A website migration costs in proportion to its scope, so the honest answer is that it depends on a few concrete drivers: how many pages and URLs you have, how much content and media must move, how complex the site is, such as a shop or custom features, and how many redirects need mapping. Those are the things that make one migration a quick job and another a large project, which is why a single sticker price is meaningless without knowing them. The better way to think about cost is the pricing model rather than a number: a fixed quote based on your page count, content volume, and URL count tells you the total up front, while hourly agency work exposes you to surprises as the scope reveals itself. A do-it-yourself migration looks free but costs your time and risks lost rankings if redirects are missed. WPBuildAI quotes a fixed price per site from your page, content, and URL counts, so you know the cost before starting, with no hourly surprises.
Cost is driven by scope, not a fixed number
The reason nobody can honestly hand you a flat price is that the work varies enormously with the site. A five-page brochure site and a two-thousand-URL shop are different projects, and their costs reflect that. The concrete drivers are the number of pages and URLs, the volume of content and media to move, the complexity, whether there is a store, custom functionality, or unusual features, and the number of redirects that must be mapped and verified. Each of those scales the effort. So the first thing any responsible quote does is scope your actual site, which is why a content audit before migration is a natural starting point: it establishes the very numbers that determine the cost.
Redirect mapping is where hidden effort hides
Among the drivers, redirects deserve special mention, because they are where cost quietly concentrates. Every URL that changes needs a verified 301 to the right destination, and on a large or messy site, discovering, mapping, and testing all of those is a substantial part of the work, not an afterthought. This matters because it is exactly the part a cheap quote tends to underestimate and a careful site move treats as central. Since traffic concentrates on a minority of pages, as the Ahrefs study shows, getting the important redirects right is high-value work. So when comparing costs, look at whether redirect mapping is genuinely included and verified, because a quote that skimps there is cheaper for a reason you will pay for later.
Fixed price versus hourly
The pricing model shapes your risk as much as the number does. A fixed quote, based on your scope, tells you the total before work starts, so you can budget with certainty and the provider carries the risk of the work taking longer than expected. Hourly billing does the opposite: it can look cheap at the outset and grow unpredictably as redirect mapping, content quirks, and testing reveal themselves, leaving you exposed to the overrun. A fixed price also aligns incentives, since the provider has committed to delivering the migration for that price rather than being paid by the hour regardless of pace. For most site owners, that certainty is worth more than a low hourly rate that could balloon, which is why fixed-quote migration is the calmer choice.
The real cost of doing it yourself
A do-it-yourself migration has no invoice, but calling it free ignores two real costs. The first is your time, which is genuine and often larger than expected once you account for content, redirects, testing, and troubleshooting. The second, and bigger, is risk: a migration that misses redirects, breaks links, or damages Core Web Vitals can lose rankings, and a traffic drop on a revenue-driving site can cost far more than any migration fee. For a small, low-stakes site, DIY can be a sensible saving. For a site whose traffic matters, the expected cost of a mistake usually outweighs the cash saved, which is the honest way to compare, and it is the crux of deciding whether to migrate yourself or hire.
How to compare quotes fairly
Because scope drives cost, compare quotes on what they include, not just the number. Confirm each covers the same things: content and media migration, verified redirect mapping, testing before launch, and some post-launch monitoring, since a cheaper quote that omits redirects or testing is not actually cheaper for the same outcome. Ask what happens if problems appear after launch, and whether the price is fixed or an estimate. The platform you move to is not itself a ranking factor, as the Backlinko analysis shows, so you are paying for the quality of the migration, the redirects, the fidelity, the testing, not for the destination platform’s name. Comparing like for like on scope is the only way a price comparison means anything.
Steps to understand your migration cost
- Scope your site: count pages and URLs, and gauge content and media volume.
- Note the complexity: e-commerce, custom features, unusual functionality.
- Estimate the redirects that will need mapping and verifying.
- Prefer a fixed quote over hourly to avoid overrun risk.
- Weigh DIY honestly: your time plus the risk of lost rankings.
- Compare quotes on inclusions, not just the headline number.
Worked example: why two quotes differed so much
Consider an owner who got two very different prices for the same migration. The low quote billed hourly and mentioned redirects only vaguely; the higher one was a fixed price that explicitly included mapping and verifying every redirect, content and media migration, pre-launch testing, and thirty days of monitoring. Scoping the site revealed around eight hundred URLs, many needing redirects, which was exactly the work the cheap quote had glossed over. Choosing the fixed quote, the owner knew the total up front and got the redirect work that actually protected the rankings. The hourly quote would likely have grown past it once the redirect mapping surfaced, and might have skipped it, risking a traffic drop worth more than the whole fee.
Limitation: quotes require seeing your site
It is honest to bound this. There is no universal price, and this page deliberately does not quote one, because a responsible figure depends on your specific site, its pages, content, URLs, and complexity, which a provider needs to see to quote accurately. Beware any quote given without scoping your site, since it must either pad for the unknown or underdeliver. The drivers described here let you understand what will move a quote up or down and compare offers sensibly, but the actual number comes from a real assessment of your site. So treat cost as a conversation that starts with scoping, and expect a clear fixed quote once that is done, rather than a number pulled from the air.
Key points
A website migration costs in proportion to its scope, driven by your page and URL counts, content and media volume, complexity like e-commerce, and the number of redirects to map, so a single sticker price is meaningless without those. Prefer a fixed quote, which tells you the total up front and puts overrun risk on the provider, over hourly billing that can start cheap and balloon as redirect mapping and testing surface. Weigh a DIY migration honestly, its cost is your time plus the real risk of lost rankings, which can dwarf any fee on a site whose traffic matters. Compare quotes on what they include, content, verified redirects, testing, monitoring, not just the headline number, and expect any real quote to require scoping your site first. WPBuildAI quotes a fixed price per site from your page, content, and URL counts, so you know the cost before starting, with no hourly surprises. Send your web address for a free analysis.
Not affiliated with WordPress, Lovable, Webflow, Shopify, Wix, or Squarespace.