Choosing an ecommerce platform is a business-critical decision, and the right answer genuinely depends on your business, not just which platform has the flashier feature list. We’ve compared Shopify Plus and Magento (now Adobe Commerce) across the factors that actually decide the outcome: cost, customisation, scalability, and support.
Shopify Plus vs Magento at a glance.
| Shopify Plus | Magento (Adobe Commerce) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Fully cloud-hosted, managed by Shopify | Self-hosted / cloud, managed by you or your agency |
| Starting monthly cost | From £2,000/month (standard fixed fee until high GMV threshold is met) | Enterprise licence from approx. £18,000/year (plus significant independent hosting costs) |
| Typical build cost | £25,000 – £60,000+ (potentially more if you have highly complex requirements) | £80,000 – £200,000+ |
| Ease of use | Drag-and-drop editor, in-house team can manage most changes | Requires more developer involvement for day-to-day changes |
| Customisation ceiling | High, via Shopify Functions, apps, and theme customisation | Very high, but slower and more costly to implement |
| Best suited to | Brands wanting speed, in-house control, and predictable costs | Brands needing highly bespoke logic and willing to invest in ongoing development |
| B2B support | Native B2B on Shopify Plus | Native B2B via Adobe Commerce |
| International/multi-store | Shopify Markets, expansion stores | Native multi-store, multi-currency |
| Security | SSL, 2FA, fraud protection, PCI compliance built in | SSL, 2FA, fraud protection, PCI compliance (managed by you) |
About Shopify Plus.
Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise-tier platform, built for larger businesses and high-growth retailers. It combines scalable, fully hosted infrastructure with advanced customisation options, dedicated support, and multi-channel selling. This enables teams to manage and grow online operations without carrying the infrastructure burden themselves.
About Magento (Adobe Commerce).
Magento remains a capable, flexible platform, particularly for businesses with complex, highly bespoke requirements. Its open-source architecture gives deep customisation potential, but that flexibility comes with more implementation time, more infrastructure responsibility, and typically higher ongoing overhead than Shopify Plus.
Shopify Plus vs Magento: the key differences.
Ease of use.
Shopify Plus’s drag-and-drop editor and Online Store 2.0 architecture (sections on every page, app-powered blocks, and flexible data storage) mean internal teams can make day-to-day changes without developer support, and bring in developers only for genuinely custom work. Magento has a steeper learning curve and more often requires developer involvement for changes that would take minutes in Shopify.
Customisation.
Both platforms support deep customisation, but differently. Magento’s advanced customisation is powerful but typically more costly and time-consuming to implement and maintain. Shopify Plus offers a broad range of modern themes plus fully custom build options, with drag-and-drop functionality enabling faster iteration.
Innovation & platform velocity.
Shopify ships major platform updates twice yearly through Shopify Editions, continuously expanding native functionality and reducing the need for third-party tools or bespoke development. Recently shipped, live features include the complete rollout of Checkout Extensibility (fully replacing legacy checkout.liquid), native Combined Listings for complex product variants, deep Shopify Magic integrations that genuinely speed up day-to-day merchandising, and conversational checkouts.
Because Shopify pushes these updates over the cloud, your site stays current without the costly, developer-heavy upgrade cycles required by Magento.
Merchant support.
Shopify Plus provides support via phone, live chat, and email, backed by a large ecosystem of documentation and third-party specialists. Magento’s support is comparatively less centralised, since Adobe Commerce’s ecosystem is more fragmented across agencies and partners.
Pricing.
When comparing costs, it’s vital to look beyond the base licence and calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), which includes build, hosting, and ongoing maintenance.
Build Costs: A bespoke Shopify Plus build typically ranges from £50,000 to £120,000. A less complex build can start from £20,000. Because Magento requires more complex backend configuration and server setup, comparable builds usually start around £80,000 and easily scale past £200,000.
Ongoing Platform Costs: Shopify Plus starts at a flat rate of roughly £2,000 per month, transitioning to a revenue-based model only once your GMV reaches a high threshold. Adobe Commerce licences generally start around £18,000 per year and scale with your revenue.
Hosting and Maintenance: This is where the gap widens. Shopify Plus includes enterprise-grade hosting, security patching, and server maintenance in its monthly fee. With Magento, you are responsible for hosting (often £1,000–£3,000+ per month for enterprise traffic), and you will need a substantial ongoing developer retainer just to apply security patches and keep the server stable.
Ultimately, Magento’s total cost of ownership is consistently higher once hosting, patching, and developer retainers are factored in.
Scalability.
Shopify Plus is built to handle high-traffic and rapid-growth businesses without merchants needing to manage server capacity themselves. Magento is scalable but typically requires additional infrastructure investment and technical expertise to maintain performance at scale.
