How Much Does It Cost to Migrate a Website?

Three real query phrasings that point to the same pricing factors below.

How much does it cost to migrate a website?

A typical 2026 website migration costs NZD $2,500 to $8,500 for a like-for-like move of a 5 to 10 page small business site, and NZD $8,000 to $25,000 if the move is paired with a redesign. The variables that move the number are page count, target platform, redirect mapping complexity, and whether content and images get cleaned up on the way through.

How much does CMS migration cost?

CMS migration cost is usually higher than a static-site move because content fields, custom post types, taxonomies, and plugin functionality all have to be re-mapped on the target CMS. A WordPress-to-Shopify or Squarespace-to-Webflow CMS move for 5 to 15 content items lands at NZD $3,500 to $12,000 in 2026 at a fixed-price studio. Above 50 content items, expect NZD $12,000 to $40,000.

What does WordPress to Shopify migration cost?

A WordPress-to-Shopify migration with 5 to 15 products lands between NZD $4,000 and $14,000 at a small studio, depending on how custom the WordPress site is and whether a redesign is part of the move. Pure data migration of products and customers (no redesign, no theme work) sits at NZD $2,500 to $5,000. Add full theme design and the number climbs.

A website migration is the move from one platform, host, framework, or domain to another. The scope almost always includes the following, even if the quote does not break each one out:

A migration quote that skips redirect mapping, schema, or post-launch checks is not really a migration. It is a content paste. Watch for it.

Two very different jobs sit under the word migration, and the price difference is large.

If the existing site converts well, like-for-like protects what works. If the existing site is the bottleneck, doing both at once usually beats stacking two projects back to back. The line is judgement, not formula. Our redesign cost and timeline guide covers the redesign-only case in more depth.

Realistic ranges across the four common buyer brackets. NZD primary, USD secondary.

The studio band covers most small and mid-sized businesses. Above NZD $25,000 the cost is usually carrying agency overhead or genuinely complex scope (ecommerce with hundreds of SKUs, multilingual, custom integrations). For the pricing pillar that sits behind these brackets, see our how much does a website cost guide.

Migration price varies more by platform pair than by total page count. Six of the most common 2026 platform moves and their typical fixed-price studio cost in NZD.

The high end of each row is the one that usually shows up if anyone has built custom WordPress plugins, custom Shopify apps, or anything bespoke under the hood. The low end assumes the existing site is mostly standard.

Six variables move every migration quote, listed roughly in order of impact.

1. Page or product count. Each additional 10 pages or products typically adds NZD $500 to $1,500 in handling, redirect mapping, and QA.
2. Custom code on the source site. Custom WordPress plugins, custom Shopify apps, and bespoke integrations cost more to replicate than standard features. If the source site has more than two custom plugins, budget an extra NZD $1,000 to $4,000 in scoping alone.
3. Redirect mapping complexity. A clean URL structure migrates cheaply. A site that has been through three CMS changes and has 400 legacy URLs takes longer. Expect NZD $300 to $2,500 added at the high end.
4. Content cleanup. Migration is the right time to fix thin pages, broken images, and duplicate content. That work is rarely included by default. Quote a separate content pass of NZD $80 to $200 per page if you want it done properly.
5. Image re-export and compression. A site with 500 oversized images takes longer than one with 30. WebP conversion and srcset generation are standard at the studio tier but rare at the freelancer tier.
6. Integration rewiring. Stripe, Mailchimp, Brevo, Calendly, HubSpot, GA4, Search Console, GTM, Meta CAPI: every integration is a connection that has to be re-established, tested, and verified on the new platform.

The sticker price is usually only part of the bill. The following ongoing costs are easy to miss when comparing quotes:

New platform subscription

Shopify, Webflow, Wix Business, and Squarespace Commerce all carry monthly fees. Shopify is NZD $58 to $625 per month depending on tier. Webflow CMS is NZD $40 to $100. Budget the new platform annual subscription as a real cost, especially if you are migrating away from a one-off WordPress hosting bill.

Email forwarding and SMTP

Switching platforms often means switching MX records or SMTP. A managed email service via Google Workspace or Brevo costs NZD $10 to $50 per mailbox per month. Catch this early or you lose email deliverability for a week.

SSL and security

Most modern platforms include free SSL. Some legacy setups do not. Budget NZD $0 to $250 per year.

Search Console and re-indexation downtime

Search Console resubmission is free, but the time cost of monitoring re-indexation and fixing missed redirects is real. Plan one to two hours of monitoring per week for the first month after launch.

Lost traffic during the cutover

A clean migration loses 0 to 5 percent of organic traffic for one to four weeks. A messy migration loses 15 to 40 percent for months. The traffic loss has a real revenue cost, which is why redirect mapping and pre-launch QA matter so much. Google's own site-move guide covers the minimum redirect and Search Console steps.

The single biggest hidden cost of a website migration is lost Google traffic. The cheap migrations are cheap because they skip the SEO protection layer.

