Migration quotes vary more than any other kind of ecommerce work, and the variance is almost entirely in one place: how messy the data you are leaving behind turns out to be.
The ranges
| Simple migrationClean catalogue under ~500 SKUs, few integrations | $6,000 - $12,000 |
| Standard migrationLarger catalogue, several integrations, redirect map | $12,000 - $30,000 |
| Complex replatformMagento or bespoke origin, B2B, multi-market, ERP | $30,000 - $80,000+ |
Starting points. We scope fixed after a discovery call that includes a look at your actual catalogue export.
What actually drives it
Catalogue structure, not catalogue size. Three thousand simple products is easier than three hundred with dependent options, custom attribute sets and category logic doing work it should not. Anyone quoting without having seen an export is guessing.
Integration count. ERP, 3PL, PIM, subscriptions, loyalty. Each is its own workstream.
URL history. A mature store has more indexed URLs than anyone remembers — old category structures, filter URLs, discontinued products with backlinks. Every one that matters needs mapping.
Whether you are redesigning at the same time. Doing both at once is the most common way a migration goes wrong, because when traffic moves you cannot tell whether the platform or the design caused it.
The most expensive migration is the cheap one that skipped the redirect map. Losing 30% of organic traffic costs more in a quarter than the mapping would have cost outright, and recovering it takes far longer than losing it did.
The line item that decides the project
URL mapping and redirect testing. If it is not explicitly in the quote with hours attached, the quote is incomplete. Ask how many URLs they have counted and how they intend to test the redirects before cutover, not after.
That single question separates agencies faster than anything else in this category.
Talk it through
Send us your current platform and rough SKU count.
We will tell you what the migration realistically involves and what it should cost — including when staying put is the better financial decision.
Get it scopedA real read within one business day — not a sales call.
What is not in the quote
Content migration if your blog is large. Photography if the new design needs different crops. The Shopify subscription itself. And the fortnight of your team's time that every migration consumes regardless of who is building it.
About the author
Manpreet Singh
Manpreet Singh is the founder of Proscube, an ecommerce growth studio. He leads the studio's Shopify and Shopify Plus engineering, headless builds, CRO, and its work on AI engine optimization, and writes its guidance on how to grow a DTC brand without wasting money. He works directly with founders — no account-manager layers between you and the people doing the work — and would rather tell a client not to build something than sell them work they don't need.
More about Manpreet
