BigCommerce introduced Open Payment Provider fees on June 1, 2026. Merchants on the Core plan now pay 2% on every order processed through a non-BigCommerce gateway. Growth plan: 1%. Scale: 0.6%. For thousands of mid-market merchants who chose BigCommerce partly because it lacked transaction fees, this changes the calculation — and a BigCommerce to Shopify migration is now a serious conversation for the first time.
Key Takeaways
- BigCommerce’s June 2026 fee change: 2% (Core), 1% (Growth), 0.6% (Scale) on orders using non-BigCommerce payment gateways
- The financial crossover point: a store doing $50,000/month on BigCommerce Core now pays $1,000/month in new fees alone
- BigCommerce supports 600 variants per product; Shopify caps at 100 — if your catalog uses this capacity, restructuring is the most significant migration challenge
- Proper SEO migration (301 redirects + metadata parity) recovers organic traffic in 4–8 weeks; poor SEO migration can cost 20–60% of organic traffic for 6+ months
Why Merchants Are Choosing BigCommerce to Shopify Migration in 2026
BigCommerce’s New Open Payment Provider Fee (June 2026)
Before June 1, 2026, BigCommerce had a clear competitive advantage over Shopify: no transaction fees on any plan for merchants using third-party payment gateways. That ended with the Open Payment Provider (OPP) fee update.
The new fee structure:
- Core plan ($39/month): 2% on all non-BigCommerce Payments transactions
- Plus plan ($105/month): 1% on all non-BigCommerce Payments transactions
- Scale/Pro plan ($399/month): 0.6% on all non-BigCommerce Payments transactions
- Enterprise: Negotiated, typically reduced
BigCommerce Payments (powered by PayPal) is exempt from the fee. Merchants using Stripe, Authorize.net, Square, or any other gateway now pay the OPP fee on every transaction.
The Financial Crossover Point: When Shopify Becomes Cheaper
Run the math for your store:
Example: Store doing $50,000/month on BigCommerce Core with Stripe:
- BigCommerce Core plan: $39/month
- OPP fee at 2%: $1,000/month
- Total: $1,039/month
Same store on Shopify Basic ($29/month) without Shopify Payments:
- Shopify Basic: $29/month
- Shopify transaction fee at 2%: $1,000/month
- Total: $1,029/month
At this volume, the platforms cost nearly the same. The calculation shifts decisively in Shopify’s favor when Shopify Payments is available in your market — Shopify Payments eliminates the transaction fee entirely.
Same store on Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments:
- Shopify Basic: $29/month
- Transaction fee: $0 (Shopify Payments)
- Total: $29/month
This is why merchants in Shopify Payments-supported markets are doing the BigCommerce to Shopify migration math now. The savings are real and immediate.
Other Migration Drivers Beyond Cost
Not all migrations are fee-driven. Other factors prompting BigCommerce to Shopify moves in 2026:
- Shopify’s app ecosystem: 16,000+ apps vs BigCommerce’s ~1,000 — for specific integrations that exist on Shopify but not BigCommerce
- Checkout quality: Shopify’s one-page checkout is widely regarded as higher-converting
- B2B feature expansion: Shopify opened B2B features to all paid plans in April 2026
- TikTok Shop and social commerce channels: Shopify’s native integrations are more mature
Sarah runs a $720,000/year home goods brand on BigCommerce Plus. After June 2026, the OPP fee on her $60,000/month in Stripe transactions became $600/month — $7,200/year on top of her plan cost. She was already considering Shopify for TikTok Shop access. The fee change became the decision point. She engaged a migration agency in July 2026. Migration cost: $8,500. First-year cost savings vs staying on BigCommerce Plus: approximately $5,400 (fee savings minus migration cost). Break-even at 18 months, net positive from year two.
What Data Transfers in a BigCommerce to Shopify Migration
Products and Collections (With Caveats)
Product data transfers via CSV export from BigCommerce and import into Shopify. This includes:
- Product titles, descriptions, prices, and SKUs
- Product images (via URL-based import)
- Product categories → Shopify collections
- Metafields (with additional configuration)
Caveats: The CSV format structures differ between platforms. Field mapping requires careful preparation. Some custom fields in BigCommerce have no direct Shopify equivalent and need to be mapped to Shopify metafields manually.
Customer Records
Customer records — email addresses, names, billing/shipping addresses, and order history references — transfer via CSV. Customers can be imported to Shopify with their historical data intact.
Critical limitation: Customer passwords cannot transfer between platforms. This is a platform security requirement — passwords are stored as hashes that are platform-specific. Every customer must reset their password at the new store. Plan a post-launch customer communication campaign for account reactivation.
Order History
Order history can be migrated to Shopify for record-keeping and customer service reference. Migrated orders appear in Shopify Admin with their historical data. Reporting on historical performance includes this data.
Note: migrated historical orders have no live fulfillment status — they’re records only. Any in-progress orders at migration time should complete processing on BigCommerce before cutover.