The mistakes that cost traffic, in order:

1. No 301 redirect map. Every old URL needs a 301 redirect to the matching new URL. If the redirect map is missing or partial, Google indexes 404s instead of the new content, link equity drops, and rankings fall.
2. Page titles and meta descriptions not migrated. Default platform titles get used instead of the original SEO-optimised ones. Click-through rate drops in the SERP.
3. Schema markup not rebuilt. Article, FAQ, LocalBusiness, and Product schema all need to be rebuilt on the new platform. Lose them and you lose rich-result eligibility.
4. Internal links pointing to dead URLs. Migrations often miss internal anchor links. Audit the new site after launch, find and fix any internal link still pointing to an old slug.
5. Images losing alt text. Bulk-imports often strip alt text. Re-add it or accessibility and image-search visibility both fall.
6. Page speed regression. Moving from a fast lean WordPress build to a heavy Shopify theme can tank Core Web Vitals overnight. Test mobile speed before and after, against the published Core Web Vitals thresholds.

A migration that breaks SEO is not cheap. The lost traffic is the actual cost, paid out of revenue over the next 6 to 12 months.

For a Shopify-specific version of this checklist (URL mapping, 301 redirect strategy, post-launch monitoring window), see our guide to a Shopify migration without losing SEO.

Migration timelines are usually faster than build timelines because the content already exists. Standard ranges in 2026:

Wall-clock weeks and hours-of-work are not the same number, the same way our broader timeline guide on how long a website takes to build covers in detail. Traditional agencies stretch 40 hours of work into 4 weeks of meetings; a focused code-first workflow compresses the same job into days.

Sometimes a migration is the wrong frame entirely. If two or more of the following are true, a rebuild is usually faster and cheaper than trying to preserve the current site:

• The current site is more than 4 years old
• The current design is template-led and looks dated
• Pages load slower than 3 seconds on mobile
• There is no schema markup or it is broken
• The content has not been edited in over a year
• The brand has changed and the site no longer reflects it
• The conversion path is unclear or generic

In those cases, a fresh build often beats a migration on cost and outcome at the same time. The redirect map still gets done either way, so the SEO equity transfers. If you are unsure, the audit says which is the better call for your specific site.

Six warning signs that show up in cheap or careless migration quotes:

• We just export and import the content. That is not a migration. That is content paste. Redirects, schema, integrations, and QA are missing.
• No mention of 301 redirects. Without redirects, the new site loses link equity and rankings, often permanently.
• Hourly billing with no cap. Migrations have a lot of small tasks. Open-ended hourly billing leaks budget fast.
• No QA or staging step. If the quote does not include a staging URL and a test pass, the new site goes live with bugs and broken links.
• No timeline for redirect monitoring. Redirect maps need checking for 4 to 8 weeks after launch as Google re-crawls. Quotes that end at launch day leave the recovery window unprotected.
• No reference projects on the same platform. If the studio has never migrated to Shopify or Webflow before, your project is the practice run.

Onyxarro runs migrations as fixed-price packages with the same speed as our build packages. The scope is published, the price is published, and the 48-hour go-live applies to like-for-like moves of standard small business sites.

If you would rather have a fit-and-budget read on your specific migration, our free 48-hour audit reads your current site and target platform, then comes back with whether like-for-like, redesign, or a full rebuild is the right move, plus the fixed price for each.

See full Onyxarro packages.

The cleaner the brief, the cleaner the quote, the smaller the chance of mid-project surprises. Send the following before asking for a quote:

1. Current site URL and current platform (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, custom).
2. Target platform and the reason for the move (cost, speed, ecommerce features, design freedom, brand alignment).
3. Page count, and product count if ecommerce.
4. List of integrations (Stripe, Mailchimp, Brevo, Calendly, HubSpot, GA4, Search Console, GTM, Meta CAPI, custom).
5. Top 10 most-trafficked URLs from Google Analytics or Search Console. These are the redirects you cannot afford to miss.
6. Whether the move is like-for-like or includes a redesign, and any brand work needed.
7. Hard launch date, if there is one.

A studio that asks for these before quoting is doing the job properly. A studio that quotes without them is guessing.

A 2026 website migration costs NZD $1,700 to $42,000 depending on platform, page count, and whether the move is paired with a redesign. The studio band where most small businesses sit runs NZD $2,500 to $8,500 for like-for-like, or NZD $8,000 to $25,000 for migration plus redesign.

The real cost is rarely the sticker price. It is the SEO traffic lost on a sloppy redirect map, the email deliverability gap nobody planned for, and the integration that quietly stopped firing. Spend the extra to get those done properly, or do it yourself with the checklists in this guide, but do not let a cheap migration cost you 6 months of recovery work.

If you want a fit-and-budget read on your specific migration, get the free 48-hour Onyxarro audit. We tell you whether to migrate, redesign, or rebuild, and quote the fixed price for either.