Magento to Shopify. The real cost.

Total cost ranges from roughly $15,000 for a small catalog migration (under 500 SKUs, design-as-is theme adaptation) to $150,000-plus for a mid-market or enterprise migration (10,000-plus SKUs, custom theme, complex integrations, Shopify Plus). Typical mid-market migration: $35,000 to $75,000 including data migration, custom theme, app re-implementation, and SEO preservation work. Platform subscription adds $299 to $2,300-plus per month on Shopify after launch. The common budgeting mistake is underestimating SEO work and data-transformation complexity; both frequently consume 20 to 30 percent of the total budget.

Seven line items typically. One, data migration (products, customers, orders, redirects) at $3,000 to $25,000. Two, theme rebuild or adaptation at $8,000 to $60,000. Three, app re-implementation (replacing Magento extensions with Shopify apps) at $5,000 to $20,000. Four, integrations (ERP, 3PL, accounting, payment) at $5,000 to $40,000. Five, SEO preservation (redirects, title-tag carry-forward, rank monitoring) at $3,000 to $10,000. Six, QA and UAT at $3,000 to $15,000. Seven, first-month Shopify subscription and launch support at $2,000 to $15,000. Add 10 to 20 percent contingency for the line items the scope will surface during build.

For most mid-market stores, yes, by a meaningful margin. Magento 2 Open Source is free in license but expensive in total cost of ownership: hosting (usually $500 to $5,000 per month at scale), developer maintenance (typically 10 to 40 hours per month), security patching, and Magento-specialized engineering hires that command a premium. Shopify bundles hosting, PCI, and platform updates into subscription. Three-year total cost of ownership at a $2M revenue store typically lands around $120,000 to $180,000 on Magento vs $60,000 to $90,000 on Shopify. Exceptions exist (deep B2B customizations Shopify Plus cannot match), but they are rare.

Timeline depends on scope. Small catalog (under 500 SKUs, design adaptation): 6 to 8 weeks. Mid-market (2,000 to 10,000 SKUs, custom theme, standard integrations): 10 to 14 weeks. Enterprise Plus migration (10,000-plus SKUs, complex B2B, custom checkout, multi-store): 16 to 24 weeks. The long poles are data-schema mapping (Magento product attributes do not map 1:1 to Shopify metafields) and SEO preservation (a complete URL inventory plus redirect map takes 2 weeks on a mid-market site). See our /services/shopify-migration/ for the full methodology.

Five repeated failure modes. One, URL structure changes without complete 301 redirects tanking SEO for 3 to 6 months. Two, Magento product attributes (custom_attributes, multi-select options) getting lost because no one mapped them to Shopify metafields cleanly. Three, customer accounts migrating without password preservation forcing every customer to reset. Four, app functionality gaps (a Magento extension has no Shopify equivalent; you discover this at week 8). Five, integration breakage with ERP or 3PL systems because the new API surface differs. All five are preventable with a 2-week discovery audit before the build starts.