What Does NOT Transfer Automatically
The following require manual recreation or specialist tooling:
- Custom checkout pages and checkout scripts — BigCommerce checkout scripts must be rebuilt using Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility
- Custom BigCommerce widgets and page builder content — BigCommerce’s Page Builder output doesn’t map to Shopify sections
- Custom integrations — APIs and third-party integrations built for BigCommerce must be rebuilt or replaced with Shopify equivalents
- BigCommerce Stencil theme — your current theme’s design doesn’t transfer; you need a new Shopify theme
- Discount codes and promotions — must be manually recreated
The Variant Limit Problem in Shopify Migrations
BigCommerce: 600 Variants Per Product
BigCommerce supports 600 variants per product with up to 250 values per option. This is meaningfully more generous than Shopify’s limits. Many fashion, footwear, and specialty product brands on BigCommerce have catalogs built around this capacity.
Shopify: 100 Variants, 3 Option Types
Shopify limits products to 100 variants (combinations of option values) with a maximum of 3 option types (e.g., Size, Color, Width). A product with Size (10 values), Color (10 values), and Width (2 values) = 200 variants — over Shopify’s cap.
This is not a minor technical note. If your catalog has products with more than 100 variant combinations, you cannot migrate them to Shopify without restructuring the catalog.
How to Restructure High-Variant Catalogs for Shopify
Options for catalogs that exceed Shopify’s variant limits:
- Split products: A single BigCommerce product with 200 variants becomes two Shopify products (100 variants each) connected by a product grouping mechanism or displayed via metafields
- Reduce option depth: If some option combinations have zero sales history, eliminate them. Most high-variant products have a Pareto distribution — 20% of variants represent 80% of sales
- Use a variant management app: Apps like Infinite Options (by Shop Circle) extend Shopify’s variant capabilities beyond the native limit using metafields — though some checkout limitations apply
- Restructure the product catalog: For catalogs where variant complexity is core to the business model, consider whether Shopify’s architecture is genuinely compatible before committing to migration
The variant limit is the most common reason a technically straightforward BigCommerce to Shopify migration becomes a complex project. Audit your top-100 products for variant counts before scoping the migration.
Migration Timeline and Cost
DIY with Apps: $0–$500, 2–4 Weeks
Tools like Cart2Cart, LitExtension, and Shopify’s own import tools handle data migration for small catalogs. For a store with under 500 products, clean customer records, and limited custom development, a DIY approach with migration tools works.
The limitation: data migration tools handle the data but not the technical setup — theme selection, app configuration, SEO redirect mapping, checkout setup, and integration rebuild all require separate work.
Realistic for: Stores under 300 products, no significant variant complexity, straightforward catalog, limited custom integrations.
Agency-Led Migration: $5,000–$25,000+, 4–8 Weeks
For mid-market stores with 300–2,000 products, custom integrations, significant SEO presence, and catalog complexity, a proper agency migration is necessary. The scope includes:
- Data migration and quality review
- Shopify theme setup or development
- App stack configuration
- 301 redirect mapping and implementation
- Integration rebuild
- SEO audit and post-migration monitoring
- QA and launch
Designodin’s BigCommerce to Shopify migration packages: Small migration (under 500 products, single currency) from $2,500; Complex migration (500–2,000 products, multi-currency, established SEO rankings) from $5,000. See our Shopify migration services →
Enterprise/Shopify Plus Projects: $50,000+, 12–24 Weeks
Large catalog migrations (2,000+ products), complex B2B configurations, custom ERP integrations, and multi-storefront setups require custom scoping. Projects at this scale involve custom theme development, headless architecture evaluation, and dedicated project management.
Need a BigCommerce to Shopify migration scoped for your catalog size? Talk to our Shopify migration agency →
BigCommerce to Shopify SEO Migration: The Highest-Risk Element
301 Redirects: The Non-Negotiable Step
BigCommerce and Shopify use different URL structures. A BigCommerce product URL might be /products/blue-widget/ while Shopify uses /products/blue-widget (different structure). A BigCommerce collection URL might be /categories/widgets/ while Shopify uses /collections/widgets.
If no 301 redirects are in place, every indexed URL from your old BigCommerce site returns a 404 error after migration. Google interprets mass 404 errors as site problems and drops rankings accordingly. This is the most avoidable BigCommerce to Shopify migration risk.
The redirect workflow:
- Crawl your BigCommerce site with Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to get every indexed URL
- Map each old URL to the new Shopify URL
- Import the redirect map to Shopify (Admin → Navigation → URL Redirects)
- Test a sample of redirects after migration
Don’t skip this step. Don’t do it partially. A complete redirect map is the difference between clean SEO migration and a months-long traffic recovery.
Metadata and Content Parity Checklist
Every product, collection, and page on your new Shopify store needs metadata that matches or improves on the BigCommerce version. Check:
- Meta titles and descriptions match or improve on BigCommerce versions
- H1 tags on product pages contain the primary keyword
- Product descriptions are complete (not truncated or reformatted in migration)
- Image alt text is preserved from BigCommerce or improved
- Canonical tags are correctly pointing to the new Shopify URLs
Expected Traffic Recovery Timeline (4–8 Weeks Done Right)
A well-executed BigCommerce to Shopify migration with complete redirects and metadata parity typically sees organic traffic stabilize within 4–8 weeks. Traffic drops to 70–80% of pre-migration baseline in the first 1–2 weeks (Google is re-crawling and re-indexing), then recovers as the Shopify versions are indexed.
