If you're running a Shopify store and pricing out a move to WordPress, the honest answer is: it depends heavily on your store size, but most stores pay somewhere between $1,000 and $30,000. This guide breaks down exactly why the range is so wide, what you actually get at each price point, and how to avoid the hidden costs most agencies don't mention until the invoice arrives.
Table of Contents
- Quick Answer
- Why Store Owners Are Leaving Shopify in 2026
- Shopify to WordPress Migration Cost by Tier
- What Actually Drives the Price
- DIY vs. Migration Tool vs. Hiring a Developer
- What's Included in a Professional Migration
- Hidden Costs Most Guides Skip
- Real-World Cost Examples
- How to Get an Accurate Quote
- FAQs
Quick Answer
Shopify to WordPress (WooCommerce) migration typically costs $1,000–$5,000 for a small store with under 100 products and a standard theme, $5,000–$15,000 for a mid-size store with custom features and full SEO redirect mapping, and $15,000–$30,000+ for large or highly customized stores with thousands of SKUs, integrations, or subscription products. DIY migration tools alone cost $70–$500 but don't cover theme setup, app replacement, or redirects.
Why Store Owners Are Leaving Shopify in 2026
The decision rarely comes down to one single complaint — it's usually a combination of rising costs and shrinking control:
- Transaction fees add up fast. If you're not using Shopify Payments, Shopify charges 0.5%–2% on every sale on top of your monthly plan. A store doing $50,000/month in revenue can lose $500+ a month just in transaction fees — money that disappears whether the store grows or not.
- Monthly plans keep climbing. Shopify plans generally run $39–$399/month before you add paid apps for basic functionality. WooCommerce itself is free — your only recurring cost is hosting, typically $10–$30/month for a small-to-mid store.
- You don't fully own the store. On Shopify, your data lives on their servers under their rules. With WooCommerce on WordPress, the codebase, database, and hosting environment are entirely yours.
- Customization has a ceiling. Shopify restricts what you can change without expensive apps or Shopify Plus. WooCommerce is open-source, so custom checkout flows, non-standard product types, or deep third-party integrations are all possible without platform permission.
None of this means Shopify is a bad platform — for many stores it's still the right fit. But if any of the above sounds familiar, it's worth knowing what a move actually costs before you commit to one.
Shopify to WordPress Migration Cost by Tier
Migration cost scales with catalog size, customization needs, and how much of your existing functionality has to be rebuilt rather than just moved. Here's a realistic breakdown:
| Tier | Store Profile | Typical Cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY (tool only) | Under 50 products, no custom apps, comfortable doing your own setup | $70–$500 (tool cost) + hosting | 1–3 weeks |
| Small store | Under 100 products, standard theme, basic checkout | $1,000–$5,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| Mid-size store | 100–1,000 products, custom design, full redirect mapping, some app replacements | $5,000–$15,000 | 3–6 weeks |
| Large / complex | 1,000+ products, subscriptions, multiple payment gateways, ERP or custom integrations | $15,000–$30,000+ | 6–12 weeks |
The data transfer itself — products, customers, orders — is rarely the expensive part. What actually drives the invoice up is everything around the data: theme rebuilding, replacing paid Shopify apps with WooCommerce equivalents, and protecting your SEO rankings through the transition. For a broader look at how this compares to migrations from other platforms, see our WordPress migration cost guide.
What Actually Drives the Price
- Product catalog size and complexity. A 50-product store with simple variants migrates cleanly. A 2,000-product store with dozens of variant combinations, custom fields, and bundled products takes significantly longer to map correctly.
- Shopify app replacements. Every paid app powering a feature on your Shopify store — reviews, loyalty programs, shipping calculators, abandoned cart recovery — needs a WooCommerce equivalent. Some have direct plugin equivalents; others require custom development, which is where costs escalate fastest.
- Payment gateway reconfiguration. Shopify Payments is tightly integrated into Shopify's checkout. Moving to Stripe, PayPal, or another gateway on WooCommerce needs proper setup and testing — see our payment gateway integration guide for what that involves.
- SEO redirect mapping. Every URL that changes during migration needs a 301 redirect to its new WooCommerce equivalent. Skipping this step is the single biggest cause of stores losing years of built-up Google rankings after a migration.
- Custom features and integrations. Subscription products, wholesale pricing tiers, or ERP/inventory system connections all add development time. If your store needs something WooCommerce doesn't do out of the box, see our guide on custom WooCommerce plugin development.
- Hosting choice. WooCommerce needs proper hosting to handle traffic and checkout reliably — this is an ongoing cost, not a one-time migration fee. See our WooCommerce hosting cost guide for realistic monthly numbers.
DIY vs. Migration Tool vs. Hiring a Developer
| Approach | Best For | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fully DIY | Very small stores, technically comfortable owners | Lowest upfront cost; full control over timeline | Steep learning curve; high risk of broken redirects and lost SEO |
| Migration tool (e.g. Cart2Cart, LitExtension) | Small-to-mid stores wanting a faster self-service move | Automates product/customer/order transfer; relatively cheap | Doesn't touch theme design, app replacement, or SEO redirects — those are still on you |
| Freelancer or agency | Stores that can't afford downtime, broken checkout, or lost rankings | Handles the full scope: redirects, app replacement, testing, launch support | Higher upfront cost than DIY |
If your store makes real revenue, the DIY route usually ends up costing more in the long run — a botched redirect strategy alone can wipe out 30–50% of your organic traffic, which is often worth more than the migration itself. If you're weighing this trade-off more broadly, our website builder vs. hiring a developer comparison covers the same logic in more depth.
