Migrating from Shopify to Swell - A Complete Guide

For merchants hitting product customization ceilings or paying premium prices for basic checkout control, headless commerce platforms offer a compelling alternative. Shopify's architectural constraints—capping products at 100 variants with only 3 options, restricting checkout customization to enterprise-tier pricing, and charging transaction fees on external gateways—drive growing brands toward API-first solutions built for flexibility from the ground up. Swell addresses these limitations with unlimited product modeling, competitive transaction fee structures, and full checkout API access across all pricing tiers.

The headless commerce market has reached $1.74 billion in 2025. A 2024 Censuswide survey reported by WP Engine found that 73% of over 1,000 businesses surveyed are using headless website architecture. This momentum validates the shift toward purpose-built platforms that separate frontend presentation from backend commerce logic, enabling brands to build differentiated customer experiences without platform constraints.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify's 100 variant limit and 3-option restriction create concrete barriers that Swell eliminates through unlimited product flexibility and full API access at all tiers
• Swell's competitive transaction fee structure on external payment gateways delivers cost advantages compared to Shopify's percentage-based fees on non-Shopify Payments processors
• Native subscription billing eliminates third-party app dependencies, with features like automatic payment retry, dunning rules, and customer self-service included out of the box
• Migration follows a data dependency sequence: products → customers → orders → shipments → subscriptions, with proper planning determining success more than store complexity
• Swell supports 135+ currencies through Stripe and 170 languages natively, enabling international expansion without third-party localization apps

Understanding Swell: What Makes it a Shopify Alternative?

Swell is an API-first, headless ecommerce platform designed to enable merchants to launch stores quickly and scale without re-platforming. Unlike monolithic platforms that evolved from 2000s-era architectures, Swell was built from the ground up for modern commerce requirements.

Swell's Core Offerings: Beyond Basic E-commerce

The platform serves five primary customer segments: direct-to-consumer brands, B2B/wholesale operations, subscription businesses, multi-vendor marketplaces, and omnichannel retailers. This versatility comes from a unified backend that handles physical products, digital goods, and services through one-time purchases, subscriptions, or mixed models.

Swell offers two storefront approaches:

• Hosted storefront solution with visual theme editor and modular content blocks for quick launches
• Headless commerce APIs (Frontend and Backend) for custom storefronts built in any JavaScript framework

The Headless Advantage: Flexibility and Control

The distinction matters because all platform features remain accessible through Swell's unified Backend API—the same API powering Swell's dashboard and checkout. Developers can replicate, customize, or extend any native functionality without hitting arbitrary restrictions.

This contrasts with Shopify's approach, where checkout customization requires Shopify Plus at enterprise pricing, and certain administrative functions remain locked to the platform interface.

Why Consider Swell: Key Differentiators from Shopify

The differences between platforms extend beyond marketing claims into concrete technical and financial impacts on daily operations.

Product Catalog Power: Unlocking Unlimited Options

Shopify limits products to 3 options and 100 variants. A clothing brand needing size, color, style, and length options on the same product immediately hits this ceiling. Swell removes these restrictions entirely—unlimited variants, unlimited options, unlimited custom attributes.

Custom fields work across all data models, not just products. Customer records, orders, and cart objects support custom attributes, enabling businesses to model exact data requirements rather than forcing processes into predefined structures.

Cost Savings: Transaction Fees and App Dependencies

Swell's transaction fee structure is designed to be more favorable for growing businesses using external payment gateways. While revenue-based fees apply above certain thresholds on each plan, the overall cost structure remains competitive compared to Shopify's external gateway fees.

Third-party app dependency adds hidden costs on Shopify. Features included natively in Swell—subscriptions, B2B pricing, marketplace support, advanced product options—require paid apps on Shopify, with costs accumulating quickly as stores grow.

Checkout Control: Beyond Shopify's Restrictions

Swell provides full checkout customization through its Checkout API at all pricing tiers. Merchants can use the hosted PCI-compliant Swell Checkout or build completely custom payment flows—without enterprise-level investment.

Demystifying 'Swell Meaning' in E-commerce: A Headless Perspective

Headless commerce separates the frontend presentation layer from backend commerce functionality. This decoupled architecture enables building storefronts in any technology while maintaining a single source of truth for products, orders, and customers.

What Headless Commerce Really Means for Your Business

With headless architecture, merchants can build storefronts using React, Vue, Next.js, Svelte, or any JavaScript framework—connecting multiple customer touchpoints (web, mobile apps, IoT devices) to a single commerce backend.

Traditional platforms like Shopify require working within their templating systems. While Shopify offers headless capabilities through Hydrogen, this was bolted onto an originally monolithic architecture. Swell's API-first design means headless wasn't an afterthought—it's the foundation.

