Crosslist from PrestaShop to Shopify — Automatically
An application you host against a service you rent. Here is what PrestaShop's native multistore and daily currency rates cost you to replace, how combinations become variants, and the price field that fails silently in between.
- This is a move from an application you host to a service you rent, and the trade is maintenance for control. PrestaShop is a Symfony application on your own server; Shopify is hosted, and you never think about PHP versions again.
- Two things you have on PrestaShop today do not survive the move as standard: native multistore, and native multi-currency with exchange rates that update daily from Fixer. On Shopify both are Markets features, and full local-currency selling requires Shopify Payments.
- Review both storefronts. PrestaShop and Shopify organise products differently, so check the imported catalogue before publishing.
- Variants map well, but prices do not. A PrestaShop combination’s price is an impact on the parent price; a Shopify variant price is absolute. That arithmetic has to happen somewhere, and it fails silently.
- Check stock per variant. Confirm quantities for every product option before publishing.
- Shopify’s variant ceiling is 2,048, raised for all merchants in October 2025 — but apps still on the deprecated REST endpoints are stuck at 100.
- One sync behaviour to respect: Shopify’s productSet mutation deletes list entries you leave out. Send the whole intended product state, not a diff.
- Cost: FLUF Connect crosslists from PrestaShop to 50+ marketplaces from one dashboard. 7 days for £1, then from £9/month. There is no free plan.
On this page
- Why PrestaShop merchants look at Shopify
- What you give up
- Comparing the cost honestly
- Mapping the product model
- The combination price trap
- Stock, on both sides
- The two APIs
- Running both at once
- Migrate, or run in parallel?
- Sources and verification
- Related guides
Why PrestaShop merchants look at Shopify
The pull is mostly about what you stop doing. PrestaShop is a standalone application you host, and hosting it has become more demanding: PrestaShop 9, released in June 2025, raises the PHP memory floor to 512M from PrestaShop 8’s 256M, and wants PHP 8.2 to 8.4 with 8.5 recommended, MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.2 upward, and a specific extension list. Doubling the memory requirement rules out a meaningful amount of cheap shared hosting.
Then there are upgrades. PrestaShop’s own guidance tells merchants to assume modules are incompatible until proven otherwise, and warns that a theme built for 1.6 will not work on 1.7 or later. There is no direct path from 1.6 to 9 — the documented route is one major version at a time. On Shopify, upgrades are something that happens to you rather than something you schedule.
There is also a market signal worth knowing. Store Leads counted 149,980 live PrestaShop stores in its report of 28 August 2026, down 4.9% quarter on quarter and 15% year on year, with the platform losing net merchants primarily to WooCommerce and Shopify. That does not make PrestaShop a bad platform — a smaller ecosystem can still be the right one — but it does mean you are not the first to run this comparison.
What you give up
This is the half of the comparison that PrestaShop merchants tend to discover late, because the features in question are ones you have had for free and stopped noticing.
Multistore. PrestaShop has it natively: one installation runs several shops, each in a shop group, with a back-office context selector so a setting can apply to all shops, one group, or one shop. Shopify’s equivalent is running separate stores, or Markets for country variants of one store; there is no equivalent of several genuinely distinct storefronts on one installation and one licence.
Currencies. PrestaShop calculates exchange rates for you. Its currency documentation states that rates for added currencies are calculated from one unit of your default currency, are provided by Fixer, and update every day. On Shopify, multi-currency lives in Markets, and Shopify’s own documentation notes that only stores using Shopify Payments with access to one-page checkout can use all functionalities of local-currency pricing. If Shopify Payments is not available where you are, that is a real gap rather than a configuration step.
Languages. PrestaShop ships multilingual by default, with product names, descriptions and URL slugs as per-language fields in the data model rather than a layer over the top. Shopify handles translation through Markets and apps.
If you sell in one country, one language and one currency, none of this matters and you should ignore it. If you are one of the many PrestaShop merchants selling across France, Spain, Italy and Poland — four countries that together hold 41.4% of all live PrestaShop stores — it is most of the decision.
Comparing the cost honestly
PrestaShop’s software is free, licensed under OSL 3.0 with its native modules and Classic theme under AFL 3.0. What you pay for is hosting, paid modules, a theme and payment processing.
Shopify charges a subscription instead: on the UK pricing page, Basic at £25 a month, Grow at £65 and Advanced at £344, dropping to £19, £49 and £259 when billed yearly. In US dollars it is $39, $105 and $399 monthly, or $29, $79 and $299 billed yearly. Card processing through Shopify Payments in the UK runs 2% plus 25p on Basic, 1.7% plus 25p on Grow and 1.5% plus 25p on Advanced; in the US, 2.9%, 2.7% and 2.5% plus 30 cents.
