WordPress to Shopify Migration: Cost, Timeline and Checklist
What a WordPress or WooCommerce to Shopify migration actually costs, how long it takes, and a step-by-step checklist so nothing (including your SEO) gets lost.
"How much will it cost and how long will it take?" are the first two questions I get about moving a WordPress or WooCommerce site to Shopify. The honest answer is "it depends on your store's size," but I can give you realistic ranges and a checklist so there are no surprises.
How long does a migration take?
Timeline scales with how much content you have and how custom the design is:
| Store size | Typical timeline |
|---|---|
| Small (up to ~50 products, simple design) | About 1 to 2 weeks |
| Medium (a few hundred products, custom theme) | About 2 to 4 weeks |
| Large (big catalogue, complex logic, integrations) | 4+ weeks |
Most of the time is not "moving data," it is rebuilding the theme properly, mapping every URL for SEO, and testing the full buying journey.
What drives the cost?
There is no single price, but these are the factors that move it:
- Number of products and how clean the existing data is.
- Design: reuse a Shopify theme vs a fully custom, pixel-perfect build.
- Content: blog posts, pages and media to move.
- SEO work: URL mapping and redirects (essential, and worth paying for).
- Integrations: payment, shipping, email, apps.
- Ongoing support after launch.
A small store migration is a modest fixed project; a large, custom one is priced on scope. The cheapest migration is almost never the one that protects your rankings, so weigh that carefully.
The migration checklist
Here is the exact sequence I follow so nothing slips:
- Inventory every URL, product, page and blog post (export the sitemap and catalogue).
- Note top pages in Search Console so you know what must be protected.
- Rebuild products, collections, pages and blog in Shopify.
- Build or set up the theme, matching or improving the current design.
- Map old URLs to new and create a 301 redirect for every valuable page.
- Carry over on-page SEO: titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, structured data.
- Set up commerce: payments, shipping, taxes.
- Test the full journey: browse, cart, checkout, edge cases.
- Launch: point the domain, verify redirects, submit the new sitemap.
- Monitor Search Console for 4 to 8 weeks and fix any 404s.
Miss step 5 or 6 and you risk your rankings. Do them properly and traffic usually holds and then improves, thanks to Shopify's speed and reliability.
Will I lose my Google rankings?
Not if the migration is done right. Clean 301 redirects pass your old pages' authority to the new URLs. Expect a small, temporary dip in the first week or two while Google re-crawls, then recovery. I cover the SEO side in detail in how to migrate from WordPress to Shopify without losing SEO.
Planning a move? CMS migration is one of the services I offer, and I handle the redirect mapping and SEO so nothing gets lost. Get a quote.