Why stores leave WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a good way to start a store. It is a hard way to run one past a certain size. The pattern we see in the stores that come to us is the same every time:
- Plugin conflicts. A store that has grown for five years has 30 to 50 plugins. An update to one breaks the checkout or the product page, and nobody knows which until a customer tells you.
- Hosting. The store needs a host that can take traffic peaks, plus a CDN, security plugin, backups and a staging copy, each a separate bill and login. When the site slows down, the host blames the plugins and the plugin authors blame the host.
- PHP and WordPress updates. Every PHP version change and major WordPress release is a small project: test, fix the plugin that broke, test again. Skip it and you carry security debt.
- Checkout speed. A WooCommerce checkout runs on your server through a theme and a stack of plugins. On a phone it is often slow enough to lose orders. Shopify's checkout runs on Shopify's servers and you cannot slow it down if you try.
None of this means WooCommerce is bad. It means that at some point the time spent keeping the store up is worth more than the control you get from owning the stack. If you are at that point, here is what the move involves and what it costs.
What moves, and what cannot move as it is
Most of a WooCommerce store moves cleanly. A few things cannot move in the form they are in. Here are both.
| Data | Moves? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Simple and variable products | Yes | Variable products become products with variants; attributes become options or metafields |
| Images, descriptions, SKUs, stock | Yes | Imported and checked product by product |
| Product categories and tags | Yes | Categories become collections; tags become Shopify tags |
| Custom fields (ACF and similar) | Yes | Mapped to metafields and shown by the theme |
| Customers, addresses, consent | Yes | Accounts imported; newsletter consent carried over |
| Customer passwords | No | WordPress password hashes cannot be read by Shopify; see FAQ |
| Order history | Yes | Imported as read-only orders attached to each customer, with the original order number kept as a tag |
| Coupons | Yes | Recreated as discount codes; percentage, fixed and free-shipping rules carry over |
| Reviews | Yes | Exported from WooCommerce and imported into a Shopify reviews app |
| Subscriptions | Partly | Records move; saved cards move only when the gateway allows it; see FAQ |
| SEO titles and descriptions | Yes | Yoast or Rank Math fields become Shopify SEO fields |
| Blog posts | Your choice | Into Shopify's blog, or WordPress stays at a subdomain |
| Theme | Rebuilt | Shopify does not run WordPress themes; see below |
| Plugins | Mapped | Each becomes a Shopify feature, an app, or a custom piece |
Shopify numbers orders its own way, so an imported order keeps its WooCommerce number as a tag and in a note. Your customers can see past purchases in their account; your team can search by either number.
The theme question
Your WordPress theme does not come to Shopify; the two systems render pages in different languages. You have two choices, and they decide your price tier.
Set up a Shopify theme. Pick one from the theme store; we configure it with your logo, colours, type, menus and content. Small tier, and right for most stores under 500 products.
Rebuild your design as a custom theme. If your current design is part of your brand, we rebuild it page by page so a returning customer sees the same store. Mid-size tier: longer and dearer, and for some stores the right call.
The WordPress blog: move it or keep it
This is the question other migration pages skip, and for a content-heavy store it matters more than the catalog.
Shopify's blog is deliberately simple. It has posts, tags and authors. It has no categories, no nested structure, no custom post types and limited layout control. If your blog is 40 posts of store news, move it into Shopify and be done.
If your blog is 300 posts that bring search traffic, with categories and internal links built over years, keep it. We leave WordPress at a subdomain (blog.yourstore.com), remove WooCommerce and the store plugins so the install becomes small and easy to maintain, and link the two sites both ways. Every old post URL on the main domain is redirected. You keep the writing tool you know and the rankings you earned.
Either way the decision is written into the scope before work starts, with the redirect plan for every post.
A worked example
Illustrative numbers, not a client. A UK home and garden store: 1,840 products of which 310 are variable, 41 active plugins, a custom child theme, WooCommerce Subscriptions with 220 active subscribers, six years of orders, a 140-post blog.
- 41 plugins on a PHP 7.4 host, a 4.1 s checkout on phone, a weekly plugin-update routine, a developer bill that arrives whether or not anything changed
+ 1,840 products with 2,900 variants, 11 apps, 220 subscriptions carried into Shopify Subscriptions with cards imported from Stripe, 3,100 URLs redirected, custom theme rebuilt, live in five weeks
Product count set the tier, the theme was rebuilt rather than replaced, and one gift-wrap plugin with no app equivalent became a custom piece. All three were in the estimate before the owner said yes.
