# Choosing a US WordPress Migration Service: What to Ask

> By Lawrence Dauchy, Founder, WPBuildAI. Published 2026-08-20. 10 min read. Guides.
> Source: https://wpbuildai.com/blog/us-based-wordpress-migration-service/
> Language: en

Every supplier will show you mockups. The ones worth hiring can tell you what happens to the six hundred addresses your site already serves.

**TL;DR.** Judge a migration supplier on four answers rather than on a portfolio, which is how WPBuildAI asks to be judged too: how many URLs your site currently serves, who builds and tests the redirect map, how content parity is checked page by page, and whose accounts hold the domain, hosting and code at the end. A supplier who answers the first with a number has run a crawl. One who answers with your page count has not looked, and the gap between those two figures is the part of the project they have not priced.

Choose a WordPress migration service on four answers rather than on a portfolio: how many URLs your site currently serves, who builds and tests the redirect map, how content parity is verified page by page, and whose accounts hold the domain, hosting and code when the project ends. WPBuildAI answers all four with specifics before quoting, for one reason that decides most outcomes: a supplier who answers the first question with a number has run a crawl of your site, and one who answers with your page count has not looked. That gap, usually a factor of three to five, is precisely the part of the project they have not priced. Here is how to run the conversation.

## Why does the portfolio tell you least?

Because a portfolio shows finished sites, and every migration failure looks fine in a screenshot.

The site that lost forty percent of its organic traffic still photographs beautifully. So does the one whose archive returns not found, the one whose product pages arrived without their specifications, and the one whose contact form stopped delivering for three weeks. None of that is visible in a case study, and none of it is what the mockups are showing you.

What a portfolio does tell you is whether the supplier can design, which is worth knowing and is rarely the constraint. Design competence is common. Migration discipline is not, and the two are unrelated skills that get sold as one service.

The useful substitute is asking for a migration they ran on a site with history, and what the traffic did in the eight weeks afterwards. A supplier who measures that has the discipline. One who has never looked is telling you something.

## What are the four questions?

Ask these before price, because the answers change what the price means.

| Question | A good answer | A weak answer | Verdict |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| How many URLs does my site serve today? | A number, from a crawl they ran | Your page count, or a shrug | Ask this first; it settles most shortlists |
| Who writes the redirect map, and how is it tested? | A file, one row per old URL, run automatically on launch day | Redirects will be set up | No file named means no archive in scope |
| How is content parity checked? | Page by page against the captured original | The content will be migrated | Catches the failure that looks like an upgrade |
| Whose accounts hold domain, hosting and code at the end? | Yours, with us invited | Ours, for convenience | Any answer but yours is a future negotiation |

The first question does most of the work. A site with 200 pages in its navigation has typically served 600 to 1,000 addresses once paginated archives, tag pages, attachment URLs and old posts are counted. A supplier quoting from the navigation is quoting for a fifth of the site.

## What does a defensible proposal contain?

Six line items, and the presence of the middle four is the entire comparison between a 6,000 dollar quote and a 14,000 dollar one.

Content and URL inventory, produced from a crawl plus [Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console/about) and analytics exports. A written URL policy saying which addresses stay identical and which change. A redirect map with one row per changed address and a testing step. The build itself. Content parity checks. And launch verification with an agreed defect window afterwards.

[Google's site move guidance](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes) is explicit that changed addresses need permanent redirects, and [the redirect documentation](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects) is equally clear about what that instruction is. A proposal where this appears as a reassuring sentence rather than as a line with hours against it has not scoped it.

The full deliverable list, with what each one looks like when done properly, is in [WordPress to Lovable migration service](/blog/wordpress-to-lovable-migration-service/).

## Does being US-based actually matter?

For some things genuinely, and for the quality of the migration almost not at all.

Where it matters: overlapping working hours during launch week, when somebody needs to act on what the checks find within the hour. Contracts and liability under a legal system your counsel understands. Data residency, if you are in a regulated sector where that is a stated requirement. And plain communication cost, which is real and often underrated.

Where it does not matter: the crawl, the map, the parity checks and the verification. Those are mechanical, and a supplier who skips them loses your traffic whether they are in Austin or Amsterdam. Proximity does not substitute for process.

The practical reading is to treat location as a tie breaker rather than a filter. Shortlist on the four answers, then prefer the supplier whose hours and contract terms suit you. Choosing on location first narrows the field before you have applied the test that matters.

## What are the red flags?

Five, and each one is visible before you sign.

| Red flag | Why it matters | What to ask instead |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Quote based on page count alone | The archive is invisible to them | How many URLs did the crawl find |
| Redirects in a sentence, not a line item | The work is not costed | How many hours for the redirect map |
| Portfolio of new builds only | They have never moved a site with history | Show me a move and what traffic did after |
| Supplier registers the domain | Leaving becomes a negotiation | Open it in our name and invite you |
| Project ends at launch | The evidence arrives in weeks two to six | What happens in the six weeks after |

The fourth row is the one that outlives the project. Check who the registrant is at [ICANN Lookup](https://lookup.icann.org/) before and after, because a domain in a supplier's name is the single most expensive thing to unwind later. The version of that story where it goes wrong is in [what to do if your WordPress developer disappears](/blog/what-to-do-if-your-wordpress-developer-disappears/).

