What does a Shopify migration cost? Prices, cost drivers and running costs

What does a Shopify migration cost?

The cost of a Shopify migration depends on where you start. In 2026, agencies publish these ranges:

The ranges are a guide, not a quote. A reliable price only exists after the audit, once it is clear which systems move along and what state the data is in. A store with 150 products and two inventory systems can cost more than one with 20,000 items and clean data.

The ranges apply regardless of the platform you are leaving. What is different for Magento, Shopware, WooCommerce or JTL is covered in our guides to migrating from Magento, Shopware, WooCommerce and JTL.

What goes into a migration price?

A complete migration project consists of these building blocks. If one is missing from the quote, it comes back later as a change request or does not get done.

The five biggest cost drivers

Integrations

Every connected inventory system, ERP, PIM or marketplace is a building block with its own testing effort. If a ready-made connector exists, such as the JTL-Connector for Shopify, the work is setup and testing. If not, the integration has to be developed. That is often one of the largest items in the project.

For widely used systems in Germany, Austria and Switzerland there are ready-made Shopify connections: JTL-Wawi via the JTL-Connector, Xentral via its Shopify connector, and PlentyONE (formerly plentymarkets) and Billbee via apps in the Shopify App Store. According to Xentral, its connector handles orders, stock, product data, shipping status and tracking numbers, for example. The effort then lies in setup, field mapping and testing: does every order arrive with the right payment and shipping method? Are stock levels and invoices correct? Does the shipping confirmation flow back to Shopify? We check this with real test orders before go-live.

Data quality

Cleaning up legacy data often costs more than importing it. Typical cases: hundreds of unused attributes, duplicate customer accounts, products with more than three variant options that Shopify cannot represent, or missing images and copy. The earlier the audit finds these cases, the cheaper it gets.

Design

A customised standard theme costs a fraction of a fully custom design. A common model sits in between: a solid theme as the base, with custom sections for the homepage, product page and landing pages.

Apps and custom development

Many functions from your old platform exist in Shopify as built-in features or apps. Anything no app covers is developed as a custom app or with Shopify Functions. Apps also have their own monthly fees, which belong in your running costs.

B2B and multiple countries

Company accounts, custom price lists, payment terms, several languages, currencies and domains significantly increase configuration and testing effort. If you have many business customers with their own catalogues, you usually end up on Shopify Plus.

Plan a buffer. The agency Presta recommends a reserve of 15 to 20% for the unexpected in its cost overview. That matches our experience that data quality and integrations in particular cause surprises later on.

Internal effort. Coordination, approvals, product data checks and testing on your side are not in any quote, but they take time. Assign one fixed contact person for this.

What changes the price depending on your current platform

The ranges apply to every platform, but each one brings its own cost factors:

If you are still on Shopware 5, you are also under time pressure, because there have been no security updates since July 2024. More in Shopware 5 end of life.

Running costs: Shopify versus your current platform

The migration is a one-off investment. The decision depends on running costs. According to its official pricing page, Shopify costs the following in Germany:

Apps and payment fees come on top. With Shopify Payments there is no additional transaction fee, only the fee per payment, on Basic around 2.1% plus €0.30 per online card payment. If you use an external payment provider, you pay the transaction fee from the table on top of that provider's fees. At €500,000 in annual revenue through an external provider, that is €10,000 a year on Basic and €3,000 on Advanced.

How to run the three-year comparison

Put these side by side for three years:

Add the one-off migration cost to the Shopify side. If the total after three years is equal or lower, the migration pays for itself. If it is higher, you need other reasons: faster changes, lower security risk, better conversion or new markets.

How do you compare quotes for a Shopify migration?

Quotes differ less in hourly rates than in scope. These questions make them comparable:

1. Is an audit included or done first? A fixed price without an audit contains either a large buffer or many exclusions.
2. Are a test migration and a delta migration included? Without a test run with real data, you only see errors after go-live.
3. Who creates the redirect list? It should be fully part of the quote, including a check of the key URLs after the switch.
4. Is tracking included? GA4, Google Ads and Meta must work in the new store before go-live. How to do that is covered in Server-side tracking on Shopify.
5. Which integrations are named specifically? “Inventory system integration” is not enough. The quote should state which system, which direction and which data.
6. How long is aftercare? Four to eight weeks after go-live is common.
7. How are change requests billed? Fixed price with a clear change process, or time and materials.
8. Who owns the Shopify account, apps and domain? Everything should be in your name so you stay independent.

If you put the answers for two or three quotes side by side, you quickly see where a low price simply means a smaller scope.

How to reduce the cost

• Clean up before the move. Leave products without sales, unused attributes and pages without traffic behind.
• Question every function. Not every extension needs a successor. Shopify already includes a lot.
• Start with a standard theme. A custom design can be added step by step after go-live.
• Bundle decisions. One fixed contact person on your side shortens coordination and therefore the project.
• Go live outside peak season. A postponed date just before the holiday season costs more than any line in the quote.

For a quote with a reliable price, we start with an audit of your store. How we approach it is described on our Shopify migration page.

After go-live: marketing from one team

Once the move is done, the store is ready but not yet working at capacity. The same team that migrates your store can then take over your Meta ads, Google Ads and email marketing with Klaviyo. You skip the handover to a second agency, and tracking works from day one because we set it up ourselves during the move. More on our performance marketing page.

Frequently asked questions