WordPress to Next.js Migration Service: What's Included, Timelines, and How Pricing Works

If you have been researching a WordPress to Next.js migration, you have probably encountered two extremes. On one end: agencies quoting six-figure budgets and six-month timelines. On the other: freelancers offering a quick swap with no clear scope and no accountability if something breaks in search. Neither is the right fit for a marketing site that depends on organic traffic.

SEOParity offers a different model — a fixed-scope migration service specifically designed for content and marketing sites where SEO continuity is not optional. Every engagement starts with a structured audit, moves to a defined rebuild scope, and ends with a monitored launch. The pricing is transparent, the scope is documented before any build work starts, and post-launch monitoring is included.

This post explains exactly what is included in each service tier, how the pricing and timeline work, and how to evaluate whether your site is a good fit. If you are comparing options for a WordPress to Next.js migration, this gives you the full picture before you reach out.

Quick Checklist

Confirm your site is a marketing/content site (not eCommerce, LMS, or membership)
Count your page templates and total URLs (determines rebuild scope)
Identify your current CMS plugins that handle SEO (Yoast, RankMath, etc.)
Document any custom functionality that needs to survive the migration
Decide on a headless CMS for content management (Strapi, Contentful, or similar)
Budget for the audit first — it defines the rebuild scope and timeline

Who This Service Is For (and Who It's Not For)

This migration service is designed for marketing sites, content sites, and SaaS product websites that run on WordPress and want to move to a Next.js frontend. Typically these are sites with 20–500 pages, a defined set of page templates, and organic search as a meaningful traffic channel.

The service works well for: company websites, service business sites, SaaS marketing sites, content blogs that depend on SEO, and portfolio or agency sites. These are sites where the primary requirements are fast performance, clean SEO, and a content editing workflow that does not require developer involvement for routine updates.

The service is not designed for: WooCommerce stores (eCommerce migrations are a different beast with different complexity), learning management systems built on LearnDash or similar, membership sites with complex authentication and access control, or marketplace sites with user-generated content. These site types have requirements that go well beyond the scope of a headless content migration.

If your site has a significant custom plugin ecosystem — complex forms, booking systems, payment integrations — those custom features add scope that needs to be assessed individually. They are not automatically excluded, but they add to the rebuild timeline and price.

The Three Service Tiers: Audit, Rebuild, and Ops

The migration service is structured as three distinct tiers. Each tier is designed to stand alone — you can start with just the audit and decide from there — but they are also designed to flow into each other as a complete migration pathway.

SEO Parity Audit — $490, Delivered in 72 Hours

The SEO Parity Audit is the starting point for every migration. It is a structured technical review of your current WordPress site that produces a complete picture of your SEO configuration before any build work begins.

What the audit covers: a full URL crawl to document every indexed page, canonical tag configuration across the site, structured data and JSON-LD audit, XML sitemap review, robots.txt configuration, redirect mapping (current redirects and any that will be needed post-migration), Core Web Vitals baseline, and a page template inventory.

The output is a migration brief — a document that specifies exactly what needs to be rebuilt, what SEO configuration needs to be replicated, what redirects need to be implemented, and what risks exist with the current setup. This brief becomes the technical specification for the rebuild.

The audit fee ($490) applies as credit toward the rebuild if you proceed. It is not a sales call. It is a paid technical deliverable. If you do the audit and decide not to proceed with a full rebuild, you have a complete SEO inventory of your current site that is valuable on its own.

Next.js Rebuild — From $4,500, Fixed Scope

The rebuild tier is a complete migration from WordPress to a headless Next.js frontend. Scope, timeline, and price are fixed at the start based on the audit deliverable. There are no hourly billing surprises.

What every rebuild includes: Next.js App Router implementation, headless CMS integration (Strapi, Contentful, or Sanity depending on your editorial requirements), full SEO parity configuration (meta tags, canonical tags, JSON-LD schema, XML sitemap), redirect implementation for all URL changes, Vercel deployment with production and preview environments, and a 30-day post-launch monitoring window.

Pricing starts at $4,500 for simple sites — under 10 page templates, under 50 URLs, minimal custom functionality. Mid-complexity sites (10–25 templates, 50–200 URLs, moderate custom requirements) typically run $6,500–$9,500. Complex sites are scoped individually after the audit.