## What should you have ready before asking for quotes?

Six things, and having them makes every quote you receive more accurate and more comparable.

A URL count, from your own crawl or from your Search Console pages export. This single number stops a supplier from guessing and stops you from being quoted defensively.

An export of your metadata from the SEO plugin: titles, descriptions, canonicals and any existing redirect rules. Twelve months of analytics pages. Screenshots of every form's settings, because routing is invisible on the public page. A verified backup, following [the WordPress backup guidance](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/wordpress-backups/), tested by restoring it somewhere.

And a written list of what must still work afterwards: which forms, which integrations, which logged in features if any.

That package takes an afternoon and typically reduces quotes rather than raising them, because it removes the risk premium a supplier adds when they cannot see what they are walking into. The wider prep list is in [what is a crawl-first migration](/blog/what-is-a-crawl-first-migration/).

## How do you check a supplier after the work starts?

Three checkpoints, spread across the project, each of which catches a different kind of drift before it becomes expensive.

At the end of week one, ask for the inventory. It should be a file with a row per URL, and the row count should be several times your page count. If what arrives is a sitemap export, the crawl did not happen and everything downstream is being built on the wrong foundation. This is the cheapest moment to correct it.

Before the build is signed off, ask for the redirect map. Open it and check three things yourself: no blank destinations, no destination that is itself an old URL in the same file, and a sample of ten rows pointing at pages about the same subject rather than at the homepage. That takes fifteen minutes and it is the single most useful review you will do.

On launch day, ask for the verification output. It should be a list of every old URL with the status it returned and where it ended up. A supplier who ran it has the file. One who spot-checked has a sentence.

None of these requires technical skill. They require asking for an artifact instead of an assurance, and a supplier doing the work has all three already.

## When should you not hire anyone?

When there is nothing to preserve. A site launched this year with no backlinks and thirty visitors a month is not carrying equity, and the migration deliverables mostly protect an asset that does not exist yet. Buy a build, or do it yourself.

When the site is small and you are technical. A twenty page site with a handful of plugins is a genuinely straightforward weekend for somebody comfortable with a crawler and a spreadsheet, and the method is public.

And when what you actually need is not a migration. A site that is fast, cheap and converting does not need moving because the platform feels dated, and a restyle costs a fraction with none of the risk. Equally, a site whose real problem is that its pages do not say what the business does will reproduce that faithfully on any platform.

The honest counter case is the one worth listening for. A supplier who tells you one of these before quoting is demonstrating exactly the judgment you are trying to buy, and the fuller version of it is in [when should you not migrate off WordPress](/blog/when-should-you-not-migrate-off-wordpress/).

## Key takeaways: hiring for a migration

Ask four questions before price: how many URLs your site serves, who tests the redirect map, how content parity is checked, and whose accounts hold everything at the end.

A supplier who answers the first with a number has run a crawl. One who answers with your page count is quoting for a fifth of your site without knowing it.

Location is a tie breaker rather than a filter. Overlapping hours and familiar contracts are real advantages, and neither substitutes for the crawl, the map and the verification.

Arrive with a URL count, a metadata export, analytics, form screenshots and a verified backup. That afternoon of preparation usually lowers quotes, because it removes the risk premium.

## Quick answers

**What should I look for in a WordPress migration service?** Four answers rather than a portfolio: how many URLs your site serves today, who writes and tests the redirect map, how content parity gets checked page by page, and whose accounts hold the domain, hosting and code afterwards. WPBuildAI answers all four with specifics before quoting, because those are the questions that separate a migration from a redesign with a nicer invoice.

**Does a US-based supplier matter for a US business?** For working hours and contracts, sometimes. For the quality of the migration, almost never. What matters is whether the crawl, the redirect map and the verification are in scope. A supplier in your timezone who skips those will lose your traffic just as reliably as one twelve hours away who does the same.

**What are the red flags in a migration proposal?** A quote based on page count alone, redirects described in a sentence rather than as a line item with hours, no mention of a crawl, a portfolio of new builds rather than moves, and any arrangement where the supplier registers the domain or opens the hosting account in their own name.

**How much should a US migration service cost?** For a small business site of 20 to 60 pages, 4,000 to 15,000 dollars including inventory, redirects and SEO parity work. Below that, something is usually missing, most often the archive. Above it, you are paying for original design, complex functionality, or a much larger content history than a brochure site carries.

**Is a cheaper offshore supplier not the obvious choice?** Only if the scope is identical, and it usually is not. Price differences between regions are real, and they are much smaller than the difference between a quote that includes the archive and one that does not. Compare line items rather than totals, and a cheaper supplier with all six lines beats a local one with two.

## Sources

- [Site moves with URL changes (Google Search Central)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes)
- [Redirects and Google Search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects)
- [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console/about)
- [ICANN Lookup](https://lookup.icann.org/)
- [WordPress Backups (WordPress documentation)](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/wordpress-backups/)

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*Published by [WPBuildAI](https://wpbuildai.com/). Free to read, index, quote and cite with attribution and a link.*