Yes — you can migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify without paying for a migration service. Most of the tools required are either free or already included in your Shopify subscription. This guide walks through every method, what's genuinely free, and where you'll inevitably spend money.

What "free" means in this context

To set accurate expectations: the migration process itself can be free. The actual Shopify subscription is not — you'll need at least the Basic plan ($39/month) to run a live store. But for migrating products, customers, and content, there are legitimate zero-cost methods.

What you can do for free: Export products from WooCommerce, convert to Shopify CSV format, import to Shopify, set up redirects, migrate customer data.

What you'll pay for regardless: Shopify subscription ($39+/month), domain registration if transferring, any Shopify apps you install, developer time for custom work.

Method 1: WooCommerce CSV export + Shopify CSV import (free)

This is the fully manual, zero-cost approach. It works for stores with up to 1,000–2,000 products, provided your data structure is simple enough.

Step 1: Export from WooCommerce

WooCommerce has a built-in product export: Products → Export. Export all products with all columns. This gives you a WooCommerce-formatted CSV.

Step 2: Convert to Shopify format

This is the hard part. Shopify and WooCommerce use completely different CSV structures. You need to manually transform the columns. Key differences:

WooCommerce: one row per product. Shopify: one row per variant (multiple rows per product)
WooCommerce prices are in columns like Regular price. Shopify needs Variant Price (no currency symbol)
WooCommerce uses Name. Shopify needs Title
WooCommerce uses Slug. Shopify needs Handle
Attributes in WooCommerce become Options in Shopify (Option1 Name, Option1 Value)

You can do this transformation in Excel or Google Sheets using formulas and manual restructuring. For simple catalogs (simple products, no complex variants), this takes 2–4 hours. For catalogs with hundreds of variable products with many variants, this manual conversion can take days.

Step 3: Import to Shopify

In Shopify Admin, go to Products → Import. Upload your converted CSV. Shopify will show you how many products imported successfully and flag any errors.

Limitations of this method:

No metafield support (custom fields are not in Shopify's CSV format)
Complex variant structures require precise row formatting
Products with more than 100 variants cannot be imported
Easy to make formatting errors that cause silent import failures

Method 2: Use k-sync free tier (free for up to 50 products via API, unlimited via CSV)

k-sync's free tier handles the WooCommerce → Shopify format conversion automatically. You connect your WooCommerce store, and k-sync imports all products, normalizes the data, validates it against Shopify's limits, and generates a Shopify-ready CSV.

What the free tier includes:

1 project
Connect to WooCommerce via REST API (no manual export)
Up to 50 products pushed directly to Shopify via API
Unlimited products exported as Shopify-compatible CSV (for manual import)
Validation checks before export/push
Field mapping overview

For stores under 50 products, this gives you a fully automated free migration. For larger stores, you get the CSV export free and upload it to Shopify yourself.

Method 3: Shopify Admin API with free open-source scripts

If you're comfortable with code (or have a developer available), you can write a migration script using Shopify's REST or GraphQL API. The API itself is free to use — you just need a Shopify store and a custom app API token.

Basic REST approach (Python example structure)

# Pseudocode — WooCommerce product fetch + Shopify create
import requests

WC_URL = "https://your-store.com/wp-json/wc/v3/products"
WC_KEY = "consumer_key"
WC_SECRET = "consumer_secret"

SHOPIFY_URL = "https://your-store.myshopify.com/admin/api/2024-01"
SHOPIFY_TOKEN = "your-access-token"

# Fetch from WooCommerce (paginated)
page = 1
while True:
    products = requests.get(WC_URL, auth=(WC_KEY, WC_SECRET),
        params={"per_page": 100, "page": page}).json()
    if not products:
        break
    for product in products:
        # Transform and create in Shopify
        shopify_product = transform(product)
        requests.post(f"{SHOPIFY_URL}/products.json",
            headers={"X-Shopify-Access-Token": SHOPIFY_TOKEN},
            json={"product": shopify_product})
    page += 1

The transformation function (transform()) is the complex part — mapping WooCommerce's product structure to Shopify's expected format, handling variants, options, and images.

Free resources for this approach:

Shopify Admin API docs are free at shopify.dev
WooCommerce REST API docs are free at woocommerce.github.io
Shopify's developer plan (partner account) lets you create unlimited development stores for testing

What actually costs money

Not free: Shopify subscription

The platform itself requires a paid plan. During the migration, you can use a free 3-day trial, but you'll need to subscribe before going live. Basic is $39/month.

Not free: Shopify theme (usually)

Shopify's free themes (Dawn, Refresh, Taste, etc.) are genuinely good and free. If you need a specific design that a premium theme provides, that's a one-time cost of $100–350.

Not free: Migration services

Professional migration services like LitExtension ($29–299), Cart2Cart ($29–499), and Matrixify ($20/month) are not free. They automate the migration but charge for the service. These are worth considering if you have a large catalog and no developer resources.

Not free: Developer time for custom migrations

If your store has complex custom functionality — subscription products, complex pricing rules, custom checkout logic — you'll need developer time to replicate this on Shopify. This is unavoidable, and should be factored into migration planning.

SEO: setting up redirects (free)

Redirects are critical for preserving your search rankings. Shopify includes unlimited URL redirects in every plan. You can create them manually in Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects, or import via CSV.

Shopify also accepts a redirect CSV import: a two-column CSV with Redirect from and Redirect to columns. If you export your WooCommerce URL structure (via Screaming Frog's free tier or Google Search Console), you can create a bulk redirect import file.

Customer data migration (free)

WooCommerce lets you export customers as CSV: WooCommerce → Customers → Export. Shopify accepts customer CSV imports: Customers → Import. This is free. The limitation: customer passwords cannot be migrated (they're hashed with an incompatible scheme). Customers will need to reset their passwords.

Blog and page content (manual)

Blog posts and pages from WordPress cannot be automatically migrated to Shopify without a tool or script. For small blogs (under 50 posts), manual copy-paste is feasible. For larger blogs, you'll need a migration script or a tool like Blogify ($29/month with trial) to handle the transfer.

The honest recommendation

For stores under 50 products: the k-sync free tier handles the entire product migration automatically (connect → validate → push). Set up redirects manually in Shopify, export and import customers, and you've done a complete migration for free.

For stores of 50–500 products: use k-sync's free CSV export to generate a Shopify-ready CSV, then import it. This is free and takes a few hours.

For stores over 500 products: the free path requires either writing your own migration script or spending several days on manual CSV work. At this size, k-sync Starter ($19/month) or a one-time use of a migration service often has a lower total cost (in time) than doing it manually.

The migration is genuinely doable for free if you have the time. The question is always whether your time is worth more than the cost of the tools that automate it.

How to migrate WooCommerce to Shopify for free (2026 guide)