Fixed-scope pricing means the audit deliverable defines the project. If the audit identifies 8 page templates, the rebuild scope covers 8 page templates at a fixed price. If a 9th template is discovered mid-build, that is a scope change — reviewed and priced transparently, not silently added to an hourly invoice.

SEOParity Ops — From $750/Month

Ops is the ongoing monitoring and maintenance tier that activates after a successful launch. It is designed for sites where organic traffic is a primary acquisition channel and post-launch regressions need to be caught and fixed quickly.

What Ops includes: monthly Core Web Vitals reporting, Google Search Console monitoring with regression alerts, crawl error monitoring, a 24-hour SLA response window for urgent issues, and regression fixes included in the monthly retainer (within scope).

The $750/month starting tier covers standard marketing sites. Larger sites with higher crawl frequency, more complex monitoring requirements, or a higher volume of monthly content changes are scoped at higher tiers.

What "Fixed Scope" Actually Means

Fixed-scope pricing is the opposite of hourly billing. In an hourly model, the agency or developer tracks time and bills accordingly. The client bears the risk of scope creep — every iteration, revision, and discovered complexity adds to the invoice. Final cost is uncertain until the project closes.

In a fixed-scope model, the project scope is defined before billing starts. The client knows the total cost before work begins. The service provider bears the risk of scope creep within the defined boundaries. Revisions within scope are included. Scope changes — genuinely new requirements that were not part of the original specification — are discussed and priced before work proceeds.

This model requires a rigorous upfront scoping process, which is exactly what the SEO Parity Audit provides. The audit produces a specification detailed enough to price a fixed-scope rebuild accurately. Without that audit, fixed-scope pricing is guesswork.

For clients, the practical benefit is predictability. You know what you are paying. You can budget accurately. You do not get a surprise invoice in month three because the developer spent more time than expected on a custom integration.

For the migration service to work at a fixed price, the site has to be within the scope parameters described in the audit. Sites with significant undocumented complexity — hidden custom post types, unusual plugin dependencies, non-standard permalink structures — may require an extended audit to scope accurately.

Timeline: Audit to Live Site in 2–4 Weeks

The typical timeline from audit start to live site is 2–4 weeks for standard sites. Here is how that breaks down.

Days 1–3: The SEO Parity Audit runs and delivers the migration brief. This includes the URL crawl, SEO configuration audit, template inventory, and redirect map.

Days 4–5: Migration brief review, rebuild scope finalized, project kickoff. This is where the fixed price is confirmed and work begins.

Days 6–18: Build. For a standard site (under 10 templates, under 50 URLs), the Next.js rebuild typically takes 7–10 business days. This includes frontend development, CMS integration, SEO configuration, and redirect implementation.

Days 19–21: Pre-launch validation. Every page tested against the migration brief. SEO configuration verified. Google URL Inspection Tool checks on priority pages. Performance testing.

Day 22–23: DNS cutover and launch. Monitoring begins immediately.

Days 24–52 (30-day window): Post-launch monitoring. Search Console checked daily for indexing coverage drops, crawl errors, and rich result changes.

Sites with higher complexity, custom functionality, or larger page counts run on extended timelines. A 200-page site with 20 page templates and custom integrations might take 4–6 weeks from audit to launch. The audit defines the timeline as clearly as it defines the price.

What's Included in Every Migration

Regardless of site size or complexity tier, every rebuild includes the same SEO parity foundation.

Canonical tags are implemented on every page via Next.js metadata, referencing the frontend domain. No canonical can point to the WordPress backend URL.

XML sitemap is generated by Next.js and submitted to Google Search Console on launch day. The WordPress sitemap is disabled. A single sitemap source.

JSON-LD structured data is ported from the current WordPress configuration (Yoast or RankMath) and implemented server-side in Next.js. This includes Article schema for blog posts, Organization and WebSite schema at the site level, and BreadcrumbList schema where applicable.

Redirect implementation covers all URL changes identified in the audit. Redirects are implemented at the Next.js middleware layer (or Vercel configuration) rather than in an external service, so they are fast and reliable.

robots.txt is configured on the Next.js frontend to allow full crawling. The WordPress backend's robots.txt is configured to disallow all crawlers.

