Managed hosting
No capacity planning before a sale, no server bill that scales with traffic you did not forecast.
OFF WORDPRESS, ONTO SHOPIFY
WooCommerce to Shopify migration
We move WooCommerce stores onto Shopify with catalogue, customers and order history carried across and redirects mapped before launch. Dekoni Audio took this route.
IN SHORT
- A WooCommerce to Shopify migration usually takes 6 to 12 weeks, less than a Magento move because the data model is simpler.
- Products, variations, customers, orders and WordPress blog content all migrate; passwords do not, so customers reset at launch.
- Your WordPress blog can move into Shopify or stay on a subdomain — moving it keeps commercial traffic on one domain.
- Plugins do not port. Each one is replaced by a native Shopify feature, an app, or custom code.
- The saving is rarely the platform fee. It is hosting, plugin licences, security patching and the maintenance nobody budgets for.
- Typical duration
- 6–12 weeks
- Came off Woo
- Dekoni Audio
- Plugins
- Audited, then replaced or dropped
- Hosting bills
- End at cutover
- Old store
- Live until you switch DNS
Why brands outgrow WooCommerce
WooCommerce is excellent at the start. It is free, it sits on WordPress, and a small catalogue runs happily on modest hosting. The trouble arrives with scale, and it arrives as a maintenance bill nobody scoped.
A store doing real volume ends up with twenty or thirty active plugins, each on its own release cycle, each a potential conflict. Hosting has to be tuned and monitored. Someone has to own security patching. The checkout is a plugin extending a plugin. And the person who understands how it all fits together is usually one contractor.
None of that is a WooCommerce failing exactly — it is the cost of owning your own stack. The question is whether owning it is where you want your engineering budget going.
WooCommerce against Shopify, in practice
| WooCommerce | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform cost | Free core, paid plugins and hosting | Monthly platform fee, apps on top |
| Hosting | Yours to choose, tune and monitor | Included and scaled for you |
| Security patching | Your responsibility, core and every plugin | Handled by Shopify, PCI included |
| Checkout | Plugin-based, customisable, fragile at scale | Maintained by Shopify, high-converting by default |
| Traffic spikes | Needs capacity planning | Absorbed by the platform |
| Plugin conflicts | A recurring class of outage | Apps are sandboxed from core |
| Content and blogging | Best in class, it is WordPress | Capable, less powerful than WordPress |
| Who can change things | Often a developer | Sections your merchandisers control |
The honest trade: you give up WordPress’s content tooling and gain a platform that does not need you to maintain it. For most brands selling more than they publish, that is a good swap. If publishing is the business, keeping WordPress on a subdomain is the sensible middle.
How the migration runs
Six stages, typically 6 to 12 weeks depending on catalogue size and how much of the content operation moves with it.
- 01
Export and reconcile
Products, variations, customers and orders are exported from WooCommerce and reconciled against the live store, so the counts that arrive in Shopify match the counts that left.
- 02
Plugin audit
Every active plugin is assessed on what it earns. WooCommerce stores routinely carry plugins installed for one campaign years ago, and those are retired rather than replaced.
- 03
Content decision
We decide early whether the WordPress blog moves into Shopify or stays on a subdomain. Moving it consolidates authority on one domain; keeping it makes sense when the content operation is genuinely separate.
- 04
Theme build
The storefront is rebuilt as a Shopify theme with editable sections, rather than recreating a page builder layout that only worked because of a plugin.
- 05
Redirects
A redirect map is built from your live URLs — products, categories, tags, blog posts and any permalink structure WordPress was using — then tested against staging.
- 06
Launch and retire
After launch we retire the hosting, plugin licences and security tooling the old stack needed, which is usually where the ongoing saving actually appears.
What migrates, and what cannot
Data that migrates
- Products, variations, images and categories
- Customers and address books
- Order history with line items and status
- WordPress pages, posts, categories and tags
- URLs, through a redirect map built from your live permalinks
What needs rebuilding
Plugins. PHP does not port. Each plugin is replaced by a native Shopify feature, an app or custom code — and a fair number turn out to be unused.
Subscriptions. Rebuilt on a Shopify subscription platform rather than migrated, because the billing relationship sits with the gateway. See subscriptions and Recharge.
Passwords. Hashes never migrate between platforms. Customers reset at launch.
What you stop paying for
Plugin licences
The annual renewals that quietly add up across twenty or thirty plugins.
Security patching
Core and plugin patching becomes Shopify’s problem, along with PCI compliance.
Conflict firefighting
The outage class where one plugin update breaks checkout on a Friday afternoon.
What drives the cost
WooCommerce sites are priced by their plugin stack, because that is where the behaviour lives. These move the number most.
Plugins in use●●●●●
A WooCommerce store is its plugins. Each needs a decision: a Shopify app, native functionality, a custom build, or dropping it. Thirty plugins is a different project from nine.
Custom post types and fields●●●●
Product data stored in ACF or custom post types has no direct Shopify equivalent and maps onto metafields, which is a modelling job rather than an export.
Theme customisation to carry across●●●
A heavily customised WordPress theme means the front end is being rebuilt rather than ported, which is a build project attached to a migration.
URL structure●●●
WordPress permalink structures rarely match Shopify. The redirect map is built from real search data, not from the sitemap.
Subscriptions and memberships●●
WooCommerce Subscriptions data needs a target platform chosen before migration, because the customer records have to land somewhere that can bill them.
The plugin audit is stage one for exactly this reason — a site with nine plugins is a different project from one with thirty.
Brands that made this move
Dekoni Audio moved from WooCommerce to Shopify with us — an audio accessories catalogue with heavy variant structure, where getting products, customers and order history across cleanly mattered more than any redesign.
Dekoni Audio
WooCommerce migration questions
What WooCommerce owners ask before committing. The plugin audit answers the ones specific to your site.
What happens to our WordPress blog?
Either migrate it into Shopify blogs or keep WordPress on a subdomain and redirect. We recommend migrating when the blog drives commercial traffic, so everything sits on one domain.
Is Shopify cheaper than running WooCommerce?
It depends on what you count. Shopify has a platform fee but removes hosting, plugin licences, security patching and most maintenance — for most mid-market brands the total is lower and far more predictable.
How long does a WooCommerce to Shopify migration take?
Typically 6 to 12 weeks from discovery to launch. It is usually faster than a Magento migration because the WooCommerce data model is simpler and there are fewer bespoke server-side customisations to rebuild.
Will our WooCommerce product URLs still work?
Yes, through redirects. WordPress permalink structures differ from Shopify URL patterns, so every product, category, tag and blog URL is mapped and the map is crawled against staging before launch.
Can we keep WooCommerce subscriptions?
The subscriptions themselves are rebuilt on a Shopify subscription platform rather than migrated as-is, because the billing relationship lives with the payment gateway. We plan that transition with you rather than switching it silently.
Related
Magento to Shopify Plus
The migration we have run most often — Trunki, Big Shoes and Halcyon Nights all came off Magento.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify
Enterprise replatforming without an enterprise timeline — the route Chicco took.
BigCommerce & legacy Shopify
Older Shopify themes and BigCommerce stores rebuilt on Plus with the data and search equity carried over.
On a different platform? See Magento to Shopify Plus or the full migration service. Once you are on Shopify, speed optimization is usually the first thing worth doing.
NEXT STEP
Migration scoping call
Bring your plugin list, catalogue size and whether the blog moves with you. You leave with a phased plan, a timeline and a price in writing.