We tested 192 Magento stores. The average scored 51 out of 100 on mobile.
Not a survey — Google's own PageSpeed test, run one store at a time. 43% landed in the band Google's tool colours red. Here's the full study, what's causing it, and what it costs to put right.
Free. Your products, on our platform, walked through live on a call.
Every sector was slow.
Some were far worse than others.
Sample: 192 live Magento stores. 73% UK, the rest Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada. Every one on an end-of-life Magento version.
| Sector | Avg score | Under 50 | Wait for content |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food & drink | 42 | 78% | 20.1s |
| Industrial & trade supply | 44 | 64% | 14.1s |
| Home & garden | 46 | 45% | 17.5s |
| Sports & outdoor | 48 | 40% | 15.1s |
| Office & print | 51 | 50% | 8.9s |
| Fashion | 52 | 44% | 13.1s |
| Electronics & tech | 59 | 29% | 13.1s |
| Auto parts | 60 | 25% | 11.3s |
"Wait for content" is Largest Contentful Paint — when the biggest thing on the page finally renders. Google's threshold for good is 2.5 seconds. Measured on a throttled mid-range phone: a lab test, but roughly what a lot of people are holding.
It usually isn't your hosting.
And it isn't you.
The theme ships far too much
Magento's standard themes send a great deal of JavaScript to every page whether that page needs it or not. That's most of the delay, and a bigger server doesn't fix it.
A rebuild was always £20k+
Magento 1 to 2 isn't an upgrade, it's a rebuild — every extension re-bought, hosting triples, and UK agencies quote £10,000–£30,000 over 8 to 24 weeks. Saying no to that was a reasonable decision, every time.
Nobody's job was to keep it current
Every store in the study was on an end-of-life version. That isn't neglect. There was simply no one whose responsibility it was.
Keep the Magento engine.
Replace the front of it.
Your products, orders, customers and URLs stay exactly where they are. We put a modern storefront in front of them — and that's where the speed comes from.
Google PageSpeed on a live store — 1,000 products, real catalogue, modules running:
cold, on a live shop
(field average: 14.0s)
Anyone can score 100 on an empty page
Plenty of themes advertise a perfect score. So does this page you're reading — it's a single static page with no catalogue behind it, and that's an easy thing to do. The honest test is a working shop: a real catalogue, real product images, search, filters, a basket, and the modules a business actually runs. That's where most of them fall over, and it's the number above that we'd stand behind.
Which is why the demo uses your products rather than ours. Test it on your own catalogue and the argument settles itself.
Don't take our word for any of it — run Google's test yourself.
Built so one person can run it
Latest Magento 2.4.9, a front end you change yourself with your own branding, and 40+ modules — most with AI built in for blog content, social posts and product copy.
Your URLs, your rankings
Same addresses, same titles, same content, redirects mapped one-for-one before anything goes live. Google shouldn't experience it as a new site at all.
Not really a shop? That's fine
Plenty of trade suppliers take the enquiry online and do the deal on the phone. We run one exactly like that — no basket anywhere, quote requests, proforma and BACS.
Live in days, not quarters
Agency rebuilds run 8 to 24 weeks. The expensive part — the front end — is already built and refined across every store we've done.
Want the whole study?
Every sector broken down, the three things that caused most of the slowness, and a ten-minute check you can run on your own site without paying anybody.
One email with the PDF. No sequence, no chasing.
Founding partner
The platform is £9,995 on our site and it stays there. Founding partners take a small number of places at a different number, in exchange for a case study and a reference call.
£6,000build
50% on confirmation, 50% when we go live.
£600per month
Year two onward: £3,000 + £600/month.
Hosting is your choice — on your own account in your name (we set it up, we don't mark it up), or we manage it and bill you.
The £600 does one job: keeps it current.
- Magento version upgrades and security patches
- All 40+ modules kept up to date
- Front-end updates
- Priority support — you deal with Rick, not a queue
- Feature requests prioritised where feasible
If you stop paying, nothing switches off
After year one you can host it yourself and not renew. Everything carries on running exactly as it is — nothing phones home. You'd stop receiving updates, so keeping it secure becomes your job rather than ours. You'd own a working store either way.
We'll put your products on it before we speak.
Not a slideshow. Not somebody else's shop. Give us half an hour on a video call, and beforehand we'll take a selection of your own products — your part numbers, your prices, your branding — and load them onto the platform, so you're looking at your own catalogue running the way it should.
It's free, and there's no obligation on the other side of it. If it isn't obviously better than what you have now, you'll know inside five minutes and you can say so.
Slots from 9am to 11pm UK time, so we can cover any time zone. Prefer to talk? 0330 024 5225 or rick@agenticecom.net
Straight answers
What happens to my Google rankings?
It's the right thing to be nervous about — it's the one asset a rebuild can genuinely damage. Your URLs stay your URLs: same addresses, same titles, same content, redirects mapped one-for-one before anything goes live. And page speed on mobile is one of Google's own signals, so this is the fix for a part of it you're already losing rather than a risk to it.
How long is my shop down for?
It isn't. Your current site keeps trading the whole time we build alongside it. There's one switchover, done out of hours, and if it went wrong we'd point it straight back. You wouldn't lose a day's orders.
What about my existing orders and customer accounts?
They come with you — customers, order history, addresses. It's the same Magento database underneath; we're changing the front, not starting again. That's precisely why this is quicker than an agency rebuild.
Why is this so much cheaper than an agency?
Because the expensive part is already built. An agency builds the front end from scratch every time — a couple of hundred hours before anyone has touched your products, and you pay for all of it. We built ours once and have refined it across every store since. It's the difference between buying a house and having one built.
Which also tells you where we're not the right answer: if you want something designed from a blank sheet, bespoke to you, that's an agency job and worth their money.
Isn't Magento 2 slower than Magento 1?
Often, yes — and most people selling you a rebuild won't admit that. Magento 2 added a lot of abstraction, needs Elasticsearch, Redis and Varnish to perform, and the standard theme ships a mountain of JavaScript. That's exactly why we don't do a standard rebuild.
How do I know you'll still be here in two years?
You don't, and that's fair. So it's built so you don't need us: your hosting in your name, full source code, and if you stopped paying tomorrow the store keeps trading. We'd rather you stayed because it's worth it than because you're stuck.
What isn't included in the £6,000?
The £6,000 is the platform — the storefront and every module, installed on your Magento. What varies is your catalogue. A straight move of clean product data is usually most of it. Rebuilding product content, custom attributes like vehicle fitment, integrations with your accounts or ERP, and training are quoted separately once we've seen what's there. We'd rather tell you that now than surprise you later.
Run the test on your own site first.
It takes a minute, it's free, and it's Google's tool not ours: pagespeed.web.dev
If the number bothers you, we'll show you what your shop looks like without it.