WordPress migration service: what we move and how

“Free migration” is the most expensive two words in WordPress hosting. Not because the host charges you later, but because of what the free version quietly does not move, and what breaks when it does not.

Picking a new host usually means picking a control panel too. If you are deciding between the two big ones, our Plesk vs cPanel breakdown covers when each makes sense and when switching is a waste of a weekend.

A WordPress migration service should move a working website and hand you back a working website. That sounds obvious. The reason people search for “wordpress migration service” instead of just installing a plugin is that they have already been burned by the gap between those two things. Here is what actually has to move, what the cheap options skip, and what we charge to do it properly.

A site is more than a database and a folder

Most migration tools (All-in-One WP Migration, Duplicator, the SiteGround and InMotion “we’ll do it free” offers) copy two things well: your files and your database. For a simple blog, that is genuinely enough, and you should use the free plugin and save your money.

The trouble starts when the site does anything real. A migration that only moves files and database leaves behind a surprising amount:

• DNS and email. Move the site, forget the MX records, and the client’s email goes dark the moment the domain points at the new host. We have cleaned up this exact mistake more than once.
• SSL certificates. The padlock does not travel with the files. A fresh certificate has to be issued and forced, or visitors hit “not secure” warnings on day one.
• Cron jobs and scheduled tasks. WordPress’s pseudo-cron and any real server cron (backups, order syncs, abandoned-cart emails) do not come across in a plugin export.
• Redirects and rewrite rules. Custom .htaccess or nginx rules, the 301s you built up over years. Lose them and you lose the SEO you paid for.
• Server config. PHP version, memory limits, upload size, object caching. A site tuned for one stack can crawl or crash on another.

None of that shows up in a quick test of the homepage. It shows up three days later when a customer says they never got their receipt.

The “free host migration” trap

Hosts offer free migration for one reason: it lowers the barrier to switching to them. That is a fair trade and sometimes the right call. But read what it covers. “Free” usually means an automated importer or an offshore team running the same plugin you could run yourself, with the same blind spots, and zero responsibility for the things that break outside the WordPress install.

When it goes well, you saved a few hundred dollars. When it goes badly (broken checkout, dead email, a half-finished transfer that leaves two live copies of the site fighting over the same domain), you are paying someone like us to untangle it anyway, on top of the lost revenue. We are not against free host migrations. We are against using one for a site that earns money.

What we move, and how

A managed WordPress migration with us is a fixed scope, not a vague promise. We move the full stack: files, database, media, DNS, email routing, SSL, cron, redirects, and server configuration. Then we test the parts that actually matter to your business before we flip the switch.

The sequence matters more than the tools. We do it in this order on purpose:

• Stand up the new environment and copy the site to it without touching DNS, so the live site keeps running untouched the whole time.
• Test everything on a temporary URL (checkout, forms, logins, search) while the old site still serves real traffic.
• Lower the DNS TTL ahead of time so the cutover propagates in minutes, not a day.
• Flip DNS during your quietest traffic window, reissue and force SSL, confirm email still flows, and keep the old host live for 48 hours as a safety net.

Done this way, the visible downtime is usually zero. The old site answers until the moment the new one is verified, and we do not delete anything on the source until you have run a few days on the new host without surprises.

What it costs

People searching this term want a number, and most pages dodge it. A standard single-site WordPress migration with us starts at $290, fixed, with a typical turnaround of 24 to 48 hours once we have access. That covers a normal business site or blog with a reasonable plugin set.

It costs more when the site is genuinely complex: a large WooCommerce store with live orders, a multisite network, a database that needs cleaning on the way over, or a platform change rather than a host change. In those cases we quote after a look, because guessing would be dishonest. What we will not do is start at $290 and “discover” $600 of problems halfway through. The scope is agreed before we touch anything.

Migration is a good moment to fix things

A migration is the one time everything is already in pieces, which makes it the cheapest moment to fix the stuff you have been ignoring. If the old host was slow, moving to a properly tuned stack is half the work of a performance project already done, and our WordPress Performance Pack picks up neatly from a migration. If the site was running known-vulnerable plugins, the migration is when to audit and clean rather than faithfully copying the problem to a new home.

This is also why we treat a migration as part of restoration work, not a separate silo. The same care that goes into rebuilding a broken or compromised site goes into moving a healthy one: know what is there, move all of it, and verify it works.

The short version

Use a free plugin if your site is simple and you can afford a little downtime. Take the host’s free migration if the site does not earn money and you trust the importer. Pay for a managed WordPress service when email, checkout, SEO, or uptime are on the line, because the cost of a botched move is never just the migration fee. It is the revenue you lose while you figure out what didn’t come across.

Common questions

What does a WordPress migration cost?

A standard single-site move with us starts at $290, fixed, turned around in 24 to 48 hours once we have access. Large WooCommerce stores, multisite networks, and platform changes are quoted after a look. Hosts that offer “free” migration are real, but free usually covers files and database only, not DNS, email, SSL, or redirects.

How long does a migration take, and will my site go down?

Most migrations finish in a day or two. Visible downtime is usually zero, because we build and test the site on the new host while the old one keeps serving traffic, then cut DNS over during a quiet window. We keep the old host live for 48 hours as a fallback.

Can I migrate a WordPress site myself?

Yes, for a simple site. A free plugin like All-in-One WP Migration or Duplicator handles files and database fine. The manual parts that catch people out are DNS and email routing, reissuing SSL, and preserving redirects. If the site earns money, the risk of getting one of those wrong is usually worth paying to avoid.

For the host-level version of this, including the DNS and email cutover that breaks most moves, see migrating from shared hosting to a VPS. Moving between CMS platforms is a different job again; if yours is Drupal, here is the Drupal content migration tool we use in 2026.

Planning to lean on AI for the content side after the move? We covered what actually works with AI content on WordPress, and what quietly tanks your rankings if you skip the editing. If your current host is a managed platform like WP Engine, the exit has its own quirks, which we walk through in a one-week plan for moving off WP Engine. Whichever route you take, the rankings side has its own failure list, and we set it out in how to move a site without losing your search traffic.