What's Included in a Professional Migration
A properly scoped migration isn't just "move the data." It typically includes:
- Full audit of your current Shopify store — products, collections, customers, orders, pages, blog content, and any custom app functionality
- WordPress + WooCommerce setup on a staging environment (never on a live domain first)
- Product, customer, and order data migration with accurate field mapping
- Theme setup or custom design matching your existing brand
- Replacement of every Shopify app with a WooCommerce equivalent or custom build
- Payment gateway setup and end-to-end checkout testing
- Complete 301 redirect mapping from every old Shopify URL to its new WooCommerce URL
- Post-launch monitoring — typically 2–4 weeks — to catch and fix any 404s, broken redirects, or ranking drops
We've written a full step-by-step breakdown of this exact process in our Shopify to WooCommerce migration guide — worth reading alongside this cost breakdown if you want the technical detail.
Hidden Costs Most Guides Skip
The quoted migration price rarely covers everything. Budget for these separately:
- Customer password resets. Shopify's password encryption can't be migrated — every customer needs a password reset email after launch. Most email tools (Klaviyo, Mailchimp) can automate this, but it needs to be planned, not discovered after go-live.
- Manually recreated pages. About, Contact, FAQ, and other static Shopify pages typically need to be rebuilt manually in WordPress — they don't transfer automatically.
- Hosting. Ongoing WooCommerce hosting isn't part of a one-time migration fee — plan for $10–$30/month minimum, more for high-traffic stores.
- Premium plugins. If your Shopify apps had paid equivalents on WooCommerce, those often carry their own annual license fees.
- Contingency buffer. Data cleanup, unexpected custom feature replication, or third-party API changes are common — a 15–20% buffer on top of your quote is a realistic safety margin.
Real-World Cost Examples
Example 1: Small Boutique Store
40 products, standard checkout, no custom apps, moving primarily to escape rising Shopify fees. Scope: theme setup, data migration, redirect mapping, payment gateway setup, 2 weeks post-launch monitoring. Realistic cost: $1,500–$3,000. Timeline: 2–3 weeks.
Example 2: Mid-Size Store with Subscriptions
300 products, active subscription-based products, custom checkout flow, 3 Shopify apps needing replacement. Scope: full custom theme, WooCommerce Subscriptions setup, app replacement, Stripe migration, complete redirect mapping, 30 days monitoring. Realistic cost: $8,000–$14,000. Timeline: 5–8 weeks.
Example 3: Large Catalog with ERP Integration
2,000+ products, wholesale pricing tiers, existing ERP/inventory system connection. Scope: everything above plus custom API development for ERP sync and extensive QA. Realistic cost: $20,000–$30,000+. Timeline: 8–12 weeks.
How to Get an Accurate Quote
Quotes for the "same" migration can range wildly between vendors — sometimes $3,000 to $80,000 for stores that look nearly identical on paper. The gap usually comes down to scope: cheap quotes often cover only the raw data move, while higher quotes include theme rebuild, redirects, and post-launch support. Before accepting a quote, ask:
- Does this include full 301 redirect mapping for every existing URL?
- Are all my current Shopify apps accounted for — and how will each one be replaced?
- Is there a staging environment, or will this be built directly on my live store?
- How many days of post-launch monitoring and bug-fixing are included?
- What happens to my customer accounts and passwords?
FAQs
Is it cheaper to migrate to WordPress myself using a tool?
The tool itself is cheap ($70–$500), but it only moves your raw data. Theme setup, app replacement, and — most importantly — SEO redirects are still entirely on you. For stores with real revenue, a botched DIY redirect strategy often costs far more in lost traffic than a professional migration would have cost upfront.
Will I lose my Google rankings when I migrate?
Only if redirects are handled poorly. Every URL that changes needs a 301 redirect to its WooCommerce equivalent — done correctly, most stores retain their SEO value. Skipped or incomplete redirects are the number one cause of ranking loss after a platform migration.
How long does a Shopify to WordPress migration take?
Most small-to-mid stores take 2–6 weeks from planning to launch. Larger, more complex stores with custom integrations can take 8–12 weeks.
Can I keep my existing domain?
Yes. Your domain isn't tied to Shopify — you point the DNS to your new WordPress hosting once the new store is fully tested on staging.
What happens to my customer accounts?
Customer names, emails, and order history transfer, but passwords cannot be migrated due to Shopify's encryption. Customers need to reset their password after launch — this can be automated via email.
Do I need a developer, or can I do this with a plugin alone?
A plugin or migration tool handles the data transfer. Whether you need a developer depends on how custom your current store is — subscriptions, custom checkout logic, or app-based features generally need professional setup to migrate correctly.
Bottom Line
Shopify to WordPress migration cost isn't really about the data transfer — it's about how much of your current store's functionality has to be rebuilt, and how carefully your SEO is protected along the way. A small store can realistically move for $1,000–$5,000; a store with subscriptions, custom checkout logic, or thousands of SKUs is more realistically $10,000–$30,000+.
If you're evaluating a move and want a scoped, honest quote for your specific store — not a generic range — get in touch and we'll walk through what your migration would actually involve.
