Migration
What does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration actually cost?
July 15, 2026 · 6 min · ScaleLab
The honest answer is a range: from a few thousand dollars for a small catalog with a standard theme, to six figures for a large store with custom logic. But the range is not random — a handful of factors decide where you land, and knowing them lets you budget before you commit.
01The four factors that set the price
Catalog complexity comes first: 200 simple products migrate in days, 20,000 products with variants, bundles and custom fields are an engineering project. Second is design — reusing a premium theme costs a fraction of a bespoke build. Third is integrations: ERP, PIM, fulfillment and accounting each add scope. Fourth is SEO protection, which is cheap insurance next to what a botched migration destroys.
A realistic mid-market range: a focused migration with a customized theme, clean data pipeline and full SEO workstream typically lands in the $10,000–40,000 span. Below that, something on the list above is being skipped — and it is worth asking exactly what.
02The costs that don't appear in the quote
Apps replace plugins, and their subscriptions differ. Shopify's transaction fees replace your PSP contract. Staff needs a few days to relearn admin workflows. None of these are large, but they belong in the calculation — as does the removal of costs: hosting, security patching, PHP developers on retainer and the annual emergency when an update breaks checkout.
For most stores the total cost of ownership drops after the move. WooCommerce looks free until you price the maintenance hours; Shopify's fee buys you an SLA-backed platform where checkout uptime is someone else's problem.
03The cost of not migrating
The comparison that matters is not migration versus zero — it is migration versus another year on a platform you have outgrown. A store doing $1M annually that converts 0.3 points below its potential leaves real revenue on the table every month, and slow page speeds quietly tax every ad click you pay for.
That is why we anchor migration decisions in a revenue model, not a feature comparison. When the monthly cost of staying exceeds the one-time cost of moving, the decision makes itself.
04How to keep the project on budget
Fixed scope beats hourly drift: demand a line-itemed proposal covering data, design, integrations, SEO and post-launch support. Resist rebuilding every customization on day one — many WooCommerce plugins exist to patch problems Shopify doesn't have.
And sequence ruthlessly: launch with parity on what drives revenue, then improve. The most expensive migrations are the ones that try to redesign the brand, restructure the catalog and replatform simultaneously.