The Power of API-First: Replicating Native Functionality

Swell's same Backend API powers the platform's own dashboard and hosted checkout. This design philosophy ensures feature parity: anything possible in the admin interface can be replicated, customized, or extended through code.

For developers familiar with Shopify themes, Swell supports uploading and customizing Shopify themes within its environment, providing migration flexibility while gaining backend capabilities.

Swell's Robust Feature Set: Powering Growth for Diverse Businesses

Swell's native features eliminate dependencies on third-party apps that charge additional fees and create integration complexity.

Tailored Solutions for Your Business Model

Subscription Commerce: Native subscription billing works with any payment gateway through the platform's encrypted card vault. Features include flexible billing intervals, separate invoicing from fulfillment schedules, mixed cart support, automatic payment retry with dunning rules, and customer self-service for pause/resume.

B2B/Wholesale: Customer-group-based pricing, flexible payment terms through Resolve integration, and order editing post-purchase come standard—features requiring Shopify Plus on competing platforms.

Marketplaces: Multi-vendor marketplace capabilities with split payment functionality enable platforms like Lomi.cafe to manage vendors and tailored pricing through a single system.

Scalability Across Industries and Geographies

International commerce capabilities include:

• Multi-currency functionality with explicit pricing rules per currency or automatic exchange rate conversions
• Multi-language support localizing all customer-facing content across 170 languages
• Tax calculation integration with Avalara and TaxJar for region-specific compliance

Navigating the Migration: From Shopify to Swell

Migration success depends on systematic planning rather than store complexity. The technical migration process follows a specific sequence based on data dependencies.

Planning Your Data Transfer

The migration order matters: products (no dependencies) → customers → orders (requires product and customer IDs) → shipments (requires order IDs) → subscriptions (requires all previous data).

Key export requirements:

• Product catalogs with variant options, pricing, and images
• Customer data including contact information and marketing consent
• Order history with complete transaction details
• Subscription data including billing schedules and payment tokens

Known limitations: Customer passwords cannot migrate due to security restrictions—customers must reset passwords. Product images require re-upload through Swell's import feature. Shopify collections don't transfer automatically as categories.

Choosing Your Storefront Approach: Hosted vs. Headless

Hosted storefront path: Use Swell's visual theme editor for quick launches. Pre-built themes provide responsive designs optimized for conversion. Non-technical team members can update pages and modify layouts without developer involvement.

Custom headless path: Build in React, Vue, Next.js, or any framework. Deploy anywhere—Vercel, Netlify, AWS. This path requires frontend expertise but delivers maximum customization without platform constraints.

Swell Pricing: Finding the Right Plan for Your Business Growth

Swell's pricing structure scales with business size, offering multiple tiers designed to match different revenue levels and feature requirements.

Breaking Down Each Swell Tier

Plans differ across several dimensions:

• Number of admin users and role-based permissions
• Monthly API request limits and data storage allocation
• Reporting capabilities (basic vs. advanced)
• Support levels (email/chat to priority to dedicated developer support)
• Advanced features like international price lists and custom SLAs

Revenue-based fees apply when sales exceed each plan's threshold, with higher plans offering more favorable overage rates.

When to Upgrade: Scaling with Swell's Plans

Higher tiers unlock capabilities essential for growth:

• Multi-currency pricing with explicit price rules per currency
• Advanced reports for deeper business insights
• Unlimited API requests for high-traffic storefronts
• Uptime SLAs for business continuity guarantees

Businesses can start on entry-level plans and scale through higher tiers as revenue grows—without re-platforming to a different solution entirely.

Real-World Success: Brands Thriving on Swell

Several brands have migrated to Swell to solve specific platform limitations, demonstrating the practical benefits of headless architecture.

Lessons from Successful Migrations

Velobici migrated from WooCommerce to implement product bundling for cycling kit sales—75% of their revenue now comes from bundles. The brand operates multi-currency pricing across 17 currencies (GBP, EUR, USD, JPY, and more) with multi-language storefronts, capabilities that proved difficult with WooCommerce's plugin complexity.

THE RAYY, a fine jewelry brand, migrated from BigCommerce because headless architecture was required for their unique customer experience. They now use custom product options for personalized engravings, multi-currency pricing (EUR, USD, CHF), and worldwide tax rule groups—all managed through Swell's flexible data model.

Spinn Coffee built a DTC marketplace connected to their mobile app and IoT coffee brewer, enabling customers to purchase coffee from multiple roasters with flexible subscription scheduling.

