Migration cost and timelines Magento 1 to Magento 2
You know you’re running out of time to migrate your e-commerce operation to Magento 2.0. That raises two questions: How much does a Magento 2.0 migration cost, and how long is the timeline?
For small- to medium-sized e-commerce operations with limited customizations and integrations, upgrading to Magento 2.0 can cost about $5,000 to $50,000. The timeline for these kinds of upgrades is about two to five months. The cost of your current Magento install may provide a ballpark estimate (plus about 10 percent) if you don’t plan to change much.
Magento 1.9 and previous versions reach their end-of-life deadlines at the end of June 2020. That’s a fairly narrow window to find a Magento developer and implement a version 2.0 migration. You have to make a lot of smart decisions soon to ensure a smooth transition.
This blog post from the Magento development experts at Exinent explains your three most critical concerns:
Part 1: Advantages of upgrading and the downside risk of not upgrading
Part 2: Variables that impact the cost and timeline of an upgrade to Magento 2.0
Part 3: A 12-point checklist for a typical Magento 2.0 migration.
Let’s dive into these sections now.
Part 1: Advantages of Magento 2.0 — and risks of skipping the upgrade
We’ll start with some of the greatest benefits of upgrading to Magento 2.0 and the consequences of not doing it. If you’re already sold on the benefits, feel free to skip to Part 2.
Site architecture: Magento uses the newest generation of PHP, which boosts site speed, power and flexibility.
Speed: Improved caching brings faster page downloads. Pages that previously took 3 seconds to download might take only 1 second after the upgrade. Optimized checkout means fewer clicks to close the sale — a six-click process on Magento 1.9 shrinks to two clicks in version 2.0.
Mobile: Support for responsive mobile sites elevates the user experience for people shopping with smartphones and tablets.
SEO: Faster page downloads and responsive mobile themes can improve your search page rankings because search engines place a priority on speed and mobile experience.
Security: Staying up-to-date with software patches helps keep intruders out.
All these factors help you elevate and streamline the shopping experience, which makes it easier to outmaneuver your competition.
Risks of letting your Magento support expire
Support for versions of Magento before 2.0 expires after June 2020. Staying on 1.9-or-earlier versions after the deadline means if your site crashes or gets hacked, you lose access to the experts at Magento who could help figure things out. There’s no telling how much that could cost in immediate cash flow and long-term customer relationships — but it won’t be cheap.
Moreover, you won’t get new security patches to keep hackers out. Hackers hunt for out-of-date sites because they’re easier to break into. Running unsupported software is like waving a red flag to cybercriminals. And if you suffer a breach that triggers a lawsuit, you could face an expensive court settlement.
Now, let’s move on to the costs and timelines for Magento updates.
Part 2: Variables that Affect Magento 2.0 Costs and Timelines
A basic, small-business Magento installation could cost as little as $5,000 and take only a couple months. A medium-sized e-commerce site might cost $50,000 and take five months to implement. Keep in mind that these figures apply to websites with a minimum of customizations. A simple rule of thumb is to dig out your records, see how much you paid to develop your current Magento environment and add another 10 percent.
But just as trading in your car for new one lets you upgrade your driving experience, a Magento 2.0 migration opens you up to a world of enhancements. Of course, adding new services or features adds hours and days to your development timeline. And, naturally, extra time means higher costs.
What kind of factors have the biggest influence on Magento 2.0 costs and timelines? These are the most prominent ones:
Customizations
Sales tax and seasonal shopping patterns vary widely from one e-commerce business to the next. The online grocer that ships perishable foods in blocks of dry ice has different shipping concerns than the company shipping cast-aluminum engine blocks. Every online business has to tweak its Magento 2.0 migration to account for specific situations like these. Each customization adds development time and cost.
Extensions
Third-party developers have created a Magento extension ecosystem that numbers in the thousands. These extensions help e-commerce companies give their customers exactly what they want, which is great for business.
Unfortunately, some extensions aren’t compatible with Magento 2.0. If this applies to your website, then you have to convert Magento 1.0 extensions to Magento 2 extensions. Then your developers have to build the extensions themselves, adding time and costs.
Integrations
APIs and other technology tools let you connect Magento to your software for customer relationship management (CRM), inventory control, accounting, analytics and other vital business functions. Each integration adds cost and lengthens your timeline.
Site redesigns
Magento 2.0 uses a new site structure that requires a rebuild of your website. Naturally, rebuilding a website must include its design — colors, fonts, layouts and so on — but that does not necessarily require a redesign. You may be able to replicate your current site design at little or no extra cost.
