WordPress to Shopify Migration: Cost, Timeline and Checklist

"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 and how custom you want it," but that is not very useful on its own. So this guide gives you realistic ranges, the exact factors that move the price, a redirect-mapping walkthrough, and a full checklist so there are no surprises and, crucially, no lost rankings.

First, the ongoing cost you are moving to

Before the one-off migration, know what you are moving onto. Shopify is a subscription: plans start at around $39/month (US, approximate, as of 2026), with higher tiers for larger stores. Always check Shopify pricing for current figures. Unlike WordPress, that fee includes hosting, security, updates and checkout, so part of what you are buying is never having to maintain the platform yourself. Factor the monthly plan into your decision alongside the one-off migration below.

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." Data export and import is often the quickest part. The time goes into rebuilding the theme properly, mapping every URL for SEO, reconfiguring commerce settings, and testing the full buying journey on every device.

What a migration actually costs

There is no single price, because a "migration" can mean anything from a 20-product store on a ready-made theme to a 2,000-product catalogue with a fully custom, pixel-perfect build and integrations. Rather than quote a fake number, here is how to think about it, plus indicative bands.

The factors that move the price:

• Number of products and how clean the existing data is. Messy data (inconsistent variants, missing images) takes longer to migrate cleanly.
• Design: reusing and tailoring a well-built Shopify theme is far cheaper than a fully custom, pixel-perfect rebuild of your current look.
• Content: blog posts, pages and media all need to be moved and reformatted.
• SEO work: URL mapping and redirects. This is essential, and it is worth paying for. It is the difference between keeping your traffic and losing it.
• Integrations: payments, shipping, taxes, email, reviews and any apps that replace WordPress plugins.
• Ongoing support after launch.

Indicative bands (these vary widely by market, scope and who does the work, so treat them as a way to calibrate expectations, not a quote):

Scope	What it usually includes
Small, template-based	A tidy theme setup, catalogue import, core redirects and testing. The most affordable option.
Medium, tailored theme	A tailored design, full content and product migration, complete redirect mapping and SEO carry-over.
Large, fully custom	Custom theme, complex catalogue, integrations, and careful redirect and QA work at scale.

The cheapest migration is almost never the one that protects your rankings. If a quote does not explicitly include URL mapping and 301 redirects, that is a red flag. For an honest estimate on your exact store, tell me about it and I will scope it.

The redirect mapping walkthrough (the part that protects your SEO)

This is where migrations succeed or fail. When you move platforms, your URLs change, and every old link, bookmark and Google ranking points at the old address. If those addresses return "not found," you lose the traffic and the authority behind them. The fix is a 301 redirect from each old URL to its new equivalent, which tells Google "this moved permanently, pass the ranking along."

WordPress and Shopify structure URLs differently, so you map patterns like this:

WordPress / WooCommerce	Shopify
/product/blue-shirt/	/products/blue-shirt
/product-category/shirts/	/collections/shirts
/about/ (page)	/pages/about
/2025/05/my-post/ or /my-post/ (blog)	/blogs/news/my-post

The process:

1. Export every existing URL (from your sitemap, WooCommerce export and a crawl of the site).
2. Decide the new Shopify URL for each one, following the patterns above.
3. Create a 301 redirect for every valuable URL. Shopify has built-in URL redirect tools, and you can bulk-import a redirect list by CSV, which is essential for large catalogues.
4. Prioritise your top pages. Check Google Search Console for the pages that earn the most impressions and clicks, and make absolutely sure those are mapped.
5. Verify after launch by testing old URLs and watching Search Console's coverage report for new 404s.

Get this right and traffic holds through the move. Skip it and you can lose months of SEO overnight.

The full migration checklist

Here is the exact sequence I follow so nothing slips:

1. Inventory every URL, product, page and blog post (export the sitemap and catalogue).
2. Note top pages in Search Console so you know what must be protected.
3. Rebuild products, collections, pages and blog in Shopify.
4. Build or set up the theme, matching or improving the current design.
5. Map old URLs to new and create a 301 redirect for every valuable page.
6. Carry over on-page SEO: titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text and structured data.
7. Set up commerce: payments, shipping and taxes.
8. Test the full journey: browse, cart, checkout and edge cases, on mobile and desktop.
9. Launch: point the domain, verify redirects and submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
10. Monitor Search Console for 4 to 8 weeks and fix any 404s that appear.

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 reliable checkout.

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, and carrying over titles, metadata and structure keeps each page recognisable to Google. Expect a small, temporary dip in the first week or two while Google re-crawls and re-indexes the new URLs, then recovery, and often improvement, because Shopify's hosting and checkout tend to be faster and more reliable than a typical self-managed WordPress setup. I cover the SEO side in depth in how to migrate from WordPress to Shopify without losing SEO.

Should you migrate at all?

Migrate to Shopify if selling is your main goal and you want lower maintenance, better reliability and a high-converting checkout. Think twice if your site leans heavily on custom WordPress functionality or is primarily a large content/blog operation with commerce bolted on. If you are weighing it up, my WordPress vs Shopify comparison lays out the trade-offs.

WooCommerce-specific things to plan for

Some WooCommerce data does not map one-to-one and needs a decision up front:

• Product reviews: these do not carry over automatically. Plan to export and re-import them with a reviews app, or accept starting fresh.
• Coupons and discounts: recreate them in Shopify's discount system rather than expecting a direct import.
• Customer accounts: customers migrate, but passwords do not, so customers set a new password on first login.
• Subscriptions or bookings: if you use these, you need the equivalent Shopify app and a careful plan, since the data model differs.

Flagging these early avoids nasty surprises on launch day.

Common migration mistakes to avoid

• Skipping redirects. The single biggest cause of lost traffic after a migration.
• Launching before testing checkout. Always place a real test order end to end first.
• Forgetting image alt text and metadata. These carry SEO value, so move them rather than retyping from scratch and losing them.
• Leaving the store on password protection or noindex after go-live, so Google never sees it.
• Not monitoring Search Console for the first month, when 404s and indexing issues surface.

The first 30 days after launch

Migration does not end at go-live. In the first month:

• Watch Search Console coverage for 404s and fix any missed redirects.
• Confirm the new sitemap is submitted and being indexed.
• Keep an eye on rankings for your top pages; a small early dip is normal, recovery follows.
• Test that orders, emails and shipping all flow correctly with real transactions.

A calm, monitored first month is how you turn a migration into a clean win rather than a scramble.

The takeaway

A WordPress to Shopify migration is not risky when it is done in the right order: inventory, rebuild, map and redirect every URL, carry over SEO, test, launch and monitor. Cost and timeline scale with your catalogue size and how custom you want the build, not with any fixed price list. The one thing worth insisting on, whoever does it, is proper redirect mapping. That is what keeps the traffic you have already earned.

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.