The number that catches people out is the third-party gateway fee. If you do not use Shopify Payments — whether by choice or because it is not offered in your country — Shopify charges an additional 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of your gateway’s own rate. Check whether Shopify Payments covers your country before you model any of this.
There is one genuine saving that is easy to overlook. PrestaShop’s paid modules are a recurring cost with an expiry: an Addons purchase includes Business Care for one year, so support and updates on a module lapse after twelve months unless renewed. Several categories of functionality that cost real money on PrestaShop Addons are either built in on Shopify or available more cheaply.
Mapping the product model
| PrestaShop | Shopify | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Product | Straight across |
| Combination | Variant | Prices behave differently — see the next section |
| Attribute (product_option_values) | Product option | These generate variants on both sides |
| Feature (product_features) | Metafield | Intrinsic properties that do not vary; Shopify’s natural home for them is a metafield |
| reference | SKU | PrestaShop calls the SKU field reference; combinations carry their own |
| ean13 / upc / isbn / mpn | Barcode | Shopify has one barcode field; PrestaShop has four identifier fields to choose from |
| Categories (many-to-many) + id_category_default | Collections | Shopify collections are flatter; PrestaShop’s tree and default-category concept do not map exactly |
| Tags (separate resource) | Tags | Straight across |
| Images (product association) | Product media | Shopify accepts up to 5000×5000 px and 20 MB per image |
| weight | Variant weight | Straight across |
| active / available_for_order | Status / availability | Two independent PrestaShop flags, one Shopify status — decide which governs |
| Stock quantity. | Inventory level | Separate resource on both sides, keyed differently |
Preserve the distinction between attributes, such as size choices, and features, such as fabric composition. Check that Shopify presents selectable options and product specifications correctly.
The combination price trap
This one is worth its own section because it fails silently and expensively.
A PrestaShop combination carries a price that is an impact on the parent product’s price, not an absolute figure — and a separate unit price impact alongside it. A base product at 40 with a large size at plus 5 is a 45 item, but the number stored on the combination is 5.
Shopify variants carry absolute prices. So the conversion is a genuine calculation, and if it is skipped every variant arrives at the base price. Nothing errors. Your storefront simply sells the expensive sizes for the cheap price until someone notices, which on a large size grid can take a while.
If you are moving a catalogue with size- or option-based price differences, this is the single thing worth checking manually on a sample before you trust a bulk run.
Stock, on both sides
Both platforms separate stock from the product, and they do it differently.
Review stock for the base product and each variant. If you use multiple PrestaShop stores, confirm that quantities belong to the intended shop.
PrestaShop can display a product while preventing purchases. Review both its visibility and availability to order when deciding whether to publish it on Shopify.
On Shopify, inventory is tracked per variant per location, which is more expressive than PrestaShop’s model if you hold stock in more than one place and slightly more work if you do not.
The two APIs
These are not similar interfaces, and knowing the difference explains a lot about why some tools handle PrestaShop badly.
Connect PrestaShop with your store URL and a Webservice key with the required permissions. If you add another shop, check that the key also permits access to that shop.
Shopify supports up to 2,048 variants per product, but some apps remain limited to 100. Check app compatibility before moving a product with many variants.
Running both at once
Most merchants who ask about this route do not actually want a one-way migration. They want the PrestaShop store to keep running while the Shopify store is built, or they want to keep both permanently — PrestaShop for a B2B or multi-country operation, Shopify for a consumer-facing brand.
Connect PrestaShop with your store URL and Webservice key, then review categories, SKUs, weights, photos and stock before publishing on Shopify.
A sale on either channel updates stock on the other. Sold-out PrestaShop products remain in your catalogue with their URL, history and reviews; they are no longer offered for sale.
Review all variants, collections and product details after an update to confirm the product is complete.
Crosslisting and inventory sync are available on every paid plan. Relisting, offer management and smart pricing are included from Seller upwards — though note that neither relisting nor offers apply between two storefronts, since neither PrestaShop nor Shopify expires listings or runs an offer system. Those features exist for the marketplaces you crosslist to alongside these.
Migrate, or run in parallel?
Run in parallel first, in almost every case.
The reason is that the decision is genuinely close and depends on things you will learn by doing. If multistore, native multi-currency or per-language product data are load-bearing for you, PrestaShop is doing work Shopify will charge you or an app for. If your pain is hosting, upgrades and finding developers, Shopify removes all three and you will feel it within a month.
What you should not do is treat the export as a one-shot event. PrestaShop’s data model has three places where a naive migration loses information — the combination price impact, the attribute-versus-feature split, and stock living on a separate keyed resource — and none of the three announces itself when it goes wrong. Move a slice, check it against the live storefront, then move the rest.
