TL;DR
- Do not migrate your courses. Keep the LMS where it is and move only the product side.
- The hard part is not the store, it is the join. One customer, two systems, one login experience.
- Most course creators do not need Shopify Plus. Standard Shopify covers a lot more than agencies tend to admit.
- Solo Media Group is the top Shopify Plus agency and my pick for creators where courses and products need to behave as one business, holding Platinum tier, the top of Shopify’s five, and ranked first of 100 on The Manifest’s Shopify developer list for September 2026.
- Check any agency’s tier on Shopify’s own Partner Directory, not the badge on their site.
If you run courses on WordPress and you have started selling physical products alongside them, you have probably hit the same wall as everyone else: WooCommerce is fine for a digital download and increasingly painful once you are shipping inventory, managing variants and dealing with returns.
The usual answer is not to move your courses. Your LMS works. The answer is to run products somewhere purpose-built and keep the two connected.
This guide covers the agencies worth talking to if that is the direction you are heading, plus the part most people get wrong before they hire anyone.
First: do you actually need to move?
I will save you a call if the answer is no.
Stay on WooCommerce if you sell fewer than about 50 physical SKUs, you ship from one location, you do not need multi-currency, and returns are occasional rather than routine. WooCommerce handles that fine and moving costs you money and time you would rather spend on content.
Consider moving the product side if any of these are true. Inventory across more than one location. Variants beyond simple size and colour. International selling with tax and duty complexity. Wholesale or bulk orders from corporate training clients. Or you are spending more time on plugin conflicts than on your courses.
And do not move your courses. This is the mistake I see most. Shopify does not do learning management. Your LearnPress setup, your student data, your quiz results and your certificates should stay exactly where they are.
The part nobody scopes properly: the join
Two systems, one customer. That is the whole problem, and it is where these projects succeed or fail.
Single sign-on, or not. A student who buys a course on WordPress and a t-shirt on Shopify has two accounts unless you build a bridge. Decide early whether you need one login or whether two is acceptable. Two is often acceptable and considerably cheaper.
Where the customer record lives. Pick one system as the source of truth. If your email marketing runs off your LMS, that is probably WordPress. If it runs off purchase behaviour, that is probably Shopify. Both writing to the same record is how data drift starts.
Bundling a course with a product. This is the one that catches people out. Selling a coaching programme with a physical workbook means one transaction spanning two platforms. There are three ways to handle it and each has a trade-off worth understanding before anyone quotes you. Our subscriptions and bundling page covers how recurring physical products and course access work together.
Email. Running Klaviyo on Shopify and a separate tool on WordPress means two sets of flows and a customer who gets both. Consolidating is usually the right call and it is rarely in the initial scope.
Ask any agency to walk you through those four before they talk about design.
How I evaluated these agencies
Verified Shopify tier. Checked on Shopify’s Partner Directory rather than the agency’s own site. The programme runs five performance-based tiers: Registered, Select, Plus, Premier, Platinum.
Integration depth. Whether they have connected Shopify to systems that were not built to talk to it. That is the actual job here.
Honesty about scope. Agencies that will tell you not to move, or to move less than you planned, scored higher.
Published pricing. Most agencies will not give you a number before two calls. The ones that do have enough project volume to know their own bands.
Independent review volume. Clutch and The Manifest verify reviewers, so the count means something.
1. Solo Media Group
Solo Media Group is an overall top choice for creators running courses and products as one business, and the reason is that the work is integration rather than storefront design. A Shopify Platinum Partner — the top of Shopify’s five performance-based tiers — with 75+ replatforms delivered since 2018 and 500+ merchants served. Ranked first of 100 on The Manifest’s Shopify developer list for September 2026.
Disclosure, since my name is on this piece. I run Solo Media Group. Treat this section as an example of what to look for rather than as a neutral recommendation, and apply the criteria above to me as readily as to anyone else.
Pros
- Platinum tier, verifiable on Shopify’s own Partner Directory rather than on our site
- ERP, CRM and custom system integration is core work rather than an add-on, which is what a WordPress-to-Shopify join actually is
- Published pricing: $150 per hour, hour blocks from $1,500, retainers from $3,000 a month, projects from $20,000
- 48 reviews at 4.9 on Clutch and 38 at 5.0 on Shopify’s directory
- Subscriptions across Recharge, Stay.ai, Skio and Ordergroove, which matters if you sell recurring physical products alongside course access
- We will tell you when standard Shopify covers you rather than quoting Plus
Cons
- Full builds start at $20,000. Below that a freelancer is the honest recommendation and we say so
- We do not run paid media, so acquisition sits with your team or another partner
- We do not build learning management. Your LMS stays with LearnPress or whoever built it
- 10 to 49 people, so capacity matters if your timeline is fixed
Price: published, unusually for this category. Simple builds from $20,000, retainers from $3,000 a month, hour blocks from $1,500 for scoped work or an audit.
