WooCommerce to Shopify Migration: Why Thousands of Stores Are Making the Switch

You chose WooCommerce for good reasons. It was free, flexible, and built on WordPress, a platform you already knew. In the early days, that combination worked well. You had control. You could customise anything. And it did not cost you much to get started.

But somewhere along the line, things changed. Updates started breaking plugins. Your developer’s retainer grew. A security patch that should have taken an afternoon turned into a week-long fire drill. Meanwhile, your competitors seemed to be moving faster, launching new features, selling on new channels, and scaling without the same friction you faced every day.

That is not a coincidence. It is the WooCommerce growth ceiling, and thousands of stores have hit it.

In 2024, Shopify merchants processed $292 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume, a 24% year-over-year increase, according to Shopify’s official Q4 2024 earnings report. Shopify has also doubled its active installs since 2021, with over 300 new Shopify Plus merchants launching every week. The stores driving the most revenue are choosing Shopify, and there are concrete reasons why.

Key Reasons for WooCommerce to Shopify Migration

Reason 1: WooCommerce’s “Free” Price Tag Is a Myth

WooCommerce is technically free to install. But the moment you try to run a real store on it, costs stack up quickly, and they are unpredictable.

Here is what a typical WooCommerce store actually pays for:

• Hosting: $10 to $50+ per month (and renewal prices frequently spike)
• SSL certificate, backups, and security plugins: $50 to $200+ per year
•  Premium plugins for features Shopify includes by default: $50 to $300 per plugin, per year
• Developer time for updates, plugin conflicts, and custom work: often a high annual cost that grows with your store

Shopify rolls hosting, security, SSL, PCI compliance, automatic updates, and 24/7 support into one predictable monthly fee. And according to Shopify’s own total cost of ownership analysis, Shopify’s TCO is 36% better than WooCommerce’s, once you account for platform fees, setup costs, and operational complexity.

Reason 2: The Maintenance Burden Is Stealing Your Time

Running a WooCommerce store means you are not just an eCommerce business owner; you are also an IT manager. Every month brings a new to-do list that has nothing to do with growing your business:

• WordPress core updates that can break theme or plugin compatibility
• Plugin conflicts that appear without warning and require developer diagnosis
• Hosting configuration and performance monitoring
• Security patches and vulnerability scanning
• Manual backups and disaster recovery planning

Shopify handles all of this automatically. Platform updates, security patches, infrastructure scaling: it all happens in the background, without touching your storefront or requiring developer intervention. The result is simple: your team focuses on selling, not firefighting.

For business owners who would rather spend their time on growth, marketing, and customer experience, that shift in operational overhead is one of the most immediate benefits of migration.

Reason 3: Security Is a Full-Time Job on WooCommerce

eCommerce security is not optional. You are handling payment data, personal information, and customer trust with every transaction. On Shopify, security is managed at the platform level. PCI-DSS compliance, SSL certificates, DDoS protection, and fraud prevention are all built in.

On WooCommerce, all of that responsibility falls on you. In 2023 alone, a critical vulnerability in the WooCommerce Payments plugin (CVE-2023-28121, rated 9.8 out of 10 in severity) triggered 1.3 million attacks against 157,000 WooCommerce sites in a single weekend, according to WordPress security firm Wordfence.

For a growing store, this creates two risks: the direct risk of a breach (which can shatter customer trust overnight), and the operational risk of diverting developer resources to security response every time a vulnerability emerges.

Shopify’s fully managed infrastructure eliminates both. Its security model is designed for enterprise-grade eCommerce, covering all stores on the platform and automatically applying patches without requiring any action from you.

Reason 4: Shopify Is Built for Scale, WooCommerce Has to Be Configured for It

WooCommerce can scale. But it does not scale automatically. At every growth milestone (more traffic, more SKUs, more orders), you will likely need to upgrade your hosting plan, audit your plugin stack, and bring in a developer to ensure performance does not degrade.

Shopify’s performance advantage is significant. According to Shopify’s own global study, Shopify’s checkout converts at an average 17% higher rate than WooCommerce. For a store processing $500,000 annually, that difference in checkout performance alone could represent $85,000 in additional revenue.

Shopify automatically scales server resources as traffic grows. High-traffic events (Black Friday, product launches, viral moments) are handled at the platform level, not by your hosting plan. There is no emergency call to your developer because your site went down at peak traffic.

And for brands with omnichannel ambitions, Shopify’s native integrations with TikTok Shop, Instagram, Facebook, and POS are built to work immediately, without the plugin configuration and API troubleshooting WooCommerce requires. 

Reason 5: Shopify’s App Ecosystem Moves Faster Than WooCommerce’s Plugin Stack

WooCommerce’s flexibility is its most celebrated feature, and its biggest operational liability. With tens of thousands of plugins available from thousands of different developers, the quality and compatibility of what you are installing varies enormously.

Plugin conflicts are a leading cause of WooCommerce downtime. A single update to WordPress core, a theme, or another plugin can break functionality you rely on for checkout, shipping, or email marketing. Diagnosing the issue requires a developer, and fixing it can take days.

