That rules out a large share of the people who ask about it, and it is rarely the first thing they are told.
For everybody else, the situation changed substantially and recently, and most of what is written about B Corp certification describes a system that no longer exists.
What it actually is
A B Corp is a for profit company certified by B Lab, a nonprofit, against standards covering how it treats workers, customers, suppliers, the community, and the environment.
It is worth separating two things that get conflated constantly. B Corp certification is a private certification from an organization. A benefit corporation is a legal structure available in many jurisdictions that changes what directors are permitted to consider when making decisions. They are related, they frequently appear together, and they are not the same thing. One is a badge you apply for. The other is a filing that alters your legal obligations.
Certification usually requires a change to your governing documents as well, which is one of the costs people underestimate.
The system people describe is the old one
For years, certification worked on points. Companies completed a self assessment covering a wide range of practices, scored themselves, and needed eighty points out of two hundred to qualify. The flexibility was the point, and it was also the criticism: a company could score well by excelling in one area while doing little in others.
That system has been replaced. B Lab published new standards in April of last year, and they work differently in several ways that matter.
There is no overall score. Instead there are seven impact topics, and a company must meet minimum requirements in every one of them. Governance, climate action, human rights, fair work, environmental stewardship, justice and equity and diversity and inclusion, and collective action. Excelling at one no longer compensates for neglecting another.
Certification is now phased over five years. You meet an initial set of requirements to certify, then face additional obligations at year three and year five. Certification is a commitment to a trajectory rather than a status you reach.
And verification moved from self reporting to third party audit. This is the change with the largest practical consequence, because it converts an exercise in careful documentation into an exercise that somebody independent checks.
The timing, which matters this year
New applicants have had to certify under the new standards since January of this year. There is no option to use the old framework.
Existing B Corps have been recertifying under the new standards since February, with a deadline in September to either recertify or sign a commitment to do so, and a general expectation of transition by year end.
This produces a situation worth understanding if you are evaluating the badge. Some companies currently displaying it certified under the old points system and have not yet been through the new one. Some will not survive the transition. The mark on a website today does not tell you which standard was met, and that ambiguity resolves over the coming year.
What it costs
The annual fee is scaled to revenue. For a small business under a few million in revenue, reported figures put it in the region of two thousand dollars a year, every year, and it is worth treating that as the floor rather than the price.
The additional costs are the ones that surprise people. Legal fees to amend your corporate charter. Pass through audit fees funding the third party verification, which is new. And the internal time, which reporting commonly puts at around twelve months of assessment, documentation, and gathering evidence.
For a business with a handful of employees, the time cost usually exceeds the fee cost by a wide margin, and it is the one that does not appear on any pricing page.
Why it got harder
Part of the motivation is regulatory. Rules in several jurisdictions are tightening on sustainability claims, requiring businesses to substantiate environmental and social assertions with evidence rather than assertion. A certification based on self reporting does not provide that substantiation. One based on independent audit does.
Part of it is reputational. The looser system attracted criticism that very large companies with significant environmental footprints could certify, and that the points structure allowed box ticking.
Both of these are reasons the badge is worth more now than it was. The standard that is harder to obtain is the standard that means something, and the tightening is a sign of a certification taking itself seriously rather than a burden invented for its own sake.
When it is worth doing
The honest answer is that it depends on whether your buyers screen for it, and for most local businesses they do not.
It tends to pay in business to business services where procurement asks about supplier credentials, in consumer goods where shoppers read packaging and compare values, and in professional services competing for clients who have their own commitments to report against. In those settings the badge opens doors that would otherwise stay closed, and the cost is recovered through work won.
It tends not to pay for a local trade, a restaurant, a salon, or a business whose customers find it through search and reviews and choose on availability and price. Those customers are not asking, and a certification nobody asks about is a cost without a return.
The test is specific rather than philosophical. Has any customer ever asked about your social or environmental practices during a buying decision? If several have, this is worth costing out. If none has, the money buys more elsewhere and the values can be demonstrated directly.
What to do instead, if the answer is not yet
The practices underneath the certification are available without the certification, and for a business in its first year they are considerably more useful.
Pay people properly and on time, including contractors. Write down how you make decisions and what you will not do. Choose suppliers deliberately rather than by default. Measure something about your impact, even crudely, so you have a baseline rather than an impression.
That work is the actual substance. The certification is a verified claim about the substance, and the claim is worth buying only when somebody is checking.
It also positions you properly if you do pursue certification later, because the assessment asks about your past year of operations, and a business that has been operating thoughtfully for a year has evidence while one that decides to care in month eleven has paperwork.
The short version
If you have been trading under a year, you are not eligible and the question is premature.
If you have, the certification is more rigorous, more expensive, and more credible than it was two years ago, and whether it pays depends almost entirely on whether your particular customers ask.
Confirm current requirements, fees, and timelines with B Lab directly rather than relying on any article including this one, because this is an area that has changed significantly within the last eighteen months and is still settling.