Every migration tool moves products and customers. The good ones move orders, metafields and redirects. None of them moves the things that decide whether the new store is better than the old one: the theme, the apps that replace the old platform’s extensions, the checkout logic, the URL map, and the rankings that depend on all of it. A migration is a data job and a build job, and the tool only does the first.
This is the comparison we give clients before a platform migration: four tools, what each moves from Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Amazon, and the five things you will do yourself or with an agency regardless. For the costs, see what agencies actually charge; for the sequence, how to move without losing SEO, data or revenue.
Summary
- Shopify Store Importer (free, Shopify): products and customers from the common platforms; the right tool for a small catalogue with no order history to keep.
- Matrixify: the professional’s tool — bulk import and export through spreadsheets, including orders, metafields and redirects; you run it, you inspect every row.
- Cart2Cart: an automated migration service priced per entity; hands-off, with the trade-offs that implies.
- LitExtension: the same category as Cart2Cart, with all-in-one packages and a support team.
- None of them: the theme, the apps, the checkout, the redirect map, the speed.
What a migration has to move
| Entity | Why it matters | Where tools struggle |
|---|---|---|
| Products, variants, images | The catalogue | Option structures that do not map to Shopify’s three options; configurable products; image order |
| Collections / categories | Navigation and SEO landing pages | Nested category trees; smart vs manual collection rules |
| Customers | Accounts, marketing consent | Passwords never migrate; consent must be re-captured correctly |
| Orders | Lifetime value, returns, reorders | Historical orders only; refunds and partial fulfilments; taxes as recorded |
| Metafields and attributes | Specs, filters, custom content | Attribute sets that have to become metafield definitions first |
| Reviews | Social proof | Usually a separate export into the new review app |
| URLs and redirects | Rankings | The tool can import a redirect list; it cannot decide it |
| Content pages and blog | Rankings, support | Formatting, embedded media, internal links pointing at old URLs |
The four tools
1. Shopify Store Importer
Shopify’s own importer is free, built into the admin, and handles products and customers from WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Squarespace, Wix and others via export files or a connected account, with orders for some platforms. It is the right tool for a small catalogue without order history to preserve: it is simple, and its limits are the simplicity — no metafields, limited option mapping, no redirects, and little control over how a bad row is handled. Import into a development store first and inspect the result before trusting it on the live one.
2. Matrixify
Matrixify (formerly Excelify) is what we use. Everything goes through spreadsheets — Excel, CSV, Google Sheets — and everything is inspectable before it lands: products with metafields and every image, collections, customers with tags and consent, orders with line items and refunds, discounts, pages, blog posts, and the redirect list. It reads Magento and WooCommerce exports directly and has templates for the rest. It is a tool for a person who will look at the data, which is the point: a migration you cannot inspect is one you cannot fix. Priced monthly by volume; a migration typically needs a month or two of a mid tier.
3. Cart2Cart
Cart2Cart is an automated migration service: connect the old store and the new one, pick the entities, pay per entity type and volume, and the service moves the data, with options for orders, reviews, SEO URLs and a re-migration for the delta at cutover. It is hands-off and fast, and the trade-off is control — mapping decisions are made by the service’s defaults, and the result needs the same inspection a spreadsheet would have needed anyway. Good for a mid-size catalogue where nobody on the team will open Matrixify.
4. LitExtension
LitExtension is the other established migration service, in the same category as Cart2Cart: automated transfer of products, customers, orders and content, all-in-one packages that include a person handling the migration, and support through cutover. The comparison between the two comes down to the platforms each supports best and the package price for your entity counts; get both quotes.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Model | Orders | Metafields | Redirects | Control | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Store Importer | Free, in the admin | Some platforms | No | No | Low | Small catalogues, no history |
| Matrixify | Monthly app fee | Yes, full | Yes | Yes (import a list) | Full | Any size, with someone who checks the data |
| Cart2Cart | Per entity | Yes | Partial | Yes (SEO URLs option) | Medium | Hands-off mid-size migrations |
| LitExtension | Per entity or package | Yes | Partial | Yes | Medium | Managed migrations with support |
What none of them move
1. The redirect map
Every old URL that ranks or is linked needs a 301 to the right new URL. Magento’s /category/product.html, WooCommerce’s /product/slug/, BigCommerce’s /slug/ all become Shopify’s /products/handle and /collections/handle, and the map is a decision per URL — which collection is the winner when three old categories become one, where the discontinued products go, what happens to the 400 blog posts. A tool can import the finished list; producing it is the SEO work. Skipping it is how stores lose 30–60% of organic traffic in the month after cutover.
