Website platform migration pricing: The Real Cost of Logic
Most business owners view migration as a cost. It's actually a logic problem. Here is the breakdown of website platform migration pricing and why legacy systems are killing your margin.
Allen Seavert · AI AutoAuthor
December 29, 20259 min read
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Deconstructing the logic behind website platform migration pricing.
Analyzing website platform migration pricing is the first step toward fixing your business's broken logic. Most CEOs treat a platform shift like moving furniture from one house to another. They look for the cheapest mover, throw everything in a box, and wonder why half the items are broken when they reach the destination. In reality, a migration is an architectural rebuild. If you are still running your revenue through a bloated legacy CMS, you aren't just paying for hosting; you are paying a 'slow tax' that compounds every single day.
The Logic of Website Platform Migration Pricing
The logic is simple: you either pay for a solid foundation now, or you pay for repairs forever. When we look at website platform migration pricing, we have to look past the sticker price of a freelancer or a plugin. We have to look at the system. Most teams get this wrong because they prioritize the wrong metrics. They want 'seamless'—a word we don't use because it's a lie agencies tell to hide complexity. Migration is messy. It requires a hard look at your data architecture, your API integrations, and how your staff actually interacts with the stack.
The status quo is a villain. It’s the $500/month VA who spends six hours a day copy-pasting content from an old WordPress site into a new one. It’s the 'expert' who tells you that you need twenty different plugins to make a landing page load in under three seconds. This is the Old Way. It is manual, it is slow, and it is expensive. The New Way is building for the logic of 2026. This means moving toward headless architectures, Next.js, and systems where AI agents can actually read and interact with your data without tripping over legacy code.
Breaking Down Website Platform Migration Pricing Tiers
Shift your perspective: Migration is an investment in future compound returns.
Here is what actually happens in the market today. You have three main buckets for website platform migration pricing. Each comes with its own set of risks and returns.
Allen Seavert is the founder of SetupBots and an expert in AI automation for business. He helps companies implement intelligent systems that generate revenue while they sleep.
Migration Tier
Estimated Cost
Typical Method
Basic / Automated
$300 – $1,500
Tool-based (LitExtension, etc.)
Manual / Freelancer
$2,000 – $10,000
Manual data entry and basic SEO setup
Enterprise / Agency
$15,000 – $50,000+
Custom dev, full SEO audit, API integration
The Basic Logic: Automated Tools
At the low end of website platform migration pricing, you are essentially buying a script. These tools work well for standard eCommerce entities—products, customers, and orders. However, they fail the moment you have custom fields or unique logic. If your business relies on a specific workflow that isn't 'out of the box,' a $300 tool will break your business. We’ve seen companies lose 40% of their organic traffic because they used an automated tool that didn't handle 301 redirects properly. The 'savings' here are a mirage.
The Middle Ground: Freelancers
Freelancers usually charge between $20 and $150 per hour. While this seems like a way to manage website platform migration pricing, you are betting on a single point of failure. If that freelancer doesn't understand the long-term SEO implications of a URL structure change, you are paying for a slow-motion disaster. Most freelancers are great at making things look good on the surface, but they rarely build for the logic of the underlying system.
WordPress is Dead: Why Your Platform Choice Dictates Your Cost
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: WordPress is dead. 2026 will be the death of WordPress. If you are looking at website platform migration pricing just to move from one WordPress host to another, you are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The future is Next.js and headless systems where the content is separated from the delivery layer.
Why does this matter for pricing? Because building on legacy tech requires constant maintenance. You are paying for security updates, plugin conflicts, and database optimization. When you migrate to a modern stack, the upfront cost might be higher, but the maintenance cost drops to near zero. Compound returns > quick wins. If you spend $20,000 today to build a system that doesn't require a $2,000/month maintenance retainer, you've won. Most CEOs don't do that math.
The Hidden Variables in Website Platform Migration Pricing
The real question is: what are you actually moving? It isn't just pages. It is the logic of your business. Here are the variables that drive up website platform migration pricing:
Data Complexity: If you have 500 pages of static content, it’s easy. If you have 5,000 products with custom attributes, dynamic pricing, and third-party API dependencies, the price scales exponentially.
SEO Preservation: This is where most people lose money. A proper migration requires a pre-migration audit, a mapping file, and post-migration validation. If you skip this to save $5,000, you might lose $50,000 in revenue from dropped rankings.
Custom Functionality: Most themes are garbage. They are built for everyone, which means they are built for no one. Custom development for specific business features is usually where the bulk of a $30,000 quote comes from.
