Leaving Shopify? What to Consider Before You Migrate

You have built your store on Shopify, invested time in your product catalogue, configured your theme, installed a dozen apps — and now you're watching costs climb, hitting customisation walls, and wondering whether you actually own any of it. You're not alone. The decision to leave Shopify is one that thousands of store owners face every year as they outgrow the platform's limitations. Before you make the move, here is what you need to know — the real challenges, the platform options, and the migration path that preserves your SEO and revenue.

This guide covers every critical consideration: from URL structure changes and data migration to payment gateway transitions and customer communication strategies. Whether you're moving to WooCommerce, going headless, or evaluating other platforms entirely, the risks and rewards are the same — and planning is everything.

Why store owners leave Shopify

The reasons for leaving Shopify are remarkably consistent across store owners, regardless of niche or revenue level. It's rarely a single issue — it's the accumulation of frustrations that tips the balance.

Rising costs as revenue grows. Shopify's pricing model is designed to extract more money the more successful you become. Transaction fees take a percentage of every sale, app subscriptions compound monthly, and the jump to Plus ($2,300/month) becomes inevitable once you need checkout customisation or advanced automation. A store doing $500k/year can easily spend $15,000-20,000 annually on Shopify once you factor in subscription, apps, and transaction fees.

The customisation ceiling. Shopify's Liquid templating language limits what you can build without deep platform expertise. The checkout is locked on standard plans. Theme customisation beyond the drag-and-drop editor requires specialist developers at $100-200/hour. Every creative idea runs into the same wall: "you need Plus for that."

Vendor lock-in concerns. Your templates are written in Liquid (proprietary to Shopify). Your apps store data in formats you cannot export. Your checkout flow is controlled by Shopify's rules. Every month you stay deepens the lock-in, making future migration progressively harder and more expensive.

Data ownership anxiety. On Shopify, you are a tenant, not an owner. Shopify can change terms, increase pricing, or deprecate features at any time. Your customer data, order history, and product catalogue live on Shopify's servers under Shopify's rules. For many store owners, that lack of control becomes untenable as the business grows. For a detailed cost breakdown, see our guide to Shopify's real costs.

What you risk when you migrate

Migration is not without risk. Understanding these risks upfront is what separates a smooth transition from a revenue-damaging disaster. Every one of these risks is manageable — but only if you plan for them.

SEO regression

This is the single biggest risk when leaving any ecommerce platform. Shopify uses a specific URL structure — /products/your-slug for products, /collections/your-collection for categories — that almost certainly differs from your new platform. On WooCommerce, the default is /product/your-slug or /shop/your-slug. That difference matters enormously to Google.

301 redirects are critical. Every old Shopify URL must permanently redirect to its equivalent on the new platform. Miss even a handful of high-traffic URLs and you'll see organic traffic drop within days. Google takes 2-6 months to fully process URL changes even with proper redirects in place, so expect a temporary dip in search visibility regardless of how well you execute.

The good news: domain authority stays intact if redirects are implemented correctly. Your backlinks, your brand signals, and your domain history all transfer. The transition period is temporary — most stores recover to pre-migration traffic levels within 3-4 months and often exceed them within 6 months as the new platform's technical SEO advantages take effect.

Data migration complexity

Not all data is created equal when it comes to migration difficulty. Products are generally straightforward — Shopify offers CSV export, and most platforms accept CSV import. Product images, variants, and basic metadata transfer cleanly. Historical order data is more complex but achievable through API export or third-party migration tools.

Customer data is where things get tricky. Email addresses, names, shipping addresses, and purchase history can be exported and imported. But customer account passwords cannot. Shopify hashes passwords in a proprietary format that no other platform can read. Every single customer will need to create a new password on your new store.

Reviews are another consideration. If you're using a third-party review platform like Judge.me or Yotpo, your reviews may transfer independently of Shopify. If you're using Shopify's built-in reviews (or a Shopify-only app), you'll need to export them manually and import them into your new review solution.

Payment gateway transition

Shopify Payments is a white-labelled version of Stripe that only works within Shopify. When you leave, you lose access to Shopify Payments immediately. The good news is that setting up Stripe directly (or any other payment gateway) is straightforward — and you'll typically pay the same processing rates without the additional platform transaction fees.

Subscription billing requires special attention. If you're using Shopify-specific subscription tools like Recharge or Bold Subscriptions, those active subscriptions cannot simply be transferred. You'll need to set up equivalent subscription management on the new platform and coordinate the transition with your subscribers to avoid billing interruptions.

App functionality gaps

Shopify apps do not work outside Shopify. Every app you rely on needs a WooCommerce plugin equivalent or custom-built replacement. For most common functionality — email marketing, reviews, upsells, loyalty programmes, SEO tools — mature WooCommerce alternatives exist. Some are free, many are one-time purchases rather than monthly subscriptions.