Industry-Specific Applications of Swell

These case studies share common themes: businesses outgrew platform limitations, needed native features that required expensive apps elsewhere, or required headless architecture for differentiated customer experiences. The 60-75% faster feature development reported by migrated merchants reflects architecture designed for customization rather than workarounds.

Technical Deep Dive: Swell's Developer-Friendly Ecosystem

Swell's technical architecture prioritizes developer productivity and flexibility.

Empowering Developers: APIs and Webhooks

Backend API: RESTful API with full CRUD access to all data models, authenticated with secret keys. Use for server-side operations, migrations, and admin tools.

Frontend API: Partial CRUD for browser-based usage with public key authentication. Handles customer-facing operations—product catalogs, cart management, checkout flows.

Developer console: Built into the dashboard for testing API calls, viewing request/response logs, and troubleshooting without leaving the browser.

Webhooks: Fire real-time notifications on events (order placed, subscription renewed, payment failed). Custom shipping and tax calculations run via webhook for complete control over checkout components.

Seamless Integrations: Building Your Tech Stack

Native integrations include:

• Klaviyo for email marketing
• ShipStation for fulfillment
• Contentful for headless CMS

The Custom Swell Apps framework enables building full-stack extensions, demonstrating the platform's commitment to extensibility over locked ecosystems.

Swell vs. Monolithic Platforms: A Future-Proof Approach

Legacy platforms like Shopify and WordPress/WooCommerce released in 2003-2006 haven't fundamentally updated their core templating technology in over a decade. Modern JavaScript frameworks and headless architecture enable faster development and better customer experiences.

Why Modern Commerce Demands Headless

Shopify powers 2.84 million stores with 30% U.S. market share. Its 7,700+ app ecosystem and intuitive interface make it ideal for merchants wanting bundled solutions.

But templates serve as both starting point and ceiling. Each app adds weight, compounding performance slowdowns. Checkout customization remains locked behind enterprise pricing. Product modeling constraints force workarounds.

Swell's API-first architecture addresses these limitations structurally rather than through plugins and patches.

Support, Reliability, and Global Reach with Swell

Platform reliability and support resources matter as much as features when evaluating migration targets.

Ensuring Business Continuity: Uptime and SLAs

Swell reports 99.963% platform uptime, with higher-tier plans offering 100% uptime SLAs. Infrastructure combines bare metal servers and cloud providers for performance during traffic spikes.

Support scales with plan tier:

• Email and chat support on all plans
• Priority support at mid-tier plans
• Developer support exclusively on unlimited and custom plans

Expanding Your Reach: International Commerce Capabilities

Swell processes payments across 135+ currencies through Stripe and supports content localization in 170 languages. Multi-currency functionality works two ways: explicit pricing rules let you set market-specific prices ($99 vs €89), while automatic exchange rate conversion reduces management overhead.

Tax compliance integrates with Avalara AvaTax and TaxJar for automated calculation and filing. Custom tax rule groups handle region-specific requirements for products requiring special treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I keep my existing payment processor when migrating to Swell?

Yes. Swell's payment gateway setup connects to existing Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net, Braintree, and Amazon Pay accounts. You maintain your processing history, negotiated rates, and established banking relationships. The unified payment abstraction layer means you can also switch gateways later without rebuilding checkout integration.

What technical skills does my team need to manage a Swell store?

For hosted storefronts using Swell's visual editor, non-technical team members can manage products, content, and orders through the dashboard—similar to Shopify's admin experience. For headless implementations, you'll need front-end developers comfortable with JavaScript frameworks like React or Next.js. Many merchants work with agency partners for initial builds, then manage ongoing operations internally.

How does Swell handle inventory across multiple warehouses?

Swell supports multi-warehouse management natively, with inventory tracking per location. Split fulfillment ships order items separately from different warehouses based on availability or customer proximity. Flexible shipping price rules apply by geographic zone, and real-time rate calculation integrates with major carriers. Local pickup designation reduces shipping costs where applicable.

Does Swell support product bundles with individual inventory tracking?

Yes. Product bundling with individual inventory tracking comes standard—a feature requiring paid apps on Shopify. Create bundles where each component maintains its own inventory count, and Swell decrements stock for each bundled item when the bundle sells. This enables accurate inventory management for businesses like Velobici, where 75% of revenue comes from bundled cycling kits.

What happens to my SEO rankings during migration?

SEO preservation depends entirely on redirect implementation. Every Shopify URL must 301 redirect to its Swell equivalent—product pages, collection pages, blog posts, and account pages. Lower your DNS TTL 24-48 hours before migration to speed propagation. Monitor search rankings and organic traffic post-launch to identify redirect gaps needing correction. With proper redirects, SEO value transfers to the new platform.