Hosting and Infrastructure Costs
Your ongoing costs change after migration. Stop looking at $5/month shared hosting. If your site is a revenue generator, it needs to live on infrastructure that can scale. Shared hosting is for hobbies. Businesses need VPS, Dedicated, or Managed environments.
Hosting Type
Monthly Range
Who it is for
Shared
$2 – $15
Bloggers and hobbies
VPS / Cloud
$20 – $150
Small to Medium Businesses
Managed (Headless/Next.js)
$30 – $300+
High-performance logic-driven sites
The SetupBots Approach: Building the Infrastructure
While others give you a tool, SetupBots builds the infrastructure. We don't just 'move' your site; we re-architect it for the AI era. When we evaluate website platform migration pricing, we look at how we can use AI to automate the content cleanup, how we can structure your data so it’s ready for LLM consumption, and how we can eliminate manual labor for your team. Most agencies are still staring at spreadsheets for six hours. We build systems that do the work for us.
The logic is that API tokens will be the currency of the future. If your new platform doesn't have a robust API, it's useless. You need to start moving intelligently immediately. All CEOs will need to know SQL in 2026, or at least understand how their data flows. If you don't understand your own data architecture, you are at the mercy of whoever gives you the lowest bid.
Evaluating ROI Beyond the Initial Price
Stop building for yesterday. If you only look at website platform migration pricing as an expense, you’ve already lost. Think about the velocity. If your new platform allows you to launch landing pages in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours, what is that worth to your marketing team? If your site loads in 0.8 seconds instead of 4.2 seconds, how much does your conversion rate increase?
The 'Old Way' of migration is a one-time event that leaves you with a static asset. The 'New Way'—the SetupBots way—is an evolution. We build systems that get better over time. By integrating AI into the migration process, we can audit thousands of pages for SEO errors in seconds, rewrite meta descriptions based on actual performance data, and ensure your site structure is logically sound for both humans and crawlers.
Common Pitfalls in Migration Projects
Most teams get this wrong by focusing on the 'skin'—the design. Design is easy. Logic is hard. We’ve seen $50,000 migrations that look beautiful but have broken checkout flows because the developer didn't understand the API logic of the payment gateway. Or sites that look great but have no H1 tags because the designer thought they 'looked ugly.'
Here is what actually happens when you go cheap: you pay twice. You pay the freelancer $5,000 to do it wrong, and then you pay an agency like ours $15,000 to fix the mess and recover your SEO. Real website platform migration pricing should include a 'fix-it' buffer if you aren't working with experts from day one.
"The architecture is the strategy. If you build on sand, don't be surprised when the tide comes in."
Why Next.js is Where It's At
If you are migrating, move to something that scales. Next.js allows for server-side rendering and static site generation, which is the gold standard for performance. It's not just a trend; it's a fundamental shift in how the web works. When you factor Next.js into your website platform migration pricing, you are investing in a stack that will be relevant for the next decade. WordPress is a legacy liability. API-first architecture is a strategic asset.
AI will devour jobs, but we can also use AI to give people skill architecture they wouldn't have had otherwise. Your staff needs to know how to use AI to manage your new platform. Part of the migration cost should be training. A platform is only as good as the people operating it. If we build you a Ferrari but your team only knows how to ride a bicycle, you've wasted your money.
The Real Cost of Doing Nothing
While you sit and debate website platform migration pricing, your competitors are moving. They are adopting AI SEO systems, they are automating their customer service via agents, and they are building fast, logic-driven websites. Every day you stay on an outdated platform, your customer acquisition cost goes up. Your site gets slower compared to the rest of the web. Your security risk increases.
The logic is unavoidable. You will migrate eventually. You can do it now, strategically, or you can do it later as an emergency when your site gets hacked or your traffic hits zero. Proactive migration is an investment; reactive migration is a catastrophe.
Conclusion: Stop Losing Money to Manual Labor
Reading about AI and modern platforms is easy, but implementing them is where the actual value is created. Most business owners are paralyzed by website platform migration pricing because they don't see the systemic benefits. They see a bill; we see a launchpad. At SetupBots, we don't just move data. We build custom AI solutions, AI SEO systems, and process automations that turn your website from a digital brochure into a high-performance engine.
The first step isn't writing a check. The first step is understanding where you are losing money right now. We offer a Free AI Opportunity Audit to help you identify the manual leaks in your business and show you how a modern architectural shift can pay for itself in months, not years. Stop building for yesterday and start building for the logic of tomorrow.
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