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Comparison

DISTRYB vs. BEES

BEES is the best-funded B2B ordering platform in the industry and it is not trying to be neutral. It is how AB InBev sells to its retailers: $52.5bn of merchandise a year, 29 markets, ordering plus credit plus rewards plus delivery in one app. If most of what you buy is AB InBev product, that is a very good deal and you should use it. The distinction is structural rather than about features: BEES is a channel owned by a manufacturer, DISTRYB is a market with no brands of its own. Those answer different questions, and the second one only matters when you want the whole shelf rather than one supplier’s part of it.

BEES

AB InBev’s own B2B ordering platform for the retailers it supplies, with a third-party marketplace alongside the brewer’s brands.

DISTRYB

An independent platform with no brands of its own — every distributor who can legally serve your licence, on equal terms, across all beverages.

BEES, by their own numbers

Who owns it
AB InBev — the platform’s operator is also a manufacturer — ab-inbev.com
Scale
$52.5bn gross merchandise value, up 12% year over year — AB InBev disclosures, Dec 2025
Reach
Live in 29 markets; 6m+ business customers — AB InBev disclosures, Dec 2025
Share of the brewer’s own sales
72% of AB InBev revenue now runs through B2B digital — AB InBev disclosures, Dec 2025
Third-party marketplace
$3.5bn GMV, up 61% year over year — real, and a fraction of the whole — Digital Commerce 360
Catalog
Around 500 brands — Digital Commerce 360
In market since
2016 — AB InBev

Capability by capability

● in the BEES column means their own public product pages describe it. – means not part of the published product — not that they cannot do it. We can only read what they publish. Checked September 2026.

Ordering
Order from a supplier’s full catalog in one app
●The core product, at enormous scale
●
Invoices, delivery scheduling and reordering
●Documented platform features
●
Loyalty and rewards for buying
●Built in
–We do not fund rebates — we are not a supplier
Credit and alternative payment terms at checkout
●A stated platform capability
◐Terms are between you and your distributor
Every distributor who can serve your licence, side by side
–The catalog centres the brewer’s own brands and invited third parties
●Price-sorted; cheapest flagged
Whose catalog it is
Operated by a company that does not make beverages
–Operated by AB InBev
●We sell no brands of our own
Third-party brands can be listed
●BEES Marketplace — $3.5bn and growing fast
●No invitation required
Independent and craft producers on equal terms
◐Admitted to the marketplace alongside the owner’s portfolio
●
Non-alcoholic and CPG
◐Non-alcoholic brands in several markets
●All 50 states, no age wall
Compliance and the rest of the business
Three-tier legality checked before the order exists
–
●
Per-SKU state registration gating the purchase
–
●
Beverage excise and state filing worksheets
–
●
Direct-to-consumer storefront for the retailer
–
●Pickup, local delivery and DTC shipping
Agent-readable catalog for AI assistants
–
●MCP endpoint and a public product feed

What BEES has that we don’t

Nothing here is at their scale, and scale is a real feature

$52.5bn of merchandise across 29 markets and six million businesses buys reliability that a younger platform cannot claim. Deliveries arrive, the app works, and the supplier behind it is not going anywhere.

Rewards and credit are things we do not do

A manufacturer can fund loyalty and extend terms on its own product because it owns the margin. An independent platform has no margin to give back. If those change your economics materially, that is a real reason to be on BEES.

Their third-party marketplace is not a token

$3.5bn growing at 61% a year is a serious business in its own right, with genuine route to market for brands accepted into it. "It only sells their own beer" would be wrong.

So which one

A retailer whose volume is mostly AB InBev
BEES. Rewards, credit and delivery from your largest supplier in one place.
A retailer who wants the whole shelf compared
DISTRYB — every distributor who can serve your licence, priced side by side.
An independent producer
Both are worth trying. BEES is reach on someone else’s terms; DISTRYB is your own.
A distributor
DISTRYB. BEES is a channel your largest supplier controls; this is software you run.
Anyone who needs compliance, tax or DTC
DISTRYB. BEES is an ordering channel and does not publish those.