Website migration
Website Migration Cost: Seven-Platform Scope Guide
What a migration costs comes down to what you already have and what it has to do once it lands. The platform you are leaving changes how hard the export is, but the price is set by how many pages and templates there are, what data has to move, what it has to connect to, and how much testing the launch needs. Our own terms, so you can check them against any quote: from $1,500 at a fixed price agreed before we start, no minimum project size, and the code, design files and accounts are yours at the end.
Reviewed August 2, 2026 against current platform and Google documentation. Every export link below was re-checked on August 1, 2026.
Hassan Jamal·May 6, 2026·13 min read
SEO migration control loop
A deliberate decision for every old URL
URL inventory
Crawl and baseline
Disposition map
Keep, redirect, or retire
Staged QA
Crawl, forms, consent, and speed
Monitor
Indexing, queries, and errors
Reduce technical risk. Do not promise rankings.
PandaCodeGen planning tiers
- ✓Starter begins at $1,500 for a small, well-defined migration.
- ✓Growth begins at $3,500 for more templates, structured content or integrations.
- ✓Scale runs from $5,000 to $10,000 for broader or higher-risk migrations.
- ✓Larger or unusual scope is discussed separately before signing.
Inventory
Every page, template, image and file you actually have.
Map
Where each URL lands, and who owns what.
Accept
How you sign it off: it works, it ranks, people can use it, it is fast.
Operate
What it costs to keep running once it is live.
The seven-platform migration matrix
No platform hands you a complete, portable site. What each one exports sets the floor on what a migration costs, because whatever the export misses has to be rebuilt by hand. The right-hand column is where acceptance usually fails, and it is different for every source platform.
| Source | Export or extraction | Common replacement work | Key acceptance risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | XML, database, files, APIs or controlled extraction | Theme, plugins, blocks, forms, search, users and hosting behavior | URL, content, media, shortcode and plugin-equivalent coverage |
| WooCommerce | Products CSV plus orders, customers and extension-specific data | Checkout, tax, fraud, inventory, fulfillment, accounts and subscriptions | Financial and order-flow reconciliation |
| Webflow | Code ZIP plus separate CMS or ecommerce CSV exports | CMS, forms, search, localization, ecommerce, users and code components | Feature gaps beyond exported HTML, CSS, JavaScript and assets |
| Wix | CMS exports and other feature-specific exports or APIs where available | Pages, media, blog, forms, bookings, members, apps and commerce | Complete feature and content inventory before extraction |
| Squarespace | Partial WordPress XML plus manual or separate system work | Excluded layouts, store, portfolio, products, media, forms and styles | Export exclusions and design recreation |
| Shopify | Product and other admin exports plus APIs | Storefront, checkout boundary, accounts, search, apps, analytics and consent | Commerce continuity and app compatibility |
| GoHighLevel | Documented APIs, exports and controlled recreation | Keep CRM or replace it; forms, funnels, calendars, automation and attribution | Lead capture and workflow continuity |
We do not publish a market median or a cross-agency price range for these migrations. Ranges like that mix unlike project types, scopes, regions and levels of finish, so a figure stated without a defined sample and scope definition is not something a buyer can plan against. The only prices we stand behind are our own, and your written quote sets the final one.
Our own tiers are at the top of this page. Which one a migration lands in is driven by page count, content volume, custom functionality and integrations rather than by which platform you are leaving, so the same source platform can land in any of the three. The price is fixed for the scope written into the accepted project terms, and every build carries a 90+ Lighthouse handover target on phone and desktop for the pages named in your quote, tested three times. Current tiers are always on the pricing page; if this article and that page ever disagree, the pricing page is correct.
Are you changing hosts, or changing platforms?
These are two different jobs and only one of them is worth paying an agency for. Moving a WordPress site from one host to another host keeps the same software, the same theme, the same plugins and the same database. Nothing is rebuilt. Most hosting companies will do that transfer for you when you buy a plan, frequently at no charge or for a small fixed fee, and that is the first place to ask. A host-only move should cost you between $0 and about $150. If all you need is a host change, do not pay migration prices for it, and do not hire us to do it.
A platform migration is the other job: the content comes out of one system and has to be rebuilt in another that works differently. Templates, plugins, forms, search, checkout and editor workflow do not transfer, they get reproduced, and the URLs have to be mapped so the search traffic survives. That is what the rest of this page prices. Published figures that mix the two jobs into one range are the reason migration quotes look wildly inconsistent: a $0 host transfer and a five-figure replatform are both truthfully called a “website migration”.