International ecommerce.
Shopify Plus supports global selling natively through Shopify Markets and Markets Pro, letting merchants localise pricing, currency, and language from one back end. Magento offers extensive multi-language support but typically requires more setup effort.
Platform architecture: hosted vs open-source.
Shopify is fully hosted, so merchants aren’t responsible for hosting, patching, or infrastructure. Magento is open-source, meaning merchants (or their agency) own hosting and ongoing infrastructure management.
Security.
Both platforms provide SSL encryption, two-factor authentication, fraud protection, and PCI compliance support. The key difference is who manages it: Shopify handles this centrally as part of the hosted platform; Magento requires the merchant or their agency to actively manage and maintain it.
Which platform actually fits your business?
- If you’re a DTC brand doing £5M–£50M in revenue, prioritising speed, in-house control, and predictable costs, Shopify Plus is very likely the better fit, as the ongoing cost and resourcing burden of Magento rarely pays for itself at this scale.
- If you’re running complex B2B operations, multiple brands under one parent company, or highly bespoke logic that doesn’t map to standard ecommerce patterns, Magento’s flexibility can still be justified, but go in with clear eyes on the ongoing development cost that comes with it. However, it is worth noting that Shopify has aggressively closed the B2B gap. With native company profiles, volume pricing, and customer-specific catalogues now built directly into the Plus admin, you no longer need a custom Magento build just to handle wholesale. Discover exactly how this works on our Shopify B2B page.
- If you’re currently on Magento and finding day-to-day changes require developer time you don’t have, that’s usually the clearest signal it’s time to look seriously at migrating. See our full Magento to Shopify migration guide for real cost and timeline benchmarks.
The proof: brands that made the switch.
- Newby Teas: Migrated from a technical-debt-heavy Magento site to a bespoke Shopify Plus build, unifying D2C and B2B operations across four warehouses and nine international markets. Delivered a 43% increase in add-to-cart rate and a 41% uplift in conversion rate immediately post-launch.
- Jasmine Silk: Migrated from Magento (Adobe Commerce) to a premium Shopify Plus storefront, redirecting over 3,000 URLs to safeguard SEO performance ahead of peak season. Delivered +20% page views, +20% conversion rate, and +35% average order value.
- Bella Freud: Migrated from Magento to Shopify Plus with a bespoke theme, delivering +20% conversions, +13% new users, and -10% bounce rate year on year.
- LINLEY: Migrated for greater flexibility, control, and scalability, delivering +54% transactions, +59% conversion rate, and +40% average order value in month one.
- G.H. Bass: Moved from a slow, bug-prone Magento setup to a fast, flexible Shopify Plus build on Online Store 2.0, freeing the team to focus on growth instead of fixing platform issues.
- Porcelain Superstore: Migrated to Shopify Plus and went on to win Honourable Mention and Mobile Excellence recognition from Awwwards.
Frequently asked questions.
Is Shopify Plus cheaper than Magento?
Yes, in almost all scenarios. While the base licence fees might look comparable on paper, Magento’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is substantially higher. Because Shopify Plus is fully hosted, server costs, security patching, and platform upgrades are included in your monthly fee. With Magento, you must pay for your own enterprise hosting, security updates, and a heavy ongoing developer retainer just to keep the site functioning securely.
Can I migrate my customer data and order history from Magento to Shopify?
Yes. You can migrate customer records, addresses, and order history using tools like Matrixify or a custom migration script, though passwords cannot transfer directly and customers will need to reset them after launch. See our full migration guide for the detailed process.
Will migrating from Magento to Shopify hurt my SEO?
You may see some short-term ranking fluctuation, but with a complete 301 redirect map, preserved metadata, and a sitemap submitted to Google Search Console at launch, most rankings recover and stabilise within weeks. See our migration guide for the full approach.
Is Magento better for B2B and highly customised stores?
Historically, yes. Magento’s open-source flexibility suited incredibly complex, bespoke requirements. Today, however, Shopify Plus’s native B2B functionality has closed much of this gap for most mid-market and enterprise B2B brands. Furthermore, by utilising tailored accelerators like our Horizon AI-ready theme and blubolt’s Volt framework, you get a highly customisable, bespoke-feeling store that moves incredibly fast, entirely avoiding the heavy lifting and technical debt of a traditional Magento build.
Ready to make the switch?
We’re a Platinum Shopify Plus agency that’s highly experienced in Magento to Shopify migrations, including Bella Freud, Jasmin Silk, Newby Teas, and G.H. Bass. Get in touch to discuss your requirements, or use our free calculator to see what Shopify costs.