What it costs
Fixed prices, decided from the store scan and written down before any work starts. The estimate shows which tier you fall in and why. Full detail on the cost page.
| Store | Fits when | Fixed price |
|---|---|---|
| SmallStandard Shopify theme, up to 5 apps | Up to 500 products, one currency, one language | from $4,500 |
| Mid-sizeCustom theme work, up to 10 apps | Up to 5,000 products, your design rebuilt, a few integrations | $9,000 to $18,000 |
| Large or PlusB2B, multi-currency, custom apps | Over 5,000 products, wholesale pricing, several markets, ERP connections | $18,000 to $35,000 |
| Plugin with no Shopify appPer piece, fixed | Your own business logic that no app covers | $600 to $2,000 |
| Care planOptional, cancel any month | Theme and app updates, small changes, monitoring, a named engineer | $300 to $900 a month |
SEO redirects and 30 days of post-launch fixes are included in every tier. Half the fee is due at the start and half at launch.
Published full-service prices for this move run from about $3,000 to $7,000 and up for small stores, and well past $15,000 where a theme is rebuilt (published agency price pages, 2026). Ours sit inside that band and are fixed before you start.
How it runs
Free estimate (2 working days)
You give us the store URL. We read what is public, and if you grant read-only WordPress admin access we export the plugin list and catalog counts. You get a written estimate: products and variants, each plugin mapped to Shopify, the password and subscription position, the blog recommendation, timeline and a fixed price.
Scope and schedule (1 week)
You say yes, we write the full scope: every row of the table above against your store, the launch date, who is on the job. You sign; half the fee is paid; we start.
Build on a staging store (2 to 4 weeks)
Catalog, customers and orders are imported and checked. The theme is set up or rebuilt. Apps are installed in your own Shopify account. You get a staging login in the first week and a short written log every working day.
Test, then switch (1 week)
Test orders through every payment method and shipping rate, on desktop and phone. Redirect list checked URL by URL. Final import of orders placed during the build. DNS switch at a time you choose. WordPress stays up for rollback.
Watch and hand over (30 days)
We watch Search Console, redirects and checkout daily for 30 days and fix anything that moved. Training session, written notes, and the care plan offer if you want someone on call.
Where we come from
RiantSoft was founded in Ahmedabad in 2009. Our engineers have spent seventeen years building, patching and maintaining stores on Magento, WooCommerce and Shopify for US and UK clients. We know where WooCommerce plugins keep their data and why a WordPress password hash is no use to Shopify. That is why the estimate holds.
Three ways to start
- Get a free migration estimate: the fastest way to a fixed price for your store.
- Read what a migration costs: every price driver explained with examples.
- Email info@riantsoft.com with a question. Written reply within one US business day.
Questions people ask
Will my customers have to create new accounts?
No. Their accounts, addresses and order history move. What cannot move is the password, because WordPress stores it as a hash that Shopify cannot read, and no migration tool can reverse that. With Shopify's current customer accounts, people log in with a one-time code sent to their email, so most of your customers never notice. If you keep the older account style, each customer sets a password once on first login, and we send the announcement email for you before launch.
Can you move my WooCommerce Subscriptions?
Yes, with one condition that depends on your payment gateway. The subscription records (plan, price, next billing date, customer) move into Shopify Subscriptions or a subscription app. The saved card is the hard part. If your cards are vaulted with Stripe, Shopify Payments can import them and billing continues with no action from the customer. With other gateways the customer enters their card once. We tell you which case you are in during the estimate, not after.
What happens to my WordPress blog?
You have two good choices and we help you pick. Move the posts into Shopify's blog, which is simple and fast but has no categories, only tags, and fewer layout options. Or keep WordPress running at a subdomain such as blog.yourstore.com with the store plugins removed, so the blog you have stays exactly as it is. Either way every old post URL gets a redirect so nothing you ranked for is lost.
How do variable products come across?
A WooCommerce variable product becomes a Shopify product with variants. Shopify allows three options per product (for example size, colour and material) and 100 variants per product on a standard set-up. Most stores fit easily. If you have products that combine more than three attributes, or more than 100 combinations, we list each one in the estimate and propose how to split or restructure it before you commit.
Will I lose my Google rankings?
Not if the redirects are done properly, and they are included in every migration. WooCommerce URLs look like /product/name/; Shopify uses /products/name, so every URL changes. We map every product, category, page, post and tag URL to its new address with a permanent redirect, carry over the Yoast or Rank Math titles and descriptions, resubmit the sitemap and watch Search Console for 30 days. Expect a small dip for two to four weeks while Google recrawls, then recovery.
Do all my plugins have a Shopify equivalent?
Most do, some do not, and the estimate shows which is which. Payment, shipping, tax, reviews, SEO fields, email capture and wishlists all have apps or are built into Shopify. Custom fields from ACF become metafields. Plugins that hold your own business logic, a bespoke pricing rule for example, need a small custom piece at a fixed price of $600 to $2,000 each. Most stores end up with far fewer apps than they had plugins.
How long will my store be offline?
It is not offline. WooCommerce keeps trading while we build the Shopify store on a staging domain. On launch day we import the orders placed since the last sync, point your domain at Shopify, and the switch takes minutes. Your WordPress install stays untouched for rollback until you are happy. Most stores launch on a quiet weekday evening in your time zone.