A third case sits between them. Staying on the same platform but rebuilding the design is a redesign, not a migration, and it is priced differently again; our website redesign cost guide covers that scope, and what a website costs to build from scratch covers the case where replacing beats moving.
"The platform you are leaving changes how hard the export is. It does not set the price.
The three things a quote actually depends on
Every published migration range is wide because it is averaging jobs that have nothing in common. Three answers collapse most of that range, and any quote given without them is a guess wearing a number.
- ✓The platform pair, not just the destination. WordPress to Next.js and Wix to Next.js are different jobs: WordPress exposes its database and a REST API, so content extraction is scriptable. Wix does not give you the same access, so more content is moved by hand and the same page count costs more.
- ✓The countable unit, and which one applies. Brochure sites price per page or per template; stores price per product, per variant and per historical order. A 40-page site and a 4,000-product catalogue can carry the same design work and differ by an order of magnitude on data.
- ✓Whether your web addresses have to survive. If the site has search traffic worth keeping, someone has to list every live address, decide where each one goes, forward them, and check them after launch. On an established site this is often the single largest line item, and it is the one most commonly missing from a cheap quote.
That third one is where cheap migrations turn expensive. A 301 redirect tells Google the page moved permanently and passes its ranking signals to the new URL. Skip the mapping and the old URLs return 404s, the accumulated signals are lost, and the traffic does not come back on its own. Recovering it afterwards costs more than mapping it correctly would have, because by then the rankings have to be re-earned rather than transferred. What that looks like in practice is covered in what a migration does to search visibility.
Before asking anyone for a number, write down three things: the platform you are on and the one you are moving to, your page count or product count, and whether you need existing URLs and rankings preserved. A quote given without those is not a quote. A quote that omits the the link forwarding is not cheaper than one that includes it. It just moves the cost to later, when it is worse.
Go straight to your platform
The rest of this page is the shared method. If you already know which platform you are leaving, the dedicated guide will be faster: WordPress, WooCommerce, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, or the triggers that usually start a Webflow move. If you are moving to Next.js specifically, the WordPress to Next.js walkthrough covers the mechanics, and what a migration does to your search traffic covers the risk everyone actually asks about first.
How long does a website migration take?
Long enough that the schedule is set by approvals and content, not by build time. The technical work on a bounded brochure migration is the smaller half of the calendar; the larger half is inventorying what exists, deciding what does not come across, getting content reviewed and signed off, and testing every journey before the switch. A store adds reconciliation of orders, customers and payments, which cannot be rushed because the numbers have to match.
The parts that reliably take longer than people plan for: finding every URL that exists rather than every URL someone remembers, waiting on content decisions, and the freeze-and-cutover window where data must stop changing. The parts that go faster than expected are usually templates, because a site with forty pages often has six real layouts. Ask any provider for the schedule broken into listing what you have, building, moving content, testing and launching, with what each stage waits on, rather than a single duration. A quote that gives one number for the whole thing has not been planned.
What is inside a migration price?
Seven workstreams, and only two of them look like building a website. Discovery, content extraction and reshaping, rebuilding the things that were features rather than pages, search continuity, testing, and the launch and handover work. A quote that names only design and development has not priced the other five.
- ✓Working out what you have, what you need, and what you are building.
- ✓Deciding how the site is organised, building the reusable pieces, and making it work on every screen.
- ✓Getting your content out of the old system, reshaping it to fit the new one, moving the images, and checking nothing was lost.
- ✓Rebuilding the things people use: forms, search, logins, checkout, analytics, the cookie banner, and whatever else you connect to.
- ✓Protecting your search traffic: listing every URL, carrying the metadata across, setting canonicals, keeping the structured data, mapping redirects, and regenerating the sitemap.
- ✓Testing it properly: can everyone use it, is it secure, does it work in every browser and on every device, does it do what it should, and is it fast.
- ✓Going live: shipping it, freezing the data, making the switch, watching it, being able to undo it, handing it over, and supporting you afterwards.
The seven sections below give the starting figure for each source platform. They are PandaCodeGen's own published tiers, listed in full on the pricing page, and the accepted scope sets the final number. They are not a market rate for the industry.
WordPress migration cost
Most WordPress migrations we scope start at $1,500 for a bounded brochure site and $3,500 once there is structured content or a real plugin footprint. Plugin-heavy and multi-template sites run $5,000 to $10,000. What moves it is themes, templates, blocks, plugins, shortcodes, custom post types, fields, users, forms, search, media and hosting behavior. WordPress can export content, but a replacement must reproduce accepted functions and editorial workflows. A brochure site may fit Starter; structured or plugin-heavy sites may fit Growth, Scale or custom scope. The full breakdown, including why a host change is a different job entirely, is in our WordPress migration cost guide.
