Migrating to WordPress: What It Costs and How Long It Takes

By WebTek Team Published September 2, 2026

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A clunky website builder can hold your business back in ways you don’t fully realize until you leave it behind, like the customer who gives up before your homepage finishes loading.

Slow page speeds, restrictive templates, and rising monthly fees are pushing more businesses to WordPress every year. Today, the platform powers more than 40% of the internet.

But switching platforms isn’t a weekend project, and the cost can vary dramatically depending on who you ask. Before you migrate to WordPress, you need real numbers: what the move actually costs, how long it realistically takes, and where the hidden fees like to hide. Here is the full breakdown.

Website Migration to WordPress: Cost and Timeline

visualized wordpress migration on laptop

A website migration to WordPress is priced by scope, not by a flat rate. Use this table to find where your site likely lands, then read on for what pushes a project up or down in price.

Site Type	Typical Cost	Typical Timeline
Small brochure site (under 15 pages)	$500 – $2,500	1 – 2 weeks
Business site with a blog (15–50 pages)	$2,500 – $7,000	2 – 4 weeks
Large content site (50+ posts)	$7,000 – $15,000	4 – 6 weeks
WooCommerce store	$7,000 – $20,000+	4 – 8 weeks
DIY, WordPress-to-WordPress only	Free – $100	A few days

What Drives Your WordPress Migration Cost

Five variables drive every WordPress migration cost estimate. They apply whether you migrate to WordPress yourself or hire it out. Know them before you request a quote, and a padded estimate is easy to spot.

Page and post count. A ten-page site moves in an afternoon. A 400-post blog needs real time for content mapping and testing.
Custom functionality. Booking tools, membership areas, and custom forms usually get rebuilt, not copied, which adds billable labor hours to the quote.
Ecommerce data. Products, orders, and customer records all need careful, verified transfer into WooCommerce.
Design scope. A like-for-like rebuild costs less than a full redesign bundled into the same project.
SEO preservation. Every old URL needs a 301 redirect, and every meta tag needs to survive the move intact.

DIY vs a WordPress Migration Service

Once you know your rough budget, the next decision is who does the work when you migrate to WordPress. Both routes get you there. They differ sharply in risk, time, and what happens if something breaks.

Migrating Your Site Yourself

Free plugins can move a site, but only from one WordPress install to another, and only when there are no custom features or ecommerce records to carry across.

Pros:

Costs next to nothing beyond your existing hosting bill.
Plugins like Duplicator handle simple WordPress-to-WordPress moves well.
You control the timeline and can work at your own pace.

Cons:

Moving from Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify to WordPress usually means a manual rebuild, not a plugin transfer.
A missed redirect can quietly erase months of search rankings.
Troubleshooting a broken migration takes far more time than the move itself.

Hiring a WordPress Migration Service

A specialist WordPress migration service handles the technical risk for you.

Pros:

Experienced professionals handle SEO, redirects, and testing every day.
Specialist services often price below what a full agency quotes for the same scope.
You get a fixed timeline and someone accountable if something breaks.

Cons:

You pay for labor, even on a technically simple move.
Quality still varies, so vetting the provider matters as much as the price.
Rush timelines usually carry a premium on top of the base quote.

How to Move a Site to WordPress: A 7-Step Process

Whether you hire out or move a site to WordPress on your own, the sequence stays the same. Most migrations lose rankings or content because someone skipped a step.

Audit and back up. Inventory every page, post, and plugin, then take a full backup of the current site.
Set up the WordPress environment. Choose hosting, install WordPress, and select a theme or framework.
Migrate the content. Move pages, posts, media, and user accounts into the new structure.
Rebuild custom features. Recreate forms, booking tools, and any functionality that will not copy directly.
Map every redirect. Send each old URL to its new equivalent with a 301 redirect, and carry over metadata and the sitemap.
Test everything. Check links, forms, mobile display, and page speed before anyone but you sees the new site.
Launch and monitor. Point your domain to the new site, then watch Search Console for crawl errors during the first month.

FAQs About How to Migrate to WordPress

What does an average WordPress migration cost by site size?

Small brochure sites typically run $500 to $2,500. Business sites with an active blog land between $2,500 and $7,000. Large content sites and WooCommerce stores often reach $7,000 to $20,000 or more, mainly due to data volume and testing time.

How long does a website migration to WordPress take?

A simple site moves in one to two weeks. A mid-size business site with a blog takes two to four weeks. Large sites or online stores can run four to eight weeks once custom features and product data enter the picture.

Will my search rankings survive the move?

They can, if every old URL gets a proper 301 redirect and your metadata transfers intact. Rankings usually dip briefly during the cutover, then recover within a few weeks. Skipped redirects are a common cause of permanent ranking loss.

Is a WordPress migration service worth it over DIY?

For a simple WordPress-to-WordPress hosting move, DIY plugins work fine. For anything more, you are moving a site to WordPress from Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, or a custom build. A WordPress migration service earns its fee there, through redirect mapping and testing most owners do not have time to do properly.

What platforms do businesses migrate to WordPress from most often?

Wix and Squarespace top the list, usually once a business outgrows template limits or wants better control over titles, meta descriptions, and site structure. Shopify sites migrate over when the store needs content marketing a storefront platform was never built to support.

Why Businesses Choose WebTek

Deciding to migrate to WordPress is the easy part. A migration gone wrong costs more than the quote ever did, in lost rankings, broken forms, and late nights fixing what should have worked the first time.

Since 1999, we’ve built and migrated WordPress websites for businesses across Central Pennsylvania, so you get a team that has already solved the problem you are facing. Our designers and web developers work in-house in Pennsylvania, handling all the work, not a subcontractor chain, and we back it with WordPress hosting and support built for the platform specifically.

More than 800 businesses have trusted us with a platform migration like this one, from small brochure sites to large WooCommerce stores.

Here is what that looks like:

A fixed quote before work begins, with every redirect and test included.
In-house developers handling your migration from start to finish.
SEO preservation built into the process, not billed as an afterthought.
Ongoing support from people you can actually call after launch.

Pair the move with SEO and marketing support and your new WordPress site can start earning its keep soon after launch.

Get a fixed quote before you migrate. Contact us for a free consultation and a clear cost and timeline for your site.

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