Migrate to Throttle

Migrate to Throttle

What the move actually involves — the data, the timeline,
your integrations, and what you own at the end.

Schedule Your Call

This page exists because the same questions come up every time, and they deserve straight answers rather than a sales conversation.

Throttle is the commerce platform we build and run — cart, checkout, customers, orders, subscriptions, quotes and invoices, with a documented API. It backs the headless storefronts we build. Moving to it is a bigger commitment than changing hosted platforms, and it is worth understanding properly before anyone signs anything.

Start here: what you’re actually taking on

Most migration pages open with benefits. This one opens with the dependency, because it is the thing you should weigh hardest.

You own your storefront and your data. You depend on us for the backend.

The repository lives in your GitHub organization. Infrastructure runs in your accounts. Your data is exportable in full, at any time, without asking. Documentation is written for a developer who has never seen the project.

What you cannot trivially replace is us as the maintainer of the commerce platform underneath. That is a genuine dependency, different in kind from running on BigCommerce or Shopify, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.

We think it’s a reasonable trade for merchants who have hit real walls on hosted platforms. We don’t think it’s reasonable for merchants who haven’t.

When this is the right move

Your checkout needs to do something and the platform says no. The most common reason, and the clearest. An unusual fulfillment rule, a captured field, a B2B approval step, a payment flow that doesn’t fit the hosted model. On Throttle that’s a change to code we maintain rather than a workaround.

B2B outgrew what apps can reconstruct. Customer-specific pricing, quantity breaks, quote-to-order, net terms and invoicing are first-class here rather than assembled from four extensions. This is the single most common route in.

Platform economics stopped making sense. At volume, per-transaction fees and plan tiers become a real number. Ours don’t move because a vendor repriced.

You need the storefront to behave like software. Configurators, real-time availability, complex account portals.

When it isn’t

You can’t name the constraint. If nothing specific is blocked today, this costs a great deal to buy flexibility you haven’t needed yet.

Your team has no ongoing development capacity. A hosted theme can sit untouched for two years and keep working. A Next.js application cannot — dependencies age and frameworks move. This is a commitment to continuous maintenance.

Your checkout is straightforward retail. Then Shopify’s checkout is excellent and extremely well optimised, and you should keep it. We’d point you at Shopify or BigCommerce instead.

What the migration involves

Data. Products, customers and order history transfer. Password hashes don’t — true of any platform move — so every customer resets and that communication needs planning. Subscriptions are the hard case, because recurring billing is tied to your processor; active subscriptions are a project of their own.

Integrations. Rebuilt against Throttle’s API, and usually the largest line item. We’ve built extensions for Klaviyo and ShipStation including the event pipeline behind them, so common integrations are well-trodden. ERP and 3PL connectors specific to your business are real work, scoped honestly.

The storefront. A Next.js application, built to your design. This is where the control you’re paying for actually shows up.

The redirect map. Built from a live crawl of your existing store rather than its sitemap, covering every URL with traffic, impressions or backlinks, verified in both trailing-slash forms before launch. Same discipline as every migration we run.

Timeline. Three to four months for a typical build. Longer than a hosted theme project, and it should be.

How it starts

With an audit, not a proposal. We establish what you actually have — the real URL inventory, the catalog’s shape, which integrations are load-bearing, and specifically what your current platform is preventing.

That last item is the one that decides it. If we can’t find a constraint that’s genuinely costing you, we’ll tell you to stay where you are.

Schedule Your Call

More on Throttle itself, on headless commerce and the trade it involves, or on how we run migrations generally.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if we stop working with you?
The fair question to ask first, and it should be asked before anything else. Your storefront repository lives in your GitHub organization. Your infrastructure lives in your accounts. Your data is yours and exportable in full at any time, without asking us. Documentation is written for a developer who has never seen the project. What you would need to replace is us as the maintainer of the commerce backend. That is a real dependency and we would rather you weigh it honestly than discover it later.
How long does it take?
Three to four months for a typical build, from first conversation to launch. That covers the storefront, the data migration, integration work and the redirect map. It is longer than a theme project on a hosted platform and should be. If someone quotes you six weeks for a headless build with custom commerce behaviour, ask what they are leaving out.
What happens to our integrations?
They get rebuilt against Throttle's API, and this is usually the largest line in the project. We have built extensions for Klaviyo and ShipStation, including the durable event pipeline behind them, so the common ones are well-trodden. An ERP or 3PL connector specific to your business is real development work. It is also work we do routinely rather than a special project — but it needs to be scoped honestly rather than assumed.
Does our data transfer?
Products, customers and order history transfer. Password hashes do not — that is true of any platform move — so customers will need to reset, and that communication needs planning. Subscriptions are the hard case. Recurring billing is tied to your payment processor, and moving active subscriptions between systems is a project of its own. If you run subscriptions, raise it in the first conversation.
Do we have to go headless to use Throttle?
In practice yes. Throttle is the commerce backend; the storefront is a Next.js application we build. That means you are taking on a frontend application with the maintenance that implies. If that commitment doesn't suit your team, a hosted platform is the better answer and we will say so — we build on BigCommerce and Shopify too.
When should we not do this?
When you cannot name a specific thing your current platform prevents you from doing. "More flexibility" is a description of a trade, not a requirement, and this is an expensive way to acquire it. Also when your team has no ongoing development capacity. A hosted theme can sit untouched for two years. An application cannot.