However, your Magenta 2.0 upgrade presents an excellent opportunity to update the look and feel of your site. It’s an ideal time, for example, to remove points of friction that slow users down and discourage them from finishing their transactions. However, opting for a more sophisticated site design may require additional hours of development, which would add to costs and timelines.
Now that we’ve covered Magento 2.0 costs and timelines, let’s move on to our migration checklist.
Part 3: A 12-Step Magento 2.0 migration checklist
These are all the jobs your development team needs to get done along the way to migrating to Magento 2.0:
Create a development environment
Your developer needs a safe place to build an exact replica of the Magento system that will eventually replace your current install. A separate development environment helps ensure your site goes live with a minimum of glitches.
Install the latest version of Magento 2.0
Your developer installs the newest Magento version into the development environment. This includes the newest security patches, bug fixes and service enhancements.
Create all the required attributes and categories
Every product variable in your e-commerce operation must be replicated in the new version of Magento. In this step, your developer documents all your attributes (price, color, size, etc.) and categories (men’s, women’s, indoor, outdoor, etc.) and adds them to your new Magento configuration.
Migrate all data
This task is especially important: All data must be migrated to the new Magento 2.0 database, including products, category mapping, customers, orders, invoices, shipments, coupon codes, cart rules and so on.
Install required extensions
All the Magento 2.0-compatible extensions get added in this step. If you have incompatible extensions, they’ll be installed later because the development team needs more time to rebuild them for Magento 2.0.
Implement the design
This step is where your new site starts taking shape — with a new mobile-responsive Magento 2.0-compatible theme. Any changes to your user interface get added at the design implementation stage
Add blog and all static pages
Your blog and static pages must reflect the overall look, feel and user experience of your new site, so they must be added after the design phase.
Implement extensions that are not compatible with 2.0
Because incompatible extensions must be reconstructed from scratch, your developers need more time to finish this phase. Thus, these extensions get implemented in the last step before the testing phase.
Test everything
Once the development team has a working replica of your new Magento 2.0 install, it’s time to make sure everything works as expected. The developers can anticipate the most common bugs and work them out here.
Conduct UAT (User Acceptance Test)
This phase puts actual users to work finding bugs the developers missed.
Make changes found in testing
Bugs and tweaks found in steps 9 and 10 get corrected in this step.
Plan go-live and do final data sync
Your developer establishes a go-live date and a final data sync to ensure that every change to your site — purchases, customers, discounts, etc. — gets included on the go-live date.
Pulling it all together on Magento 2.0 migration
The speed and power of Magento 2.0 will bring welcome improvements to site speed and mobile user experience. And including the latest security patches reduces your risk of downtime from hacker intrusions.
Small to medium e-commerce operations with limited customizations may need to spend from $5,000 to $50,000 to upgrade to the latest version of Magento. The timeline for operations in this size range is usually two to five months. All this depends on how many integrations and customizations you have. More sophisticated migrations take longer and cost more.
Given that the support for older versions of Magento expires in June 2020, you have more than enough reasons to upgrade as soon as possible.
Magento 2.0 Migration FAQs
How long does it take to migrate my e-commerce website from Magento 1 to Magento 2?
Magento 2 migration timelines depend heavily on the size and complexity of a website. As discussed earlier, a basic Magento website with fewer products and functionalities needs just a couple of months for migration. It may take up to six months for a medium-sized site with a decent amount of data and slightly advanced features. A functionality-rich and heavy Magento installation usually need more time, often in excess of six months.
How much does it cost migrate my website from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.x?
Many factors such as the size of data, functionalities, and your migration project timelines influence costs. Small e-commerce website owners may need to shell out $5000. Those who are run medium-sized Magento stores are expected to spend around $50000. Successful ecommerce business owners with large inventory may have to spend in excess of $100000.
What happens to Magento 1 extensions?
Many of the popular Magento extensions that you may be currently using on your Magento 1 installation would be available for Magento 2. In case if the extension is unavailable, the extension specialists in a development team build them from the scratch to ensure any functionality isn’t missed out.
Will there be downtime during migration?
No, Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration doesn’t cause downtime.
Will my current hosting environment support Magento 2?
In most cases, yes. If your current server doesn’t have latest versions of PHP and MySQL, Magento professionals ensure that the stack is fully compatible for Magento 2 beforehand.
An experienced partner for your Magento 2.0 migration
Art-D developers have extensive Magento 2.0 experience with a broad range of e-commerce companies. Everything we’ve learned in building Magento sites goes into ensuring our clients — and their customers — enjoy a smooth transition to the latest, greatest version of Magento.
Talk to us today about migrating your e-commerce operations to the speed and power of Magento 2.0.
