Common questions about migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2 — data preservation, SEO continuity, extensions, costs, timelines.
Why do I need to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2?
Magento 1 hit End of Life on June 30, 2020. Adobe stopped releasing security patches, bug fixes, and PCI compliance updates from that date. Every day a store stays on M1, it accumulates unpatched CVEs — and most card processors (Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net) now flag M1 stores as non-compliant during PCI audits. Beyond security: Magento 2 is faster (PHP 8, Varnish, full-page cache native), has a modern admin, ships with B2B and PWA-ready features, and runs on actively-maintained extensions. Migration isn’t optional anymore — it’s the only safe path forward for serious commerce.
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How long does an M1 to M2 migration take?
Typical timelines depend on store complexity:
Small store (< 10k SKUs, < 10 extensions, light customisation): 6 – 8 weeks
Standard store (up to 50k SKUs, up to 20 extensions, custom theme): 8 – 10 weeks
Add 1 – 2 weeks for staging review + final delta-data migration + the production cutover window. We give a fixed timeline up front and won’t move the goalposts mid-project.
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How much does it cost to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2?
Fixed-price tiers, no per-hour surprises:
Free Audit: $0 — 30-min call + written report on scope, risks, and timeline
Standard Migration: $4,999 — up to 50k products, up to 20 extensions, full data + SEO carry-over, 14 days post-launch coverage
Hosting, SSL, payment gateway re-application fees, and any third-party extension licences (e.g. Amasty, Mageplaza) are pass-through with no markup. You always see the line items before signing.
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Will my customers, orders, and product data carry over?
Yes — 100% of standard data migrates: customers (with addresses, groups, store credit, gift cards, password hashes where compatible), orders (open + completed + invoices + shipments + credit memos), products (simple, configurable, bundled, virtual, downloadable), categories, reviews, ratings, CMS pages, CMS blocks, URL rewrites, and store config. We use Adobe’s Data Migration Tool as the foundation, plus custom scripts for any non-standard tables (custom modules, third-party schemas). Three test runs on staging confirm row counts match before the live delta-migration during cutover. Audited reports show before/after counts on every table — nothing slips through silently.
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Will my SEO rankings be affected?
Done right, zero ranking loss — and usually a small lift from M2’s better Core Web Vitals. Our SEO continuity protocol: (1) Pre-migration Screaming Frog crawl captures every indexed URL + status code + title + meta + canonical + hreflang. (2) Every legacy URL gets a 301 redirect to its M2 equivalent (auto-mapped where slugs match, manual where they don’t). (3) Schema.org JSON-LD, hreflang, canonicals, meta robots, and XML sitemaps all carried over. (4) Post-launch crawl compares against pre-launch — any 4xx/5xx flagged and fixed within 24 hours. (5) Search Console resubmission of new sitemap. Most stores see ranking improve within 60 days from speed alone.
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Can my Magento 1 extensions work on Magento 2?
No — M1 and M2 have completely different architectures. Every M1 extension needs an M2 equivalent. Three paths:
Vendor M2 version — Mageplaza, Amasty, Magefan, Aheadworks, Webkul all rebuilt for M2. Often free upgrade with proof of M1 licence.
Community / Marketplace alternative — if the original vendor disappeared, there’s usually a competitor with feature-parity.
Custom rebuild — for niche / proprietary extensions, we rebuild on M2’s API + UI components.
The free audit catalogues every extension on your M1 store and maps each to one of the three paths — with cost & risk — before any work starts.
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Should I migrate to Magento 2 or move to Shopify / WooCommerce?
Depends on your store:
Stay on Magento (migrate to M2): if you have B2B flows, multi-store, custom checkout, ERP/POS integrations, 10k+ SKUs, or international tax requirements. Magento 2 is the cheaper path long-term and you keep the data + URL history.
Move to Shopify: if you have < 5k SKUs, simple B2C, no custom checkout, and value low operational overhead more than control. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300/month vs Magento OS being free + hosting.
Move to WooCommerce: rarely makes sense from M1 — you lose the commerce-grade catalog model.
The free audit includes a platform-fit assessment — we’ll tell you honestly if M2 isn’t the right answer.
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Can I redesign during migration or should it be like-for-like?
Both options work — we recommend based on store maturity:
Like-for-like rebuild (default): pixel-perfect M2 theme matching the M1 design. Lowest risk for SEO + UX continuity. No A/B variable to confuse migration metrics. Choose this if your M1 design still converts well.
Migrate + redesign: combine the migration with a fresh design (or move to Hyvä for the perf bonus). Only ~20% more time and cost than like-for-like, and you get a 2-for-1 project. Choose this if your M1 design is dated, mobile-weak, or pre-Core-Web-Vitals.
Pre-migration A/B testing on staging proves the new design converts at least as well before cutover — we won’t ship a redesign that hurts revenue.
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How do you handle URL redirects?
Every legacy M1 URL gets a 301 redirect to its M2 equivalent. Three layers:
(1) Slug-match auto-mapping — Magento’s URL rewrite migration handles 80–90% of product, category, and CMS URLs automatically (slugs unchanged).
(2) Manual mapping — for URLs that changed (e.g. M1 .html suffix dropped, custom routes restructured), we generate a CSV of old→new and load it into M2’s url_rewrite table.
(3) Web-server fallback — nginx / Apache rules catch anything missed at the URL-rewrite level (e.g. legacy .php paths).
Pre/post Screaming Frog crawls compare every URL — any 404s on legacy URLs get patched within 24 hours of cutover. Zero permanent 404s guarantee.
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What about my custom checkout and payment integration?
M2 has a completely different checkout (KnockoutJS-based, multi-step or 1-page via Hyvä Checkout) so a custom M1 checkout flow needs to be rebuilt. Process:
Document the M1 flow — every step, validation rule, payment gateway, business rule.
Map to M2 checkout architecture — vanilla M2, Hyvä Checkout, or custom UI components. Hyvä is usually cheaper and faster.
Gateway re-integration — Stripe, Adyen, Braintree, PayPal, Authorize.net, Razorpay, Klarna, Mollie all have native M2 modules. Stored payment tokens carry over where the gateway supports it (most do).
Recurring subscriptions, gift-card balances, and store credit all preserved. Three test transactions per gateway in staging before cutover.
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What’s the rollback plan if something goes wrong?
Two safety nets, both built in:
(1) Blue-green cutover: M1 stays warm and reachable for 72 hours after cutover. DNS / load-balancer can flip back in under 30 seconds if anything breaks. Customer-facing impact during rollback: zero — we cache-bust both ways.
(2) 30 days post-launch coverage: anything that breaks because of the migration (data inconsistency, redirect miss, payment hiccup, missing email template) gets fixed at no extra charge for 30 days. After that, optional monthly retainer for continued cover.
We also keep the final M1 database snapshot for 90 days — if a customer reports a missing 2017 order on day 60, we can reconstruct it from the snapshot.
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When’s the right time to migrate?
Yesterday. Magento 1 has been EOL since June 2020 — every additional day is a CVE exposure and a PCI-compliance risk. Practical timing:
If your last PCI audit failed or is upcoming: start now. Most processors (Stripe, Braintree, Adyen) flag M1 as non-compliant in 2026.
If you’re re-platforming anyway: M2 + Hyvä is the cheapest combined upgrade path.
If you’re > 6 months from Black Friday: you have time for a comfortable migration with two months of post-launch stabilisation.
If you’re < 3 months from a peak season: book the audit now, schedule the migration for January.
The longer you wait, the more your M1 stack drifts from anything modern. Book the free audit — we’ll tell you honestly when to start.
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