How long does it take to implement Magento?
Magento implementation time depends on several factors, such as the scope of the project, the number of integrations, the size of the development team, and specific functionality requirements.
However, even without specific information, it is possible to estimate the time needed to implement this technology. I will immediately answer this difficult business question in a simple and concrete way.
How long does it take to implement Magento?
What does the Magento implementation time depend on?
Remember the time for final verification and production launch
Could the time required for your project be significantly different from the example project discussed?
Magento implementation time – summary
In most cases, it will take about 7 to 9 months to implement Magento, if we are talking about the design and coding stage of the online store. To this, you need to add about 1 month for your final UAT (user acceptance testing) and production launch of the website.
For those who want to know more specifics, I invite you to continue reading.
I distinguished five main factors.
The biggest influence on Magento’s implementation time is the size of the project – the number of non-standard functionalities and integrations, customized graphic design, as well as the technology used to create the front-end (PWA, Hyva, Luma).
In the end, we may get a project for which the Software house will have to spend 1,500 hours, 2,000 hours, and sometimes even 4,000 hours.
Obviously, the simpler the project, the less unusual functionality and integration, the less time it will take. On the other hand, the more complex elements, the more time will be required. In other words, the less complex the project, the more likely we are to complete it within seven months. For more complex projects, the completion time can exceed nine months (and sometimes quite a bit more).
If you have an ERP system, such as SAP, it is likely that the company implementing Magento will have to work with a large company specializing in SAP implementation and configuration. We already have at least 2 companies that need to work together. On top of that, we add your company (that is, the one where ecommerce is implemented), so a 3rd company appears. On top of that, sometimes there is an fralance graphic designer or an external project manager.The number of parties involved usually increases the project time.
Each company has its own scheduling process and must adjust the project to its current project plans and team availability. Unfortunately, deadlines rarely sync perfectly. More companies involved also make communication more complicated.
So, the fewer companies involved in a project, the more we move toward 7 months. The more parties involved, the more we move toward 9 months (or more).
If you only have a general idea—for example, you would like to create a B2B platform and that’s pretty much your whole concept, then the discovery phase, i.e. the initial business analysis, will require much more time from the Magento implementation company.
So the discovery phase will not just take a month and a half, but, for example, 4 months. This again stretch the timeline.
The more detailed your vision for the store or platform is the less time the business analysis will take. And this shortens the project.
It doesn’t work this way that if you currently have 3 programmers on a project, adding another 3, will get the project done 2 times faster. As one of the person from our team puts it, “9 mothers don’t have a baby in a month”.
This is due to the fact that not all tasks can be implemented in parallel, and the division of work between different people is not always possible. Some functionalities should be implemented from start to finish by one programmer.
What does this mean for us? If your Magento implementation project has been estimated at 2,000 hours and the software house delegates 4 developers to the project, they will probably do the work faster than if we hired 2, but it will not be 2 times shorter.
The impact of coding quality on the project schedule is simple to explain. The lower it is, the more revisions of iterations of the same task. So we implement one functionality not in 2 weeks but, for example, in 6 weeks. The schedule is therefore longer.
How does the business analysis and the quality of that analysis affect the project time? In the business analysis, one of the final products are user stories and acceptance criteria.
They describe in detail how a functionality or process should ultimately work. The better the user stories and acceptance criteria are, the more accurately they describe the expected result. This is great because it avoids a situation where a programmer, not having described the exact functionality, made his own interpretation, and this interpretation does not coincide with your idea.
To avoid such a situation, it is a good idea to conduct a business analysis at the very beginning. It also gives you a reference point. If after 6 months of coding, you can’t get along with the software house to whether the coded functionality is as intended or not, then you just open the business analysis and check what is written there.
A period of 7-9 months is the time from the start of the discovery phase to the completion of coding.
To this, we should add the time that is needed for the final testing done by you—UAT (user acceptance testing).
To this estimate, we should also add the time needed for the production launch. The production launch must be a date that suits both all developers and you.
Your testing and production launch should take about 1 month.
If the scope of the project is smaller and you have a great project team then the time can be reduced by about 1-1.5 months.
There are stucked implementation projects that have been running for 2 years and are not yet finished..
Where are the delays coming from?
My experience shows that if at the planning stage of a project, the implementation is set for about 11 months, the likelihood of a big slip is considerable. The larger the project, the more risks, which in turn facilitates delays.
Therefore, it is definitely easier to apply such a solution that we simply move the implementation of some of the non-standard functionality to be done after the production launch.
This way, the project can be implemented faster, more efficiently, and more easily, with fewer risks.
In the post about the scope of the Magento MVP, I described in more detail what Magento functionalities are worth focusing on at the very beginning.
That’s all I wanted to write about the implementation and deployment time of a B2C store on Magento 2.
To summarize:
1. A project on Magento usually takes 7 to 9 months, plus a month for testing and production launch.
If you think you will manage to create a store on Magento in 2 months, you are probably wrong. If, on the other hand, you assume that the project will take 3 years, then clearly something went wrong during the planning. A safe assumption is 7 to 9 months.
2. If you want to shorten the Magento implementation time, the simplest solution is to reduce the scope of the project and carefully prepare the initial business analysis.
If you take these two elements seriously then you will significantly reduce the risk of delaying the project.
If you are wondering how to plan your work during a Magento implementation project, then be sure to read this post.
