B2B businesses are slow to respond to shifting trends. Back in 2015, we noted how 700,000 fax machines were purchased between 2011 and 2012. At that time, healthcare and legal professionals still believed fax to be the most secure way to share information.

Since then, B2B digitalization has evolved significantly, yet there is still a reluctance to embrace RESTful APIs. There’s often a lot of money on the line when you’re dealing with B2B products and vendors. Business owners often choose tried-and-true business practices over innovation.

However, playing it safe becomes non-optional if you want to succeed in today’s connected landscape and data economy. Companies need to be able to adapt quickly and know precisely how their business is performing, across an increasingly large number of metrics. B2B APIs are becoming increasingly essential for a B2B company to integrate with partners.

Today we’re going to take a look at some of the most popular and useful B2B APIs on the market to empower your B2B business or software. We’ve covered a cross-section of different third-party B2B APIs to help empower your B2B business with improved payment processing, marketing intelligence, streamlined shipping, and other areas.

We dug through the API listings looking for APIs that are well-reviewed, actively maintained and developed, and offer a free trial to test them out for yourself.

PowerReviews API

There’s no overstating the importance of reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations for any business. This is especially true for B2B companies, as they’re more specialized and more behind-the-scenes. A review API acts as a Swiss Army knife for all of your reviewing needs, integrating review functions into your business software without having to open a separate program.

PowerReviews B2B API lets you manage all of your reviews from one place. It features endpoints for writing as well as reading reviews. It also features templates for some of the most common review questions and offers endpoints for merchant queries and responses.

PowerReviews B2B’s strongest selling point is its ability to integrate with selected third-party applications. The Read command even integrates seamlessly with your CRM software. To get started with PowerReviews B2B, request an API Key here.

Visa Connect B2B API

If you’re doing business digitally, you’re going to need a way to process payments. This can get tricky with B2B transactions as you’re unlikely to just swipe a debit card. Some form of non-card payment processing solution will likely be necessary.

Visa Connect offers a suite of APIs that keeps your payment processing in one network. Visa’s APIs range from participating banks to payroll software to send and receive payments. All of this is protected with Visa’s protection algorithms and software.

The Visa Connect APIs could make for a robust back-end if you’re developing B2B payment software. Presently, the API’s sandbox environment is open to developers, but the production environment is still limited to select partners.

Finastra Banking B2B API

There’s an increasing push for transparency in banking, and more and more unique banking arrangements arise with each passing year. There’s a good chance you may need an intermediate layer between a variety of different financial institutions.

Finastra Banking B2B API is a popular API for open banking. Open banking promises to let everyone from corporate banks to credit unions participate more actively in the free market. Like Visa, Finastra offers a wide range of banking APIs. You can see their full list over here, to find out how you can integrate open banking into your financial software or business.

ABM API

B2B marketing is a discipline unto itself. B2B businesses send out a different series of signals to indicate interest, for one thing. B2B business owners also navigate the buyer’s cycle differently than B2C businesses. They spend longer on individual stages of the cycle and tend to jump around rather than move through linearly.

This means you’ll likely need specialized B2B marketing software if you want to make truly informed business decisions. That’s where ABM API comes in. ABM is an excellent opportunity to experience accounts based marketing (ABM) at a reasonable price.

It’s also a chance to investigate predictive analytics. Basically, ABM keeps track of your customers’ behavior. That data is then processed into a machine learning model upon which future behavior is modeled and predicted.

The ABM API also has all of the commands you could need to integrate with the rest of your data. It’s also got all of the features you could need to manage that data and make it work for you. The ability to create projects and models alone makes the ABM API worth investigating.

It’s worth mentioning ABM does cost significant investment, but there’s a free trial to see how it fits your workflow. It’s also pay-as-you-go, so you won’t have to pay exorbitant fees upfront before you even know how useful ABM will be.

NuOrder API

B2B retailers have different needs than your standard eCommerce business. NuOrder is a rugged, robust platform for nearly any retail situation you can think of. NuOrder’s ability to easily create wholesale websites and catalogs should make it particularly interesting to B2B retailers.

NuOrder offers endpoints that control everything from payment verification to your catalog’s appearance. NuOrder helps you display your inventory consistently and attractively. It also allows you to manage your inventory, making it an impressively well-rounded B2B retail solution.

NuOrder also integrates with over 100 different retail platforms. If your CRM software can process CSV files or consume REST APIs using JSON, it should work flawlessly with NuOrder.

Automata Market Intelligence API

You can never have too many leads when it comes to B2B. It can also be challenging to find prospective customers in the B2B sector, as wholesale products or business services can be quite specialized.

Automata Market Intelligence API offers a simple solution. Input a company, and you’re given a list of similar businesses. Automata Market Intelligence’s process is far more involved than simply spitting out Google results, though. Company similarities are determined using a blend of text analysis and firmographics. Automata Market Intelligence is free to try. Simply request an API key to make up to 50 API calls a month.

EdiNation EDI Translation and Validation API

Traditionally, B2B businesses have been heavily reliant on physical documents due to habit and security concerns. B2B APIs can make business processes faster, giving you an advantage over your competition and making informed decisions more quickly.

Business data still needs to be secure as well as efficient. That’s where an API like EdiNation EDI Translation and Validation comes in. EDI stands for Electronic Data Interface, a standard way to exchange data between two companies, usually suppliers and retailers. The EdiNation API offers full transparency into your EDI data in one API. Even more importantly, it’s done so safely and securely, as none of the data is stored as it’s processed.

The EdiNation API acts as a mediator between any style of EDI file you could think of. Developers who regularly deal with clunky EDI files could use something like EdiNation to streamline their operations. EdiNation EDI Translation and Validation also offers a free trial account.

Intercom API

Every business needs a quality customer messaging system. Good communication can save headaches and be the difference between excellent customer service and a one-star review.

Intercom provides an API that gives you everything you need to build your messaging tools. It features a wide array of useful API endpoints, with numerous options for organizing your contacts and leads. You can use Intercom to add messaging features to virtually anything, from a mobile app to a website.

Shippo API

Digital business owners and entrepreneurs need to keep costs down any way they can. Shipping has the potential to sink a business if not handled correctly, as it’s an unavoidable expense. Looking for deals on shipping can be a full-time job in and of itself, however. Having an API that automatically searches multiple shipping carriers in search of the best deals is beyond useful.

That’s not all that Shippo API can do, though. Shippo’s essentially a one-stop shipping solution, letting you do everything from print shipping labels to tracking shipments. It even easily integrates with most of the major eCommerce platforms out there, from Square to Shopify to Etsy.

Final Thoughts

Running a B2B business can be challenging. To be successful, you need to have a unique value proposition and support it with the right operational toolset. You’ve got to always be on the lookout for new clients and leads. Integrating key B2B APIs could make all the difference in the world, letting you focus on offering excellent products, services, and customer experiences while you grow your business.