Your clients are on BlueCart's platform, not yours
- If BlueCart changes pricing, policy, or goes down, your ordering flow breaks
- You don't own the buyer relationship — BlueCart does
What Wholesail Does Instead
Wholesail builds you a private, white-labeled ordering portal at your domain with your branding. When your clients log in, they see your logo, your product catalog, and their account-specific pricing. There's no BlueCart interface, no marketplace discovery, no competitor listings. It's your business, digitized.
This matters for several reasons. First, relationship ownership: your clients are logging into your portal. You control the experience from first login to invoice. Second, pricing control: each client sees only the pricing tier you've set for them — not a generic catalog. A Net-30 restaurant group sees their prices; a new account on Net-7 sees theirs. Third, your data stays yours — order history, account behavior, reorder patterns — none of it flows through a third-party system.
Pricing and Fees
BlueCart charges a flat SaaS fee, typically in the $300-$500/month range depending on your plan. Wholesail also operates on a flat monthly fee model — no transaction fees, no commission on orders. For a distributor doing $500K/month in order volume, the difference between a 0.5% transaction fee and a flat monthly fee is significant. Wholesail's pricing is built so that your margin on every order stays with you.
Vertical Fit
BlueCart is designed almost entirely around restaurant-to-supplier relationships. If you distribute to retailers, specialty grocers, hotels, healthcare facilities, or any non-restaurant buyer, BlueCart's product is a less natural fit. Wholesail is vertical-agnostic — the portal works for any wholesale distributor regardless of what you sell or who you sell to.
Go-Live Speed
BlueCart requires your buyers to download an app and create accounts on their platform. Wholesail's onboarding is simpler: you send clients a login to your portal. No app download, no account creation on a third-party platform. Most Wholesail customers are live and processing orders within two weeks of kickoff.
The Bottom Line
If you want to list your products on a marketplace where restaurant buyers can discover new suppliers, BlueCart has a use case. If you want a professional, branded ordering portal where your existing wholesale accounts can place orders, manage invoices, and communicate with your team — that's what Wholesail builds.
The question is whether you want your clients ordering through your platform or through someone else's.