If you're planning a host or platform switch, the first practical question is wordpress migration cost — and the honest answer is "it depends," but not vaguely so. The range is wide because a five-page brochure site and a 2,000-product WooCommerce store are fundamentally different jobs, even though both are technically "a WordPress migration." This post breaks the cost down by site type and complexity so you can gauge roughly where your project lands.
What determines wordpress website migration cost
Before looking at numbers, it helps to know what actually drives price. Migration cost isn't primarily about the platform — it's about how much content needs moving, how much custom functionality needs rebuilding, and how much testing the result requires.
The main cost drivers
- Content volume — more pages, posts, and media files mean more transfer time and more manual QA after the move.
- Custom functionality and plugins — heavily customized sites often need code reviewed or rebuilt for compatibility with the new environment, which is more labor-intensive than a standard setup.
- SEO redirect mapping — sites with large numbers of indexed URLs need careful 301 redirect planning to protect rankings, which adds time proportional to URL count.
- Theme or design changes — migrating "as-is" is cheaper than migrating while also redesigning; combining the two projects increases scope significantly.
- QA and testing time — WooCommerce stores and sites with forms, integrations, or membership functionality need more thorough testing before and after cutover.
WordPress migration cost by site size
The table below estimates typical cost by site type, built from freelance and agency WordPress rates of roughly $80-$120 an hour and how many hours each project size usually takes — treat it as a planning range, not a quote, since actual cost within each band depends on how many of the cost drivers above apply.
| Site type | Typical cost range | What's usually included |
|---|---|---|
| Simple host-to-host move (no platform change) | Often free through the new host, or roughly $200-$1,000 for a freelancer or migration service | Basic file/database transfer, DNS cutover, minimal testing |
| Small brochure site | About $500-$2,500 | Content transfer, theme setup, basic redirect mapping, testing |
| Business site with active blog | About $2,500-$7,000 | Larger content volume, more thorough SEO redirect mapping, plugin review, more QA |
| Large content site or WooCommerce store | About $7,000-$20,000 or more | Product/order data migration, custom integrations, extensive QA, possible custom development |
At the far ends of the spectrum, the real-world range stretches even wider. A migration plugin like Duplicator can handle the transfer itself for well under $100 a year, with a free version available too, if you're willing to do the technical work yourself. At the other end, a complex migration involving custom code, many third-party integrations, and a simultaneous platform switch can run well into five figures.
In short: how much does a WordPress migration cost?
WordPress migration cost typically ranges from a few hundred dollars for a simple host-to-host move on a small site, up to $2,500-$7,000 for a business site with an active blog, and $7,000-$20,000 or more for a large content site or WooCommerce store. The exact number depends on content volume, custom functionality, redirect mapping needs, and how much QA the site requires.
Why the same "size" of site can cost very different amounts
Two business sites with a similar page count can land in very different cost brackets depending on what's underneath. A blog-heavy site with a clean, standard theme and few plugins is a straightforward transfer. A similarly-sized site running custom-coded features, several third-party integrations, and heavy SEO history requiring careful redirect work is a fundamentally bigger job — even though the visible page count looks the same. This is why generic per-page pricing rarely reflects real migration cost accurately.
What tends to push cost toward the higher end
- Custom-built themes or plugins that need code review or rebuilding for compatibility with the new host or platform.
- Large product catalogs in WooCommerce, where inventory, pricing, and order history all need accurate migration.
- Multiple third-party integrations — payment gateways, CRMs, marketing tools — each requiring individual re-testing.
- A simultaneous redesign, which turns a migration into a combined migration-plus-build project.
- A large indexed URL footprint that requires careful, page-by-page 301 redirect planning to protect existing search rankings.
What keeps cost toward the lower end
Sites with a small, well-organized content base, few or no custom plugins, a standard theme, and no platform change (just a host swap) tend to fall at the lower end of their bracket, or even qualify for a free host-assisted migration if the new host offers one. If your site fits this profile, it's worth asking your target host directly whether they include migration assistance before budgeting for a paid service. Moving off a hosted builder is a different job, and our Wix to WordPress migration guide explains why that move is really a rebuild.
Budgeting for the total cost, not just the migration fee
A wordpress migration cost quote often covers only the transfer itself — it's worth separately budgeting for a few adjacent costs that commonly get overlooked until they show up as a surprise.
| Additional cost area | Why it's easy to miss |
|---|---|
| New hosting plan itself | The migration fee is separate from what the new host charges monthly or annually |
| SSL certificate setup | Usually included with modern hosts — many issue a free, automated certificate through Let's Encrypt — but worth confirming rather than assuming |
| Post-migration SEO monitoring | Tracking rankings and fixing any redirect gaps in the weeks after launch, since it can take a few weeks or more for Google to fully settle on the new URLs |
| Design or theme updates | Only relevant if you're changing the look of the site during the move, not just the host |
| Staff or contractor time for content review | Someone needs to actually check pages after migration, even if the technical work is outsourced |
Treating the migration fee as the entire budget, rather than one line item in a slightly larger project, is one of the more common planning mistakes — especially for WooCommerce stores where post-launch QA time can rival the migration cost itself.
How to get a number specific to your site
Generic cost ranges are a useful starting point, but your actual wordpress website migration cost depends on inputs that are specific to your site: current platform, page count, whether you run WooCommerce and how many products, current monthly traffic, and whether you need custom integrations rebuilt. Rather than estimating from a general table, running those specifics through a dedicated calculator gives a far more accurate range — and it takes less time than requesting quotes from multiple agencies just to get a ballpark figure.
Two related reads: how long migration downtime should take, and a 15-step WordPress migration checklist.