The exceptions are apps with deep Shopify-specific integrations: dropshipping tools like DSers, Shopify-native POS integrations, and some fulfilment centre connections. If your business depends heavily on Shopify-exclusive integrations, map out alternatives before committing to migration. In some cases, custom development may be needed to replicate functionality that a Shopify app provided out of the box.

Where to migrate: your options

The destination you choose shapes everything — migration complexity, ongoing costs, performance, and long-term flexibility. Here are the four main paths, with honest assessments of each.

WooCommerce (traditional)

WooCommerce is the most common destination for Shopify migrants, and for good reason. It's free, open-source, self-hosted, and runs on WordPress — the platform that powers over 40% of the web. The plugin ecosystem is massive, community support is excellent, and you own everything: your code, your data, your hosting, your deployment.

The trade-off with traditional WooCommerce is frontend performance. WordPress themes built with PHP are inherently slower than JavaScript-rendered storefronts. Out of the box, a WooCommerce store will load slower than Shopify unless you invest in caching, CDN configuration, and theme optimisation. It's solvable, but it requires technical attention that Shopify abstracts away.

Headless WooCommerce + Next.js

This is the approach that eliminates every compromise. You keep WooCommerce as your backend for managing products, orders, inventory, and customer data — but replace the WordPress theme entirely with a modern Next.js frontend deployed on edge servers. The result is a store that loads faster than Shopify, costs less to run, and gives you complete control over every pixel of the customer experience.

The headless approach requires a frontend developer comfortable with React and Next.js, but the ongoing maintenance is actually simpler than managing a traditional WooCommerce theme plus a dozen plugins. For a full introduction, see our guide to headless WooCommerce.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is the SaaS alternative that's more API-friendly than Shopify. It offers better built-in features (reducing app dependency), no platform transaction fees on any plan, and a more flexible architecture. For stores that want to stay on a managed platform but escape Shopify's pricing and lock-in, BigCommerce is worth evaluating.

The catch: you're still a tenant on someone else's platform. BigCommerce can change pricing, deprecate features, or alter terms just like Shopify can. Monthly fees still apply, and while the app ecosystem is growing, it's smaller than both Shopify's and WooCommerce's. For a detailed comparison, see our BigCommerce vs WooCommerce headless comparison.

Pure headless (Medusa, Saleor)

Open-source headless commerce platforms like Medusa and Saleor offer maximum control and zero vendor lock-in. They're API-first by design, built with modern stacks (Node.js, Python), and fully self-hosted. For developer teams building from scratch with specific architectural requirements, these are compelling options.

The reality check: these platforms require significantly more development effort than WooCommerce. There's no admin dashboard you can hand to a non-technical store manager. Plugin ecosystems are nascent. Community support is smaller. Unless you have a dedicated development team, the setup and maintenance overhead outweighs the architectural purity. For a broader look at open-source options, see our open-source ecommerce guide.

The migration timeline

A successful Shopify migration follows a predictable timeline. Rushing it is the single most common cause of post-migration problems. Here is what a well-planned migration looks like, week by week.

Weeks 1-2: Platform selection and planning. Evaluate your options, choose your destination platform, and map out every piece of data that needs to migrate. Audit your current Shopify apps and identify equivalents. Document your URL structure and prepare a comprehensive redirect map. This planning phase is where most of the risk mitigation happens.

Weeks 3-4: Data export and test migration. Export products, customers, and order history from Shopify. Run a test import on your new platform in a staging environment. Verify that product data, images, variants, and pricing all transfer correctly. Identify any data that requires manual cleanup or reformatting.

Weeks 5-8: New store build and configuration. Build your new storefront — whether that's a WooCommerce theme, a headless Next.js frontend, or another platform entirely. Configure payment gateways, shipping rules, tax settings, and email notifications. Set up any plugins or custom functionality that replaces your Shopify apps. This is the longest phase, and it should not be rushed.

Weeks 9-10: Testing, redirects, and DNS cutover. Comprehensive testing on staging: place test orders, verify checkout flow, confirm email notifications, test on mobile devices. Implement all 301 redirects. Run a final data sync to capture any orders or customers added since the initial export. Then cut over DNS, verify everything works in production, and submit your updated sitemap to Google Search Console.

The bottom line

The decision to leave Shopify is significant, but it is increasingly common — and increasingly well-supported by mature migration tools and alternative platforms. The store owners who succeed are the ones who plan methodically, prioritise SEO continuity, and choose a destination platform that aligns with their long-term goals rather than just their immediate frustrations.

If you're seriously considering the move, start with the data. Audit your current Shopify spend (our Shopify cost breakdown will help). Understand what a headless WooCommerce migration involves by reading our migration checklist. Compare the performance you're getting now against what's possible with a headless architecture.

Ownership matters. Your store, your data, your customers, and your revenue should not depend on a platform that charges you more the more successful you become. Whether you move to WooCommerce, go headless, or choose another path entirely, taking control of your ecommerce stack is an investment that pays for itself — not just in cost savings, but in the freedom to build the store your customers actually deserve. For a broader perspective on owning your infrastructure, see our self-hosted ecommerce guide.