How much does it cost to migrate from Magento to Shopify?

Migrating from Magento to Shopify

• How easy is it to move/migrate your website?
• Get the plan right and the rest will look after itself.
• How to cost your move
• How much does Shopify Cost
• What about Theme Costs
• Ongoing Costs can Add up
• How much does it cost to Migrate to Shopify using an agency
• How can you reduce the cost of a website migration?

Owning an online store looks easy, but that is far from the truth. One of the biggest headaches to contend with is what platform is the best for your online store. Should you chose Shopify, Magento, Wix, Big Commerce when you start out and how do you know which is the right one? If you get the wrong advice or your business grows in a different direction and you need to change it, it can be expensive to move. 

Sometimes a move or as we call it a migration to a new platform might be a result of months and even years of headaches with your current eCommerce platform. We meet lots of clients who had a store built a few years ago by an agency using a platform that requires coding to make changes or they had it built but get no access to anything other than image and text changes. This can require costly updates performed by an outsider who charges by the hour.  

In this post, we want to talk to you specifically about moving from Magento to Shopify and how much the process might cost. Before you move from Magento to Shopify it is worth finding out all of the costs involved and what a typical agency might charge. We have migrated lots of websites from Magento, WordPress, Wix, and more to Shopify so now know the average cost and what you need to consider before choosing an agency. 

How easy is it to move/migrate your website?

Moving your website to a new platform is just about the same as moving house. There is a lot more work involved than you first thought. Have you considered the movers, household bills, council tax, change of address etc? Moving websites involves the same consideration and should be a thing planned well in advance. 

Imagine moving house and not redirecting your post! The same applies for websites you need to set up redirects to new URLs or no-one will find you and you will lose all of that valuable SEO work you have done. 

When you leave do you keep paying the old bills or do you work out what the new bills are going to be then cancel the old ones when you have moved. These are all very similar problems faced by business owners who want to migrate their website to a new platform. Let's not forget the furniture too, if you forget to take your products with you it might be hard to sell thin air.  This is where a good agency who have been through this process lots of times comes in. 

Get the plan right and the rest will look after itself.

Getting the plan right is essential to success and will help avoid a costly loss of business due to bad plans. Here is a list of things to consider which will also effect the cost of the website migration. Do not forget that for an agency time is the biggest part of a website migration, so things like number of products, categories, redirections etc will effect the cost. 

How to cost your move

Start to look at the numbers and what you want to get out of the move. It is a great time to clean house and make big changes to your website. The list below are some of things we get asked when migrating. 

• Product Numbers

  How many products do you have. Is it time for a spring clean? A migration is an ideal time to get rid of some chaff that might even be slowing down the website.

• Categories or Collections

  How many categories do you currently have, do products need to be reallocated to new ones or redundant collections removed. Again this is a perfect time to do this.

• Menu Structure

  Are you keeping the same menu structure or is part of the reason you are moving because you don't like the old version and want a mega menu.

• Image Sizes

  Are you unhappy with the way your images are displayed. You might wan to change them to all square or portrait. You may also want to reduce the file size. These are common occurrences when migrating.

• Redirect URLs

  When you move platforms, sometimes the url structure is different. Shopify has this problem so we need to redirect old urls to new ones.

• Blog Content

  Are you keeping all of your old blogs? We need to move them across and ensure they look as good if not better than before. How may blogs are we moving.

• Apps and Widgets

  What apps do you currently use? Mailer platforms, Live Chat and more may need to come with you, do they work on the new platform? All important questions.

• Payment Solutions

  One of the downsides off Shopify is the fixed payment fees. You need to work out what it is going to cost you to sell on Shopify.

• Page content

  How many pages do you have and what do they look like. How can we improve them and will they move easily to the new platform.

• Videos and Social media

  Do you have lots of videos, what is the best way to display them on the new platform.

How much does Shopify Cost

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that lets you build and run an online store quickly and easily without the need for coding. It is paid for with a monthly subscription that varies depending on the size of your business, number of required users and requirements. There are different levels of Shopify subscription starting at £25 a month and going up to Shopify Plus which costs nearer £2,000 a month. 

What about Theme Costs

You can either use a free theme like Dawn that comes with a lot of abilities or pay for something more suited to your business. Themes are an excellent way to start building your store because they have a lot of widgets built in. If you need things like good size guides then we recommend Turbo Theme by out of the Sandbox or something cleaner but simple is Impact which we have used multiple times. 

We have written a piece which goes into more depth about "how to choose your Shopify theme" here. 

Ongoing Costs can Add up

When building a website on Shopify you need to consider the ongoing costs. Not just the monthly subscription but also how much do the apps you want to use cost. They can be cheap but if you use more than a couple costs mount up. Also remember that too many apps will slow your website down. So remove unused apps. 

The beauty of Shopify is that you can do almost anything you want with the right apps. Shopify are also constantly evolving their offering, meaning that sometimes they build app capabilities into the store so you don't need to buy them. Things like size guides can be included in the theme or now with meta fields you can create them yourself without a costly app. Some themes have size guides built in. 

How much does it cost to Migrate to Shopify using an agency

We can not give you an exact price because every project is different. We can however use our experience to give you an idea of the cost of migrating from Magento to  Shopify based on a basic website with 20 products. 

At We are Chain our pricing for a migration starts at £2,000 for a Shopify migration. This incorporates time for an initial meeting, Export of products (20) from your old site to the new one. Setting up the Shopify Store and choosing a theme. We expect you to pay for the theme directly to Shopify. We are a clear and honest agency and as such don't add any fees onto Shopify themes and subscriptions. 

If you have more products we need to consider how many because the migration will take longer. The planning part of the move is important and will take time especially if you want to change menu structures etc. Are we manually moving each blog post and page or doing it in bulk. Each one takes a few minutes.  

How many redirects are involved, each one might take a minute so add them up. Our hourly rate is £60 an hour. 

How can you reduce the cost of a website migration?

You can reduce the cost of your agency led migration by helping out with the menial tasks and responding to queries quickly. Things like image preparation are key to success and speed. If you have named all of your images you do not just make the agencies life easier you also help your SEO. How is a computer programmer going to know what a frilly lampshade looks like. 

Can you have all of your new text ready in a word document that is easy to understand. Do you know what the new menu looks like. How are your categories arranged? If you can help with all of the above then we can reduce the cost of your website migration because time is everything. 

So start thinking about £2,000 as your base cost. Do not forget at We are Chain we also throw in 3 months support free. That includes training on how to make the most out of Shopify once you are live. 

Your next steps should be to get in touch with us and arrange a meeting so we can show you how Shopify works and if it is for you.