An ecommerce migration can cost 1,500 dollars or 200,000 dollars, and both numbers are real. The gap comes down to the size of your catalog, how custom your old store is, and how much of your data and rankings you need to carry across. Here is what a migration actually costs in 2026, what drives the price up, and the one hidden cost that hurts far more than the invoice.
The honest price ranges
Most migrations sort into three sizes.
- Small store. Basic data and a handful of features. Around 1,500 to 10,000 dollars.
- Mid-sized store. Real customization and a few integrations. Around 10,000 to 75,000 dollars.
- Large or enterprise store. Complex workflows, ERP, multi-store, or B2B. Often 75,000 to 200,000 dollars and up.
A mid-market Magento to Shopify move commonly lands in the 40,000 to 150,000 range and takes a few months end to end. A small, clean store can be done for a fraction of that in a couple of weeks. The honest answer always depends on what you are actually moving.
What drives the cost up
The price is rarely about the number of products. It is about the awkward parts of the old store.
- Attribute mapping. Magento’s data model does not line up with Shopify’s, so attributes have to be translated carefully.
- Configurable and complex products. Variants, bundles, and made-to-order items take real work to rebuild correctly.
- Customer-group and tiered pricing. B2B pricing rules rarely move across cleanly and need rebuilding.
- Integrations. ERP, accounting, shipping, and CRM connections each add scope.
- Custom workflows. Anything bespoke in the old store has to be re-created or replaced.
The hidden cost that hurts most
The invoice is not the scary part. Lost rankings are. A careless migration can drop organic traffic by 30 to 60 percent in the first two weeks and never fully recover, which can cost far more than the build itself. Done with proper redirects, the drop is small and temporary, and traffic recovers within a couple of months. This is why I treat a migration as an SEO project as much as an engineering one.
The redirect work is the highest-impact part. I walk through it in the Magento to Shopify SEO redirects checklist.
Why a migration is more rebuild than copy
People picture a migration as exporting from one store and importing into another. For a simple catalog, it can be close to that. For anything customized, it is a rebuild. Magento and Shopify model data differently, so attributes, product types, and pricing rules do not line up one to one. Configurable products become variants, customer groups become a different mechanism, and bespoke extensions have to be replaced with native features or custom code. The export is the easy part. The translation is where the work lives, and where the cost goes.
The migration timeline, in plain terms
A clean mid-sized migration tends to move through the same phases.
- Audit and plan. Catalog the data, the integrations, and the custom logic. About a week or two.
- Data mapping and build. Translate the catalog, rebuild the theme, and re-create the rules. The bulk of the timeline.
- Redirects and SEO. Build and test the one-to-one redirect map before anything goes live.
- Testing. Run real orders, payments, and edge cases on a staging store.
- Cutover and watch. Move in a controlled way and monitor traffic and orders closely for the first weeks.
Rushing any phase, especially the redirects and testing, is how a migration turns into a cleanup project that costs more than doing it carefully the first time.
Mistakes that blow up a migration budget
- Skipping the redirect map, then paying later in lost traffic and emergency SEO work.
- Underestimating B2B and configurable products, which always take longer than expected.
- Migrating everything, including dead products and unused features, instead of pruning first.
- Treating the cutover as the finish line, when the first two weeks of monitoring are where problems surface.
- Choosing the cheapest quote without checking whether it includes testing and redirects.
Should you even stay on the same kind of platform?
A migration is also a chance to ask whether your platform still fits. Magento earns its weight for large, complex catalogs with deep B2B needs. For a simpler store, it can be more cost and maintenance than the business needs, and moving to Shopify or WordPress can lower both. I give you an honest read before you commit, because the cheapest migration is sometimes to a simpler platform, not a like-for-like rebuild.
What a good migration leaves you with
Done right, you come out on a platform that fits the business, with your products, orders, and customers intact, your rankings protected by clean redirects, and a faster, easier store to run. You also get a clear record of what was ported, rebuilt, or dropped, so nothing is a mystery later. A migration is disruptive by nature, so the goal is to go through it once and come out clearly better off, not to repeat it in two years.
What you should actually pay
- Small, clean catalog with standard features: expect the lower range and a short timeline.
- Mid-sized store with customization and integrations: budget for the middle range and plan the redirects carefully.
- Enterprise store with B2B, ERP, or multi-region: expect the higher range and scope it in detail before committing.
- Not sure: get an audit of what needs to be ported, rebuilt, or dropped, so the quote is real rather than a guess.
How I run migrations
I have done the migrations that go wrong when handled carelessly. I took Keeler USA from an unsupported Magento 1 install to a clean Magento 2 build with zero data loss. I rebuilt a 140,000 product catalog from an iframe into a fully transactional Shopify Plus store and moved traffic in waves with no downtime. And I moved a B2B catalog off Magento onto WordPress when Magento was more than the store needed.
See the Keeler USA migration and my take on Magento to WordPress for B2B. If a move is on your roadmap, my Magento and migration service covers it end to end.
How to choose who runs your migration
The cheapest quote is rarely the safe one on a migration, because the corners that get cut are the ones you cannot see until traffic drops. Look for someone who talks about redirects and testing before they talk about price, who has done your kind of move before, and who is honest about what can go wrong. Ask how they handle the cutover and what happens if something breaks on day one. A developer who has felt the pain of a bad migration plans to avoid it.
Plan around your busy season
Timing matters as much as method. Never cut over in the run-up to your busiest selling period, when a problem costs the most and there is no slack to fix it. Plan the migration for a quieter stretch, give yourself a buffer after the cutover to watch the numbers, and you remove most of the risk that turns a migration into a crisis. The calmest migration is the one scheduled when nothing else is on fire.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the range so wide?
Because migrations are priced by complexity, not product count. A clean store with standard features is cheap to move. A heavily customized store with B2B pricing, ERP, and bespoke workflows is a much bigger job.
Will I lose my Google rankings?
Not if it is done right. With a proper one-to-one redirect map, the traffic dip is small and recovers within weeks. Skip the redirects and you can lose a large share of organic traffic for months. This is the single most important part of the migration.
How long does a migration take?
A small store can move in a couple of weeks. A mid-market migration usually takes a few months. The timeline is set by the data, the integrations, and how much custom work has to be rebuilt.
Can you keep my data?
Yes. Products, orders, customers, and content all migrate. I plan the cutover carefully, and on the Keeler USA upgrade there was zero data loss. I hold every migration to that bar.
Do you migrate to WordPress as well as Shopify?
Yes. The right destination depends on your catalog and your team. For many B2B stores, WordPress with WooCommerce is a better fit than another heavy platform. I help you choose based on the store, not on what is easiest to sell.
What is the most underestimated cost?
B2B pricing and configurable products. They look like data, but they are really logic, and rebuilding that logic correctly takes more time than moving the products themselves.
Is now a good time to migrate?
The best time is a quiet stretch with a buffer afterward, well clear of your busiest season. If a big sale is coming, finish the migration before it or wait until after, but do not cut over in the middle of it.
Get a real number for your migration
The fastest way to a real figure is to tell me where your store is today. I will audit what needs to move, scope the redirects, and send a fixed quote within 24 hours.