Sources and verification
- PrestaShop on attributes and on features, plus multistore and currencies, including the daily Fixer update.
- PrestaShop 9 system requirements against PrestaShop 8’s, and PrestaShop on updates and migrations.
- Shopify’s UK pricing and US pricing for plan and card-processing rates, and Shopify on transaction fees for the third-party gateway charge.
- Shopify Payments supported countries and Shopify on Markets currencies for the local-currency dependency.
- Shopify’s 2,048-variant limit and app compatibility guidance.
- Store Leads’ PrestaShop report of 28 August 2026 for live store counts, the country distribution and net migration, and PrestaShop Addons, read 4 September 2026, for module pricing and the one-year Business Care term.
What we could not verify, and therefore left out. PrestaShop Hosted’s own subscription pricing — the figures circulating in third-party blogs could not be confirmed against a PrestaShop pricing page, so we quote none. The specifics of PrestaShop’s B2B mode, where the documentation pages we reached rendered navigation only. Shopify’s Starter plan price, which is no longer shown on its pricing page and which its help centre defers on. Shopify’s maximum media count per product, which its documentation does not state. And the current cap on options per product, which no longer appears in Shopify’s product-model documentation — so we have not repeated the commonly quoted figure.
Related guides
Frequently Asked Questions
Run both first, in almost every case. The decision is genuinely close and depends on things you learn by doing. If native multistore, multi-currency or per-language product data are load-bearing for you, PrestaShop is doing work Shopify will charge you or an app for. If your pain is hosting, upgrades and finding developers, Shopify removes all three and you will feel it within a month. What you should not do is treat the export as a one-shot event — PrestaShop's data model has three places where a naive migration loses information, and none of them announces itself when it goes wrong.
Three things you have had for free and probably stopped noticing. Native multistore: one PrestaShop installation runs several distinct shops in shop groups. Native multi-currency where PrestaShop calculates rates for you from Fixer and updates them daily. And native multilingual support, where product names, descriptions and URL slugs are per-language fields in the data model rather than a layer on top. On Shopify these live in Markets and apps, and full local-currency selling requires Shopify Payments. If you sell in one country, one language and one currency, none of it matters.
Because a PrestaShop combination's price is an impact on the parent product's price, not an absolute figure — a base product at 40 with a large size at plus 5 stores 5 on the combination, not 45. Shopify variants carry absolute prices, so the conversion is a real calculation, and if it is skipped every variant arrives at the base price. Nothing errors: your storefront simply sells the expensive sizes cheaply until someone notices, which on a large size grid can take a while. If your catalogue has size- or option-based price differences, check a sample manually before trusting a bulk run.
Check stock for every product and variant in the intended PrestaShop store. Also review whether each product should be active and available to order before publishing on Shopify.
Keep selectable attributes, such as size and colour, separate from fixed features such as fabric composition. Check Shopify’s product options and specifications after import.
PrestaShop's software is free — the cost is hosting, paid modules, a theme and payment processing. Shopify charges a subscription: on the UK pricing page Basic is £25 a month, Grow £65 and Advanced £344, falling to £19, £49 and £259 billed yearly; in dollars, $39, $105 and $399 monthly. Card processing through Shopify Payments in the UK runs 2% plus 25p on Basic down to 1.5% plus 25p on Advanced. Watch one line: if you do not use Shopify Payments, whether by choice or because it is unavailable in your country, Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus on top of your gateway's own rate.
Yes. Connect PrestaShop with your store URL and a Webservice key that has the required permissions; follow the Shopify connection prompts separately. Check access for each PrestaShop shop you want to connect.
Shopify supports up to 2,048 variants per product, but some apps remain limited to 100. Check app compatibility before moving products with more than 100 variants.
Shopify's productSet is the mutation built for syncing an external data source into Shopify, and its semantics catch integrations out. For list fields — variants, collections, metafields — it creates new entries, updates existing ones, and deletes existing entries that are not included in the request. For all other field types it updates only what you send. So a sync that sends a partial variant list, because it only knew about what changed, will delete every variant it did not mention. The correct pattern is always to send the complete intended state of the product rather than a diff.
FLUF sets the PrestaShop quantity to zero and turns off both the active and available_for_order flags, so the product stays in your catalogue with its URL, history and any reviews intact rather than being deleted — which matters when the product page is an SEO asset you have spent years building. Sales in the other direction are read from the PrestaShop orders resource and bring stock down on Shopify and every other connected channel. Crosslisting and inventory sync are on every paid plan; relisting, offer management and smart pricing are included from Seller upwards, and apply to the marketplaces you crosslist to rather than between two storefronts.