Magento to Shopify Plus migration: what it really takes

Ireland's biggest salon group was paying about £3,000 a month just to keep its Magento store patched. That money bought security fixes and nothing a customer would ever see.

That's the real cost of staying on Magento, and since August 2026 it has gone up for a lot of brands. Magento 2.4.6 reached the end of standard support on 11 August 2026, and 2.4.7 follows on 31 May 2027.

I built the Shopify Plus store that the salon group moved to, alongside their agency. 22,495 customer accounts and more than 8,000 orders came across, and the store launched in January 2024. This guide covers what a Magento to Shopify Plus migration actually involves, where it goes wrong, and how to decide whether now is the time.

Is Magento end of life?

Adobe still releases new versions of Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source. Each version, though, has a fixed date when its support ends. After that date it gets no more security patches unless you pay for extended support.

Here are Adobe's published dates for the versions most stores are still running:

• Magento 2.4.5: standard support ends 12 August 2025, extended support ends 11 August 2026
• Magento 2.4.6: standard support ends 11 August 2026, extended support ends 31 August 2027
• Magento 2.4.7: standard support ends 31 May 2027, extended support ends 31 May 2028
• Magento 2.4.8: standard support ends 31 May 2028, extended support ends to be confirmed
• Magento 2.4.9: standard support ends 31 May 2029, extended support ends to be confirmed

Source: Adobe Commerce lifecycle policy.

Extended support is a paid option for Adobe Commerce customers. If you run Magento Open Source on 2.4.6, your store stopped getting security patches in August.

So every Magento store is on a clock. You either upgrade to a newer version every couple of years, with all the extension and theme work that brings, or you move.

What staying on Magento really costs

The licence or hosting bill is the cost people see. The bigger costs are the ones that never show up as a line item.

Security patches. Every patch has to be applied, tested and deployed by a developer. For the salon group, that was around £3,000 a month for work no customer ever saw.

Version upgrades. Moving from 2.4.6 to 2.4.8 isn't a button. Extensions break, themes need updating, and the whole store needs testing again.

Every change needs a developer. On most Magento stores I've seen, the marketing team can't safely change a banner or build a landing page without a developer. So small changes queue up and get billed.

Hosting and speed. Magento needs its own servers, caching and monitoring. On Shopify Plus, hosting, security and speed at the platform level are Shopify's job, and the monthly fee covers them.

None of these feel urgent on their own. Added up over a year, they're usually the reason a brand starts looking at Shopify Plus.

What moves from Magento to Shopify Plus, and what doesn't

The theme gets all the attention in meetings. The real job is the data, because that's what customers notice the morning after launch.

Customer accounts

Customer records move across: names, emails, addresses, marketing consent and tags. On the salon group's store, all 22,495 accounts came across.

Passwords don't. Magento and Shopify store passwords in different ways, so they can't be copied over. Every customer has to set a new password the first time they log in to the new store. Plan for it: send an account activation email at launch, and make the "reset your password" route on the login page impossible to miss. If you don't, your first week of support email will be people who can't log in.

Order history

Past orders can be imported so customers still see their history in their account, and your team can still find old orders. The salon group moved more than 8,000. Decide early how far back you need to go. Importing every order since 2015 is rarely worth it.

Products and catalogue

Products, variants, images, prices and stock all migrate. The structure is where the thinking goes. Magento's configurable products, bundles and custom attributes don't map one to one onto Shopify's products, variants and metafields, so each one needs a decision. This is also the cheapest moment you'll ever get to clean up a messy catalogue.

Gift cards and store credit

If customers hold gift cards or store credit, those balances have to keep working, both online and, for a brand with shops, at the till. On Shopify Plus you can create gift cards with existing balances. For the salon group, gift cards that kept working at the till were one of the non-negotiables.

Prices in more than one currency

The salon group sold in euro and sterling. On Magento that usually means separate store views. On Shopify Plus, Markets handles it from one store, with prices set per market.

Reviews, subscriptions and loyalty

These live in third-party apps on both platforms, so they move app to app: export from the Magento extension, import to the Shopify app. Check before you commit that your chosen apps can import what you have.

How to keep your Google rankings when you move

This is the part that costs a brand sales months later if it's skipped.

Redirect every old URL. Shopify uses fixed paths: /products/, /collections/ and /pages/. Your Magento URLs will almost all change. Every old product, category and content URL needs a 301 redirect to its new home. Shopify lets you import redirects in bulk, so the work is in building an accurate map, not in loading it.

Keep the content. Category descriptions, product copy and blog posts that rank today should come across as they are.

Check the launch, then check again. Crawl the old site before launch, test every redirect after it, and watch Google Search Console's "Not found" report for the first few weeks. Anything that slips through shows up there.

How long does a Magento to Shopify Plus migration take?

It depends far more on the data than on the design. A store with a simple catalogue and few integrations moves faster than one with an ERP, store credit and several currencies.

What slows a migration down is discovering halfway through that the data doesn't map, that an integration has no Shopify equivalent, or that nobody owns the decision about which orders to keep. That's why I scope the data before anyone shows a homepage design.

What a successful migration looks like

For the salon group, success on launch day meant nothing a customer would notice had changed: every account there, gift cards working, both currencies right.

The project, which the agency led and I built the Shopify Plus store for, went on to deliver 28% more online sales and a 70% higher conversion rate, and won a DMA Gold for Best Conversion Strategy. The £3,000 a month in Magento patching stopped.

Should you move now?

You should be planning a move if:

• You're on Magento Open Source 2.4.6 or older and getting no security patches
• You're paying a developer every month just to keep the store patched
• Your team can't change the site without a developer
• An upgrade to 2.4.8 or 2.4.9 is going to cost close to what a move would

You might be better staying if you have deep custom functionality that Shopify can't do and that genuinely earns its keep. That's rarer than most brands expect, so it's worth checking rather than assuming.

If you're weighing it up, start with the Shopify Plus migration checklist. It's the list I use on real migrations. Or book a call and I'll tell you what I'd look at first on your store.

FAQ

Can I migrate customer passwords from Magento to Shopify?

No. Magento and Shopify store passwords differently, so they can't be transferred. Customer accounts move across, and each customer sets a new password the first time they log in. Send an account activation email at launch to make it painless.

Will I lose my Google rankings if I move from Magento to Shopify?

Not if every old URL is redirected to its new page with a 301 redirect, and your ranking content comes across. Most ranking drops after a migration come from missing redirects.

When does Magento 2.4.6 lose support?

Standard support for Magento 2.4.6 ended on 11 August 2026. Adobe Commerce customers can buy extended support until 31 August 2027. Magento 2.4.7 reaches the end of standard support on 31 May 2027.

Can order history move from Magento to Shopify?

Yes. Past orders can be imported so customers see their history and your team can find old orders. Most brands choose a cut-off date rather than importing everything.

Do gift cards work after moving to Shopify Plus?

Yes. Shopify Plus can create gift cards with existing balances, so customers keep what they hold. If your gift cards are also used in shops, check the in-store system connects to Shopify before launch.