2. The theme
The design does not migrate. Whether you rebuild the existing design as a custom Shopify theme (Figma to Shopify, or from the live site) or take the move as the moment to redesign, it is a build. The store’s speed after migration is decided here, and a slower new store gives back the SEO the redirects preserved.
3. The apps
Every Magento extension and WooCommerce plugin has to be replaced by a Shopify app, a native feature, or nothing. Subscriptions, reviews, loyalty, B2B pricing, search, bundles — each needs its data exported from the old system and imported into the new app, and the mapping is different every time. Our roundups of subscription, review and B2B apps are written partly for this moment.
4. The checkout and pricing logic
Tiered pricing, customer-group discounts, gift wrapping, shipping rules by product, tax edge cases — on Magento they were configuration; on Shopify they are Functions, checkout extensibility (Plus), or apps. This is the part that decides whether the move needs Shopify Plus and it should be scoped before the tool is chosen.
5. The integrations
ERP, 3PL, accounting, the email tool, the marketplace feeds. Each is a connector or a custom integration, and the order-history migration only matters if the systems downstream can read it.
Moving from Amazon
Amazon-first brands have a different problem: there is no store to migrate, just a catalogue in Seller Central, reviews that cannot legally leave Amazon, and customers whose email addresses the brand has never had. The tool question barely applies; the work is the build, the listing-to-product-page rewrite and the first-party customer base. Our Amazon to Shopify page and the Shopify vs Amazon comparison cover it.
A migration sequence that holds rankings
- Crawl the old site; list every URL with its traffic and links. This is the redirect map’s input.
- Decide the new URL structure and the collection winners. Produce the map.
- Build the theme on a development store; verify speed with the Store Speed Test on the staging URL before any data is live.
- Migrate data with the tool; inspect products, orders and customers row by row on the dev store.
- Replace the apps; import their data.
- Import the redirects; test the top 200 old URLs by hand.
- Cut over; re-migrate the delta; submit the new sitemap; watch Search Console daily for a month. The free SEO audit is a quick check that the new store’s crawlability and schema are in place on day one.
The tools are the cheapest part of this. A Magento to Shopify move for a mid-size catalogue runs $15,000–$75,000 as an agency engagement, and $80,000–$200,000+ for Plus with ERP and multi-currency — the pricing calculator gives a written estimate for yours.
FAQ
What is the best tool to migrate to Shopify?
Matrixify for a controlled migration you run yourself, with orders, customers, metafields and redirects in spreadsheets you can inspect. Cart2Cart or LitExtension when you want an automated service to move the data. Shopify’s own Store Importer for small catalogues without order history.
Can I migrate orders to Shopify?
Yes, with Matrixify or an automated migration service; Shopify’s Store Importer moves orders from some platforms and not others. Migrated orders are historical records — they will not re-trigger fulfilment or email — and they matter for customer lifetime value and returns.
Will I lose SEO rankings migrating to Shopify?
You will if URLs change without 301 redirects, if collection and product content is truncated, or if the new theme is slower than the old site. Migrated well — every old URL mapped, content moved intact, speed verified before cutover — stores usually hold or gain rankings. No migration tool does the redirect mapping for you; Matrixify can import the list once it exists.
How much does a Shopify migration cost?
Tools run from free to a few hundred dollars per entity type; an agency migration with the theme, apps, redirects and testing runs $15,000–$75,000 for a mid-market catalogue and $80,000–$200,000+ for Plus with ERP integrations. Our migration cost guide has the ranges by platform.
