If you’ve asked three Shopify agencies for a migration quote, you’ve probably got three very different numbers back, anywhere from a few thousand dollars to well into six figures. That’s not agencies being cagey. Migration cost genuinely depends on variables that aren’t visible until someone actually opens up your current store and counts what’s in it.
This post breaks down what actually drives Shopify migration cost for Australian merchants, what a realistic range looks like by store size and complexity, and which “hidden” costs catch people out. No fabricated case studies, no vendor spin, just how the pricing actually works based on doing this kind of project repeatedly.
If you want a proper scoped number for your own store, that’s what a Shopify migration engagement starts with, a discovery phase that turns these variables into a fixed quote. But you should understand the mechanics first.
The Short Answer
For an Australian small-to-mid-sized store (roughly under 1,000 SKUs, standard theme, a handful of app integrations), a professionally managed migration to Shopify typically lands somewhere between AUD $5,000 and $25,000. Larger, more complex stores, heavy customisation, ERP integrations, multi-currency, B2B logic, tens of thousands of SKUs, commonly run from $25,000 to well over $100,000, especially if you’re moving onto Shopify Plus.
DIY migrations using Shopify’s built-in Store Importer or a migration app can cost as little as the app subscription fee (often under $100), but they rarely handle SEO redirects, custom fields, historical order data, or design faithfully, so the “cheap” option often creates cleanup costs later that exceed what a proper migration would have cost upfront.
What Actually Drives the Price
1. Data volume and complexity
The number of products isn’t the whole story, it’s what’s attached to them. A 500-SKU store with simple variants (size, colour) migrates far more cheaply than a 500-SKU store with custom metafields, bundled products, subscription variants, or B2B tiered pricing. Order history, customer accounts, and years of blog content all add time.
2. Source platform
Some platforms hand data over cleanly; others don’t:
- WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, generally well-supported by migration tooling, so the mechanical data transfer is faster.
- Magento/Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, custom-built platforms, usually require custom scripting to extract data cleanly, which adds development time.
- Neto, AU-specific quirks (particularly around how it handles multi-warehouse inventory and B2B pricing) that generic migration tools don’t anticipate.
3. Theme and design work
Reusing a stock Shopify theme with light customisation is the cheapest path. Rebuilding a highly bespoke storefront, custom Liquid sections, a headless front end, or a pixel-perfect recreation of an existing custom design, is where budgets climb fastest. This is usually the single biggest cost variable after data complexity.
4. App and integration migration
Every third-party tool connected to your current store, ERP, accounting (Xero, MYOB), inventory management, loyalty, reviews, shipping, needs to be re-integrated, not just reinstalled. Some Shopify App Store equivalents are drop-in replacements; others require custom API work, particularly for enterprise systems like NetSuite or Cin7.
5. SEO migration work
This is the cost category most DIY migrations skip entirely, and it’s the one with the highest downside risk. Every URL on your current site needs to be mapped to its new Shopify equivalent with proper 301 redirects, meta data needs to be preserved or improved, and structured data needs to be rebuilt. Skipping this is how stores lose organic traffic for months after a migration, see our migration SEO checklist for what’s actually involved.
6. Shopify Plus vs standard Shopify
If your order volume, GMV, or complexity justifies Shopify Plus, you’re looking at a materially higher project cost, more complex checkout customisation, B2B functionality, and often multi-store or multi-currency setups that take longer to configure and test properly.
A Rough Cost Framework by Store Type
Treat these as general industry ranges based on typical project shapes, not quoted prices for your specific store:
| Store profile | Typical range (AUD) |
|---|---|
| Small store, stock theme, <200 SKUs, few apps | $3,000 to $8,000 |
| Mid-size store, moderate customisation, 200 to 2,000 SKUs | $8,000 to $25,000 |
| Larger store, custom theme, ERP/accounting integrations | $25,000 to $60,000 |
| Enterprise/Shopify Plus replatform, B2B, multi-currency | $60,000 to $150,000+ |
Timeframes generally track with cost, a straightforward migration might run 4 to 6 weeks, while a complex enterprise replatform can take several months. We cover this in more depth in a dedicated piece on how long a Shopify migration actually takes.
Hidden Costs People Forget to Budget For
- Shopify apps replacing old functionality. Many stores discover their old platform had built-in features (advanced discounting, certain shipping logic) that require paid Shopify apps to replicate, an ongoing monthly cost, not just a migration cost.
- Theme licence or custom build. A premium Shopify theme licence is a one-off cost (commonly in the low hundreds of dollars), but customising it beyond out-of-the-box functionality is billed as development time.
- Content and copy updates. If you’re migrating anyway, many merchants take the opportunity to refresh product copy, category structure, or imagery, worth budgeting separately if you want this done properly rather than as an afterthought.
- Post-launch monitoring. The first few weeks after go-live need attention, checking indexing, redirect coverage, checkout flows, and app behaviour. This is often underestimated and rushed.