WooCommerce migration cost
WooCommerce migrations start at $5,000 and are the most likely of the seven to exceed the published tiers, because commerce carries obligations a brochure site does not. WooCommerce adds products, variants, pricing, inventory, customer and order records, tax, shipping, payments, fraud, refunds, subscriptions and extensions. Reconcile record counts and financial flows before and after migration. Before you price a rebuild, check whether you need one: our WooCommerce migration cost guide separates moving the data from rebuilding the store, and they are not the same purchase.
Webflow migration cost
Webflow migrations start at $1,500 and typically land at $3,500, because the export gives you less than people expect and the gap is rebuild work. Webflow code export covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript and assets on eligible paid Workspaces, while current documentation excludes working CMS, ecommerce, User Accounts, localized content beyond the primary locale, forms, search, password protection and code components. Page count must be normalized into templates and systems before choosing a tier, which is the whole subject of our Webflow migration cost guide. What Webflow charges you while you stay is covered separately in what Webflow actually costs.
Wix migration cost
Wix migrations start at $1,500 and are usually the cheapest of the seven, because Wix sites are smaller on average and the export gives you almost nothing, so the work is a linear content rebuild rather than a data conversion. Scope depends on the editor generation, CMS collections, blog, media, forms, bookings, members, stores, apps and custom code. The CMS can export collections, but that does not establish a complete whole-site export. Inventory each feature and choose an extraction and replacement method. Our Wix migration cost guide works through the four routes people actually take, cheapest first.
Squarespace migration cost
Squarespace migrations start at $1,500, reach $3,500 with a blog or Commerce, and $5,000 to $10,000 for a store with Member Areas or scheduling. The reason the range is wide is that Squarespace's current export is partial. Store and portfolio pages, product and video blocks, drafts, style settings and custom CSS are among the documented exclusions. Price the design, content and systems that must be recreated separately, and see our Squarespace migration cost guide for the redirect problem specifically, which is the line most Squarespace quotes miss.
Shopify and headless Shopify migration cost
Headless Shopify migrations start at $5,000 and reach $10,000 or more, because the storefront is only part of the job. The first decision is whether Shopify remains the commerce backend or is replaced. A headless migration still needs search, accounts, analytics, consent, localization, app compatibility, preview, deployment and monitoring. A fully custom commerce system also assumes responsibility for checkout, tax, fraud, orders and operations.
GoHighLevel website migration cost
GoHighLevel migrations start at $1,500 for a hybrid that keeps the CRM and replaces only the public site, which is what most operators want, and $3,500 once there are several funnels and form integrations. A hybrid keeps GoHighLevel for CRM, calendars, automation and pipelines while replacing the public site. Define forms, contacts, attribution, webhooks, OAuth, failure handling and ownership. Do not promise an unchanged CRM bill or uninterrupted workflow without testing the accepted implementation.
Is a migration worth it? How to build the business case
A migration is worth it when the measured cost of staying exceeds the cost of moving plus the cost of running the replacement, over a horizon you pick in advance. Compare current direct costs, internal hours, incidents and measured limitations with migration cost, target providers, maintenance, support and risk. Build low, central and high scenarios. Do not multiply an assumed speed loss or promise a predetermined commercial or search outcome.
Costs that must be visible in the proposal
These six belong in the proposal rather than in discovery, because each one is a decision someone has to fund. Content cleanup, vendor charges, compliance and accessibility work, your own team time, ongoing maintenance, and exiting the old platform. If a proposal is silent on one, assume it is excluded and ask what happens when it appears.
- ✓Tidying up the content, rewriting what needs it, replacing images nobody can find, and dealing with the records that do not fit.
- ✓What your vendors charge: the plan, the licences, what you use, and fees on payments and messages.
- ✓Fixing accessibility problems, having someone review the security, and any compliance work you are required to do.
- ✓Your own team's time: reviewing it, getting legal to approve it, learning the new system, and helping everyone adjust.
- ✓Keeping it running after launch: maintenance, monitoring, someone on call when it breaks, and upgrades.
- ✓Leaving the old platform properly: archiving it, cancelling the plan, and keeping whatever you are required to keep.
How to budget the migration
Build the number before you request quotes, so you can tell which quote is wrong. Six ordered steps: inventory, define the target and the responsibilities, agree what done means, separate one-time from recurring, write down the assumptions and exclusions, and hold contingency against identified unknowns rather than an arbitrary percentage.