Weeks 6–10 typically see full or near-full recovery if the migration was technically sound.
What Goes Wrong: 20–60% Organic Drop Risk If Done Badly
A migration with:
- Missing or incomplete 301 redirects
- Metadata not migrated or recreated
- Significant content differences between old and new product pages
- New theme with slower page speed than original site
…can result in a 20–60% organic traffic drop that takes 6–12 months to recover, if it recovers at all. The SEO risk is real and it’s proportional to how much your existing traffic relies on organic search.
Customer Password Migration
Why Passwords Cannot Transfer Between Platforms
Passwords in both BigCommerce and Shopify are stored as cryptographic hashes. The hashing algorithms and implementation details differ between platforms. Shopify cannot verify a password hashed by BigCommerce’s system, and vice versa.
There is no technical workaround. Every customer account at your new Shopify store is essentially a new account — the email address and purchase history are there, but the password is reset.
How to Handle Customer Account Reset at Launch
Best practice for customer password migration:
- Prepare a post-launch email to all migrated customers explaining that your store has moved to a new platform
- Direct them to reset their password via the “Forgot password” flow
- Consider offering a small incentive (discount on next order) for completing the account reactivation — this turns a necessary friction point into a retention opportunity
- Send 2–3 follow-up emails over 30 days for customers who haven’t reactivated
Approximately 30–40% of active customers will reactivate accounts on the new platform with a proactive outreach campaign. Don’t just hope they find it.
Post-Migration Checklist for Shopify
Technical QA Before Go-Live
Before switching DNS to the new Shopify store:
- Test all payment methods on the new store using test mode
- Verify product pages load correctly with complete content and images
- Test checkout flow end-to-end with a test order
- Verify all custom integrations (email platform, analytics, marketing tools) are connected
- Test mobile navigation and checkout on multiple devices
- Verify the 301 redirect map is loaded and functioning
Payment Gateway Testing
If you’re switching from Stripe (or your current gateway) to Shopify Payments during the migration, test Shopify Payments thoroughly before go-live. Payment failures at launch are the most damaging post-migration problems. Use Shopify’s test gateway to process test orders through every payment method you’ll support.
Speed and Performance Validation
Run your new Shopify store through PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix before launch. Compare scores to your BigCommerce store. If your new Shopify theme is significantly slower than your previous setup, identify and fix the causes before sending live traffic.
Common speed issues post-migration: loading too many apps on the first page load, unoptimized images imported from BigCommerce, third-party scripts added without async loading.
Conclusion
BigCommerce’s June 2026 fee change made this the busiest period for BigCommerce to Shopify migrations since the platforms became direct competitors. For merchants in Shopify Payments markets, the financial case is clear — fee elimination on Shopify offsets migration costs within 12–18 months for most mid-market stores.
The migration itself is manageable when done correctly. Data transfers, SEO redirects, and integration rebuilds are well-understood processes. The most common failures — missing redirects, metadata omissions, inadequate catalog restructuring for variant limits — are all avoidable with proper planning.
If you’re running the migration numbers and want a definitive scope and cost for your specific catalog, our Shopify migration services handle everything from data migration through post-launch SEO monitoring. See our fixed-price BigCommerce to Shopify migration packages →
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a BigCommerce to Shopify migration take?
For small stores (under 500 products, limited custom work): 2–4 weeks. For mid-market stores (500–2,000 products, custom integrations, established SEO): 4–8 weeks. For large enterprise projects: 12–24 weeks. Timeline is primarily determined by catalog complexity, custom development scope, and SEO migration completeness rather than raw product count.
Will my SEO rankings drop after migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify?
There will be temporary fluctuation — Google re-indexes the site on Shopify’s URLs. With complete 301 redirects and metadata parity, recovery is typically 4–8 weeks. Without proper redirects, you risk a 20–60% organic traffic drop that takes months to reverse. SEO migration is the most important technical discipline in any platform migration.
Can BigCommerce customer data be transferred to Shopify?
Yes. Customer records (email, name, address, order history) transfer via CSV export/import. The critical exception: passwords cannot transfer between platforms due to incompatible hashing systems. Every customer must reset their password at the new store. Plan a post-launch account reactivation campaign.
What migration tools are available for BigCommerce to Shopify?
Cart2Cart and LitExtension are the most widely used automated migration services — they handle product, customer, and order data migration for small to mid-size catalogs. For larger or more complex migrations, agency services provide the human oversight needed to handle edge cases, catalog restructuring, and SEO redirect mapping that automated tools don’t address.
Do I need Shopify Plus for a high-volume BigCommerce migration?
Not necessarily for the migration itself. However, if your BigCommerce store was on an Enterprise plan with features like advanced checkout customization, custom B2B pricing tiers, or multi-storefront configurations, you may need Shopify Plus to replicate equivalent functionality. Evaluate your BigCommerce Enterprise feature usage against Shopify Plus capabilities before assuming Standard Shopify is sufficient.