For a complete walkthrough of the migration steps in sequence, our full migration checklist covers the process from pre-migration audit through post-launch validation.

What Happens After Launch: Monitoring and Regression Fixes

The 30-day post-launch monitoring window is included in every rebuild. During this period, Google Search Console is checked daily for changes in indexing coverage, crawl stats, and rich results. Any regressions identified during this window are addressed under the original project scope.

The most common post-launch issues appear in week 2–4, not week 1. Googlebot does not immediately recrawl every page after a migration. It works through a queue. Some pages get recrawled quickly; others take 10–20 days. Indexing coverage changes that show up in week 3 often trace to issues that were present from launch day — they just took that long to surface in Search Console data.

After the 30-day window closes, ongoing monitoring transitions to SEOParity Ops if the client continues the engagement. For sites without ongoing monitoring, the expectation is that any regressions appearing after day 30 are handled separately.

The value of Ops is not just monitoring. It is response time. A regression identified on a Monday can have a fix deployed by Tuesday under a 24-hour SLA. Without monitoring and a clear escalation path, a regression that costs the site 40% of its organic traffic might not be noticed for three weeks — long after the damage compounds.

Comparing Options: Why Fixed-Scope Matters for Marketing Sites

Marketing sites — particularly those where organic traffic directly drives leads or revenue — have a specific requirement that hourly agencies and generalist freelancers often do not prioritize: SEO continuity through the migration.

A migration that improves performance but drops 30% of indexed pages is not a successful migration. It is a technical success and an SEO disaster. The only way to prevent that outcome is to treat SEO parity as a first-class deliverable alongside the frontend build — not an afterthought addressed if something breaks.

Fixed-scope pricing enforces this by making SEO parity part of the defined deliverable. It is not a line item that gets deprioritized when the timeline gets tight. It is a condition of completion.

For teams comparing a WordPress to Next.js migration with other options, the WordPress vs Next.js SEO comparison breaks down specifically where Next.js has an advantage and where the migration risk lives.

FAQ

What types of WordPress sites are a good fit for Next.js migration?

Content sites, marketing sites, SaaS product websites, service business sites, and blogs that depend on organic traffic are the best fit. These sites have a defined set of page templates, relatively stable content structure, and performance and SEO as their primary technical priorities. WooCommerce stores, LMS platforms, and membership sites are not the right fit — they have requirements that go beyond a headless content migration.

How long does a full WordPress to Next.js migration take?

For standard sites (under 10 page templates, under 50 URLs), the typical timeline is 2–4 weeks from audit to live site. Larger or more complex sites take 4–6 weeks. The SEO Parity Audit at the start of every engagement produces a timeline estimate specific to your site — it is not a generic range applied to all projects.

What is included in the SEO Parity Audit?

The audit includes a full URL crawl, canonical tag audit, structured data review, sitemap and robots.txt configuration check, redirect mapping, Core Web Vitals baseline, and page template inventory. The output is a migration brief that serves as the technical specification for the rebuild. The $490 audit fee applies as credit toward a rebuild if you proceed.

How is fixed-scope pricing different from hourly billing?

In a fixed-scope model, the total price is agreed upon before work begins and does not change based on hours worked. In an hourly model, the client pays for time spent — and the final cost is uncertain. Fixed-scope pricing requires a detailed upfront specification (which the audit provides), but it gives clients full cost certainty before the build starts. Scope changes outside the original specification are discussed and priced before work proceeds, not billed retroactively.

What happens if SEO regressions appear after launch?

The 30-day post-launch monitoring window covers regressions identified within the first 30 days of launch. These are addressed under the original project scope. After 30 days, ongoing regression monitoring and fixes are covered under SEOParity Ops. Any regression identified during Ops monitoring is addressed within the 24-hour SLA response window, with fixes included in the monthly retainer.

Next Steps

The fastest way to understand what your migration involves is the SEO Parity Audit. It takes 72 hours, costs $490 (credited toward your rebuild), and gives you a complete picture of your current SEO configuration and what the migration scope looks like. There is no obligation to proceed beyond the audit.

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