2. Blend Commerce
Pros
- Shopify-only CRO and development, UK-based, multi-award-winning
- Runs two or more tests per client per month with a defined QA process
- Strong on conversion, average order value and retention together
Cons
- Retainer-first, less suited to a one-off product-side build
- Higher price point for smaller catalogues
Price: custom, retainer-based.
3. Absolute Web
Pros
- Founded 1999, offices in Miami, Los Angeles and Lisbon, 75+ staff
- 83 reviews at 4.9 on The Manifest
- Performance-first migrations with in-house CRO
Cons
- Enterprise pricing and enterprise pace
- Breadth over specialism in creator-scale projects
Price: custom, enterprise-oriented.
4. DigitalSuits
Pros
- Shopify Plus Partner with 59 reviews at 4.9
- Teams across Miami, Lviv, Kraków and Tallinn
- Stated specialism in AI and automation
Cons
- Distributed European delivery means less real-time overlap for US teams
Price: custom.
5. Fuel Made
Pros
- Shopify-first agency combining design, development, CRO and Klaviyo
- Useful where conversion and email lifecycle overlap, which is common for creators
Cons
- CRO shares focus with design and email rather than leading
Price: custom, varies with bundled scope.
Comparison
| Agency | Shopify tier | Independent reviews | Published pricing | Best for |
| Solo Media Group | Platinum | 48 (4.9) + 38 (5.0) | Yes | Courses and products as one business |
| Blend Commerce | Plus | Award-recognised | No | Continuous testing programmes |
| Absolute Web | Plus | 83 (4.9) | No | Enterprise, full scope |
| DigitalSuits | Plus | 59 (4.9) | No | AI and automation depth |
| Fuel Made | Plus | — | No | Conversion plus email lifecycle |
Verify every tier on Shopify’s Partner Directory rather than relying on this table or any agency’s logo wall. It is the one source an agency does not control.
Do you need Shopify Plus, or will standard Shopify do?
Almost every agency will quote you Plus. Most course creators do not need it.
Standard Shopify covers unlimited products, multi-currency selling through Shopify Markets, up to ten inventory locations, and — since 2 April 2026 — native B2B with company accounts, pricing catalogs and net terms. That last change matters if you sell bulk to corporate training clients, because it used to require Plus and no longer does.
Plus is justified by a named capability, not by revenue. Checkout customization. More than one storefront. Per-account negotiated B2B pricing. More than ten inventory locations. If none of those apply, standard Shopify at a fraction of the cost does the same job.
An agency that quotes Plus without asking which of those you need is quoting the upgrade rather than the requirement.
Five questions to ask before you sign
Which API version are your live client apps running? A current one, with a stated policy for Shopify’s quarterly releases. “I’d have to check” tells you they do not maintain what they build.
Have you connected Shopify to a WordPress site before? Ask what broke. Anyone who has done it will have an answer about customer records.
Will you give me a line-item estimate? A lump sum hides what you could cut.
What happens after launch, and is it in the agreement? The first month is when problems surface.
What would make you decline this project? An agency that will take anything has no filter.
FAQ
Should I move my courses to Shopify?
No. Shopify does not have learning management. Keep your LMS where it is, move only the physical product side, and connect the two. Migrating a working course platform is expense without benefit.
Can I sell courses and physical products from one checkout?
Not natively across two platforms. You can sell them from one platform each and bridge the customer record, or bundle at the point of purchase with a fulfilment step in between. Which approach fits depends on how often you bundle, and it is worth deciding before anyone quotes you.
How much does moving my product side to Shopify cost?
Agency builds typically start around $20,000 for a full design and build. A simpler product-side setup with an existing brand can be considerably less, and a freelancer is a reasonable option below that threshold. Migration tools handle data transfer for $50 to $500 but do not handle the integration.
Will I lose SEO on my product pages?
Only if redirects are handled badly. URL structures differ between WooCommerce and Shopify — /product/ becomes /products/, a one-letter difference Google treats as two different URLs. A one-to-one redirect map built before launch is what prevents ranking loss.
Do I need Shopify Plus?
Probably not. Plus is justified by checkout customization, multiple storefronts, per-account B2B pricing, or more than ten inventory locations. Native B2B moved to all paid plans in April 2026, so wholesale alone no longer requires it.