- GST and payment gateway setup. Getting Shopify’s GST configuration right for Australian tax requirements is a small task that’s easy to get wrong if it’s not on anyone’s checklist.
When a Cheap Migration Ends Up Expensive
The most common pattern we see with underpriced or purely DIY migrations isn’t that they fail outright, it’s that they “work” on launch day and then quietly cost the business over the following months. Broken redirects tank organic rankings. Missing metafields break product pages nobody checks until a customer complains. Integrations that “mostly” work create data mismatches between Shopify and accounting systems. Fixing these after the fact, under time pressure, with a live store, almost always costs more than doing it properly the first time.
That’s the practical argument for treating a migration as a proper project rather than a weekend task, even for a modest-sized store.
An Illustrative Example: Two Different Budgets
It helps to see how the same “migration” question produces two very different answers, depending on what’s actually involved. These are illustrative, not real client figures.
Store A: A 150-SKU apparel brand on Squarespace, simple size/colour variants, no custom fields, using Shopify Payments and a single shipping app. A stock theme with brand colours and a logo swap covers the design brief. This kind of project sits toward the lower end of the range, the data is clean, the app stack is minimal, and there’s no legacy integration debt to untangle.
Store B: A 1,200-SKU homewares retailer moving off a self-hosted platform, with a custom-built pricing engine for trade customers, an ERP feeding stock levels across three warehouses, and a heavily customised existing site design the owner wants replicated closely. Even before Shopify Plus enters the conversation, this project sits well into the mid-to-upper part of the range, because the ERP integration and custom pricing logic alone can take as much time as the entire rest of Store A’s migration combined.
The lesson isn’t “complexity is expensive”, that’s obvious. It’s that two stores with a similar SKU count can have wildly different costs, because SKU count was never the main driver. If you’re benchmarking your own likely cost against a number a colleague or competitor mentioned, ask what was actually involved in their migration before assuming it applies to yours.
Fixed Quote vs Time-and-Materials Pricing
Agencies typically price migrations one of two ways, and it’s worth understanding the difference before you sign anything:
- Fixed quote, a set price based on a defined scope, agreed after discovery. This gives budget certainty but requires the scope to be genuinely well-defined upfront; scope creep (a feature added mid-project) usually triggers a change order rather than being absorbed silently.
- Time-and-materials, billed against actual hours worked, often used for larger or less-defined projects where the full scope can’t be nailed down until work is underway (common in enterprise replatforms with unknowns in data complexity).
For most small-to-mid-sized Australian merchants, a fixed quote after a proper discovery phase is the more predictable option, and it’s worth being wary of any agency willing to quote a fixed price without first looking at your actual store.
Getting an Accurate Quote for Your Store
Because cost depends so heavily on what’s actually in your current store, any number you get before someone looks at your product catalogue, app stack, and theme is a rough estimate at best. A proper quoting process should involve:
- An audit of your current store’s data (SKU count, variants, metafields, order history volume)
- A review of your current apps/integrations and what needs replicating on Shopify
- A design decision, stock theme, customised theme, or full custom/headless build
- An SEO audit of your existing URLs, rankings, and content that needs preserving
- A clear breakdown of one-off migration cost vs ongoing Shopify subscription and app costs
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shopify itself expensive compared to my current platform?
Shopify’s own subscription (not the migration cost) is generally competitive with, or cheaper than, many legacy platforms once you account for hosting, security, and maintenance that Shopify includes by default. The migration cost is a separate, one-off project cost on top of your ongoing plan fee.
Can I migrate to Shopify myself for free?
You can use Shopify’s free Store Importer for basic product, customer, and order data from supported platforms. It won’t handle theme design, custom fields, SEO redirects, or complex app integrations, so “free” usually means a lot of manual cleanup afterwards, which has its own cost in time.
Does migrating to Shopify Plus cost more than standard Shopify?
Yes, generally. Shopify Plus migrations tend to involve more complex checkout customisation, B2B logic, and integration requirements, which increases both the project cost and the ongoing platform fee. It’s only worth the jump if your order volume or business complexity genuinely needs Plus-level features, see our guide on whether Shopify Plus is worth it.
How do I avoid losing SEO rankings during a migration?
The main risk is broken or missing 301 redirects and lost metadata. A proper migration maps every indexed URL to its new destination, preserves title tags and meta descriptions where they’re performing, and monitors Google Search Console closely in the weeks after launch.
What’s the cheapest way to reduce my migration cost without cutting corners?
Simplify before you migrate, not after. Archiving discontinued products, consolidating duplicate variants, and cleaning up your app stack before the project starts reduces the amount of data and complexity someone has to migrate, which directly reduces cost.
Next Step
If you want a real number instead of a range, the most efficient path is a short scoping conversation where we look at your actual store. Book a call and we’ll walk through your current setup and give you a straight answer on what a migration would actually involve for your store.
