TL;DR
Magento-to-Shopify migration typically costs $8,000–$35,000 and takes 4–10 weeks depending on catalog size, customization depth, and integration count. The migration covers product/customer/order data, URL redirect mapping, SEO preservation, app/integration replacement, payment cutover, and pixel/analytics continuity. Most DTC brands recover the migration cost within 12 months in reduced hosting, security, and development overhead.
Why brands migrate from Magento to Shopify
Most Magento-to-Shopify migrations are driven by one or more of the following:
- Hosting and security overhead. Magento (Adobe Commerce) is self-hosted by default — your team or your agency owns server uptime, patching, PCI compliance, and DDoS mitigation. Shopify handles all of that.
- Development cost. Magento extension and customization rates run higher than equivalent Shopify work, and the talent pool is smaller in 2026.
- Performance. Magento storefronts often hit Core Web Vitals ceilings that Shopify and headless Shopify configurations exceed comfortably.
- Ecosystem. Shopify’s app and partner ecosystem is broader and more active than Magento’s, especially for DTC-relevant tooling.
- Total cost of ownership. Most DTC brands recover the migration cost within 12 months from reduced hosting, security, and development overhead.
Cost breakdown
Migrations are billed at our standard Shopify rate of $30–$50/hour. The table below shows typical hour ranges per component plus the corresponding cost at $40/hour (mid-point).
| Component | Typical hours | Cost at $40/hr |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and planning (catalog audit, integration inventory, redirect map) | 25 – 75 hrs | $1,000 – $3,000 |
| Theme implementation (stock theme customization or custom theme) | 62 – 300 hrs | $2,500 – $12,000 |
| Catalog data migration (products, variants, images, attributes) | 38 – 125 hrs | $1,500 – $5,000 |
| Customer data migration | 12 – 50 hrs | $500 – $2,000 |
| Order history migration | 25 – 100 hrs | $1,000 – $4,000 |
| App/extension replacement (per app) | 8 – 62 hrs each | $300 – $2,500 each |
| Custom feature work (replacing Magento customizations) | 38 – 200 hrs | $1,500 – $8,000 |
| SEO preservation (URL redirects, meta migration, sitemap) | 12 – 50 hrs | $500 – $2,000 |
| Pixel & analytics migration | 12 – 62 hrs | $500 – $2,500 |
| QA, UAT, cutover support | 25 – 75 hrs | $1,000 – $3,000 |
| Total range | 200 – 875 hrs | $8,000 – $35,000 |
$8k – $35k
typical Magento to Shopify migration cost in 2026
Timeline — 4 to 10 weeks
| Phase | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | 1 week | Catalog audit, integration inventory, custom feature inventory, redirect map |
| Theme & data prep | 2–4 weeks | Theme build/customization, catalog migration scripts, customer/order migration scripts |
| Integration replacement | 1–3 weeks (parallel) | Replace Magento extensions with Shopify apps or custom builds |
| UAT & QA | 1 week | End-to-end testing on staging, pixel validation, redirect map validation |
| Cutover | 1–2 days | DNS switch, final data sync, redirect deployment, ad pixel switch |
| Post-launch support | 1–2 weeks | Bug fixing, monitoring, attribution verification |
Migration checklist
Pre-migration
- Full Magento catalog export with attributes, variants, images
- Customer record export (with addresses)
- Order history export
- Inventory of all Magento extensions and customizations
- Inventory of all integrations (ERP, 3PL, marketing tech, analytics)
- Inventory of all pixels and tags
- Full URL list (categories, products, content pages) for redirect mapping
- SEO meta export (titles, descriptions, structured data)
- Backup of Magento database and files
During migration
- Catalog migration with attribute and variant mapping
- Customer record import via Shopify Admin API
- Order history import (or archive — depending on retention policy)
- Theme implementation (stock customization or custom theme)
- App and extension replacement
- Custom feature rebuild where needed
- Integration cutover (one at a time, validated)
- 301 redirect map deployed
- Pixel and tag migration with test event validation
- Sitemap regeneration
Cutover day
- Final data sync (orders, customers, inventory)
- DNS switch
- Redirect deployment
- Pixel switch on ad platforms
- Monitor conversion firing in real time
- Validate top traffic pages return 200 (or correct 301)
- Submit updated sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster
Post-cutover (week 1–4)
- Monitor crawl errors in Search Console
- Watch attribution data for pixel anomalies
- Track Core Web Vitals on key pages
- Address bug reports from customer service
- Decommission Magento (after grace period — 30+ days recommended)
“The riskiest part of any replatform is not the storefront. It is the marketing stack that drives traffic to it. Break a pixel and paid media flies blind for weeks. Get the pixel migration right or do not migrate.”
Common migration mistakes
- Skipping the URL redirect map. Every Magento URL should 301 to its Shopify equivalent. Missing redirects = lost rankings.
- Not testing pixels before cutover. Attribution breaks silently. Ad platforms re-train slowly.
- Migrating too much order history. Old orders are operational data, not marketing data. Archive them; don’t bloat the new system.
- Replacing Magento customizations one-for-one. Many customizations existed because Magento didn’t do something natively. Shopify often does. Re-evaluate, don’t re-implement.
- Decommissioning Magento too fast. Keep it accessible for 30+ days as a fallback and reference.
When to choose Shopify Plus over Shopify
| Your Magento profile | Right Shopify tier |
|---|---|
| Single store, under $1M GMV, standard catalog | Shopify Standard / Advanced |
| Above $1M GMV | Shopify Plus |
| Multi-store / multi-brand | Shopify Plus (multi-store native) |
| B2B alongside DTC | Shopify Plus (B2B native) |
| Heavy custom checkout in Magento | Shopify Plus (custom checkout extensions) |
| Storefront performance / SEO is differentiating | Shopify Plus + headless |
What this migration looks like for our clients
Our US holding company case study shows the multi-brand version of this — five Shopify stores standing up across a portfolio in three months. The headless Shopify case study shows the migration-with-pixel-continuity pattern that any serious Magento replatform needs to follow.
Replatforming from Magento?
Send us your store URL or a brief on your catalog, customizations, and integrations. We’ll come back with a written migration plan, fixed-bid quote, and timeline inside 5 business days.