- List everything you have: pages, templates, content, data, integrations and user accounts.
- Define target journeys, editor workflow and operating responsibilities.
- Agree what “done” means: it works, it still ranks, everyone can use it, it is secure, and it is fast.
- Separate one-time agency work from third-party and ongoing costs.
- Write down what you assumed, what is not included, how changes get approved, what you are waiting on, and when each part happens.
- Keep a contingency tied to identified unknowns, not an arbitrary percentage.
PandaCodeGen terms
A common payment option is 30 percent at onboarding and 70 percent at the delivery milestone, and another written schedule may be agreed. A refund is tied to failure to deliver the signed scope, not a change of preference after work starts. Starter includes 15 business days of launch defect support; Growth and Scale include 30. Ownership, licenses and accounts follow the accepted project terms.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website migration cost in 2026?
PandaCodeGen planning tiers start at $1,500 Starter, $3,500 Growth and $5,000 to $10,000 Scale. Final price depends on the route, template, content, data, feature, integration, compliance, QA, cutover and support scope. These are PandaCodeGen planning anchors, not market averages.
Why can two migration quotes differ so much?
The quotes may cover different inventories, design changes, content work, integrations, accessibility, SEO safeguards, testing, governance, ownership or support. Normalize the statements of work before attributing the difference to markup or quality.
Will I lose my Google rankings during migration?
It depends entirely on which job you are buying. A host-to-host transfer keeps every URL and normally changes nothing search engines can see. A platform migration changes the URL shape, the rendering and often the content, and needs a mapped destination for every old address. Confuse the two and you will either overpay for a transfer or under-scope a rebuild.
How long does a website migration take?
A host-to-host transfer is often same-day and many hosts do it free. A platform migration is weeks, and the variable is template count, content quality and approval speed rather than page count. Establishing which of the two you are buying will tell you more about the timeline than any published range will.
What does the migration price include?
A comparable quote should name discovery, inventory, target design, content and data movement, feature replacement, integrations, SEO, accessibility, analytics, privacy, security, QA, cutover, rollback, handoff and support. Assumptions and exclusions matter as much as the total.
Can I migrate without losing customers or sales?
No provider can guarantee uninterrupted sales or unchanged customer behavior. Reduce avoidable risk with parallel build, tested data and journeys, redirects, monitoring, rollback, communication and an agreed cutover window.
What happens to my Webflow CMS data during migration?
Webflow documents CSV export for CMS collection content, while exported site code excludes working CMS functionality. Inventory fields, references, assets, slugs, localized content and editor workflows, then map and validate them in the chosen target system.
Do I need to keep paying for Shopify apps after migration?
Only after each app capability is retained, replaced or retired and its contract can be cancelled safely. A headless Shopify storefront may still depend on Shopify apps or APIs. Build the target recurring-cost model from the actual configuration.
What is the cheapest way to migrate from Wix?
Choose the smallest target that satisfies the verified route, content and feature inventory. Wix provides different export or transfer paths for different data, so test the actual property before pricing extraction and replacement work.
What is the typical Shopify to headless cost?
There is no defensible universal price without a dated, comparable dataset. Price the storefront, commerce capabilities, content, search, accounts, checkout, integrations, data, analytics, consent, QA and operations. PandaCodeGen's published tiers are planning anchors only.
Is migrating a website worth it in 2026?
It is worth considering when measured requirements remain blocked after realistic repairs and the benefits justify build, migration, operational and search risk. Compare repair, optimize and migrate options over the same time horizon.
Is it hard to move a website to another hosting provider?
Changing hosts is a different and much smaller job than changing platforms. A host-to-host move keeps the same software, theme, plugins and database, so nothing is rebuilt, and most hosting companies will perform the transfer when you buy a plan, frequently free or for a small fixed fee. Ask the destination host first and do not pay platform-migration prices for it. A platform migration is the harder job: content comes out of one system and is rebuilt in another that works differently, with templates, forms, search, checkout and URL mapping reproduced rather than transferred. Published cost ranges that mix the two jobs are why migration quotes look wildly inconsistent.
Primary sources
- WordPress export
- WooCommerce product CSV
- Webflow code export
- Wix support: CMS and content export
- Squarespace export
- Shopify product export
- HighLevel API
Get a platform-specific migration plan
We will inventory the actual site and map it to a tier or custom scope. Additional pages and features can be discussed after the core migration is defined.
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