Shopify’s App Store is curated, vetted, and tested against the platform. Apps are designed to work together without conflicts, and Shopify’s development framework ensures compatibility at every level.

For brands moving toward headless commerce or AI-powered personalisation, Shopify’s infrastructure supports these approaches natively, through its Hydrogen and Oxygen frameworks, dramatically reducing the development time compared to building the same capabilities on WooCommerce’s WordPress REST API.

What Gets Migrated – and What Does Not

One of the most common questions we hear from WooCommerce store owners is: What actually comes across when I migrate? Here is a clear breakdown.

Is It Time to Migrate? Signs Your WooCommerce Store Has Outgrown the Platform

Not every WooCommerce store needs to migrate. But for growth-stage brands, there are clear signals that the platform is holding them back:

• Developer dependency: You cannot make basic changes to your store without waiting for developer availability.
• Rising maintenance costs: Your monthly spend on plugins, hosting upgrades, and developer retainers keeps climbing without a corresponding lift in revenue.
• Performance issues: Your site slows during peak traffic and you have had downtime during high-value events.
• Expansion friction: Adding a new sales channel, market, or fulfilment method requires significant custom development work.
• Security incidents: You have experienced a breach, a vulnerability warning, or a compliance audit that raised concerns about your current setup.

If two or more of these describe your situation, the case for migration is strong.

One of our clients, a US-based health and wellness brand processing approximately $750,000 annually, migrated from WooCommerce to Shopify in seven weeks. Within 90 days of launch, checkout conversion improved by 19% and their team’s monthly developer spend dropped by more than half. The trigger was a Black Friday incident where a plugin conflict took their cart offline for four hours during peak traffic.– CommerceShop client case study

What to Expect From a WooCommerce to Shopify Migration

A properly executed migration transfers everything that matters: products, customer records, order history, SEO rankings, and custom functionality, without disruption to your business.

Platform migration is one of the highest-risk eCommerce operations you will undertake. Done carelessly, it can mean lost data, broken redirects, SEO ranking drops, and extended downtime. Done correctly, it is a clean transition that positions your store for the next stage of growth.

The process broadly involves:

1. Pre-migration audit: Cataloguing all products, customer data, order history, custom features, and third-party integrations.
2. Data migration: Transferring all store data to Shopify with validation checks at every stage.
3. Design and feature recreation: Rebuilding your storefront in Shopify, with the opportunity to improve UX, performance, and conversion along the way.
4. SEO preservation: 301 redirects, metadata transfer, sitemap updates, and structured data. All critical to protecting your organic rankings.
5. Post-launch testing and monitoring: Verifying all functionality, payment flows, integrations, and analytics tracking before and after go-live.

Typical Migration Timeline

Note: Larger stores with complex catalogues, ERP/warehouse integrations, or custom subscription logic typically fall in the 8 to 12-week range.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose my SEO rankings when I migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?

Not if the migration is executed correctly. SEO risk in platform migrations comes from broken URL structures, missing 301 redirects, lost metadata, and changes to site speed. A properly managed migration addresses all of these in advance. In many cases, stores see improved SEO performance after migration due to Shopify’s faster load times and cleaner site architecture.

How much does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration cost?

Migration cost depends on store complexity: the number of products, customers, custom integrations, and the extent of design work required. Straightforward migrations start from around $2,500 to $5,000. Complex migrations with custom functionality, large catalogues, and multi-channel integrations typically range from $10,000 to $30,000+. A reputable agency will provide a detailed scoping estimate before any commitment.

Can I migrate my WooCommerce customer data to Shopify?

Yes. Products, customer records, order history, and metadata can all be migrated. Your customers will not need to create new accounts, and your order history will remain intact. One consideration: passwords cannot be migrated due to encryption differences, so customers will be prompted to reset their password on first login to the new store.

Should I migrate to Shopify or Shopify Plus?

Shopify’s core plans suit most small to mid-size stores. Shopify Plus (starting at $2,300/month) is designed for high-volume merchants needing advanced customisation, dedicated support, B2B functionality, and multiple storefront management. If you are processing over $1 million annually or require enterprise-level features, Plus is worth evaluating as part of your migration scope.

How long does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration take?

A small store with under 500 products and standard functionality can typically be migrated in 3 to 5 weeks. Mid-size stores with complex catalogues, custom features, or third-party ERP integrations usually take 8 to 12 weeks. Rushed migrations increase the risk of data errors and SEO damage. A realistic timeline is always worth protecting.

What happens to my WooCommerce subscriptions and memberships?

Subscription and membership functionality is available natively on Shopify through apps like Recharge, Bold Subscriptions, and Shopify’s own built-in subscription features. Existing subscriber data (billing cycles, plan types, customer records) needs to be mapped across manually or via migration tooling, and any discount or loyalty program logic needs to be rebuilt in the Shopify ecosystem. This is one of the more complex migration elements and should be scoped carefully.