Drupal to WordPress Migration Service

Avoid expensive mistakes and prevent lost revenue

Migrating your business-critical Drupal site to WordPress? Do you know what needs to be done to prevent lost revenue? My projects follow an established process to help you avoid pitfalls that lead to expensive mistakes. Get in touch if you're a digital agency or site owner who needs an expert to help with complex website migrations. With over 10 years experience specializing in site migrations, I've developed my own set of processes and scripts to ensure a successful outcome. Whatever your needs, I will advise on the best course of action depending on your goals.

Why choose my migration service?

Eliminate mistakes

With over a decade of experience specializing in complex migrations, I've established a process to help you avoid pitfalls leading to expensive mistakes such as data loss, SEO setbacks, and unexpected downtime. My approach ensures a smooth migration and safeguards your business from costly disruptions.

Expert guidance

Migrations aren't just about data transfer. I'll help you make informed decisions about all areas of your project including: migration strategies; options for data integrity and preservation; vendor selection; SEO preservation; and compatibility with existing systems and third-party integrations.

Custom migrations

A digital agency augmenting your team with specialised skills, or a site owner requiring end-to-end services? I tailor my approach to meet your needs using off-the-shelf tools for bulk transfers or custom-written ETL scripts and specialised data stores for regulatory compliance of personally identifiable information handling.

Minimise downtime

I understand that business continuity is vital. I've developed techniques to migrate content in stages, keeping critical functions online throughout the process. This means your customers can keep shopping, your content can keep engaging, and your business can keep growing, even during the migration.

Guideline Project Pricing

Fees for my Drupal to WordPress migration service depend on how much you'd like me to do. You might be a media agency or creative professional who wants help with only the technical aspects of a client site migration. Perhaps you're a site owner who needs someone to do everything from content migration to theme and plugin development. The amounts below give you some guideline pricing for an idea of how much budget you should expect to allocate. These are examples only so please get in touch for a quote for your migration requirements.

Website or blog

Starting price

$4,000

USD, with fixed or hourly rate options

  • Company website or blog
  • Contact form
  • Install & set-up WordPress
  • Pre-made WordPress theme

Content provider

Starting price

$7,300

USD, with fixed or hourly rate options

  • Large news site
  • Custom functionality
  • Pre-made WordPress theme
  • Simple customisations

Ecommerce

Starting price

$10,400

USD, with fixed or hourly rate options

  • Migrate online store content
  • Custom content types
  • Custom functionality
  • Bring your own designer

Book a Free Consultation

If you have more questions about how my Drupal to WordPress migration service can help you, please book a free consultation. I will be happy to schedule a call or video conference to talk through your requirements. No commitment is required and you will gain more insight into the scope of your project.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I just use a migration plugin and export the site myself?

There are several Drupal to WordPress migration plugins and automated services available. Maybe they'll work for your site, in which case my migration service is not for you. Indeed, migration plugins can convert Drupal content that have a clearly defined counterpart within WordPress. They do fall short in some important ways, however. A great deal of the most valuable content is routinely configured in ways that need human decisions. Which migration approach should be taken? How closely will the approach meet your project’s goals? Will one WordPress plugin or another better suit your workflow? What kind of compromises must you make? These are critical decisions that cannot be automated.

If you're looking for a Drupal to WordPress migration service, chances are that you've tried a plugin and it failed. Alternatively, you might recognise that you need advice from an expert. Many clients come to me because they tried a migration plugin and for some reason they weren’t satisfied with the results. A custom migration service will inevitably cost more than an off-the-shelf plugin but if your website plays an important role in your activity, human experience will provide more value than short-term savings.

What do you need to get started with a migration?

To get started with your project, I'll need:

  • A MySQL dump file or access to your database;
  • Information about what kind of content you want to migrate. I can give you a more precise estimate for your migration project during the project discovery phase.

Find out about how to get started with a Drupal to WordPress migration project.

How is your Drupal to WordPress migration service different?

There are other options with a variety of pricing models. My Drupal to WordPress migration service is for media agencies and site owners who need a WordPress database specialist to work with them throughout the migration process. I understand that it’s often unnecessary to pay someone to do everything. For example, media agencies often have staff in-house who are great at design and front-end coding; they often don’t need to invest time investigating the inner workings of Drupal and WordPress. Site-owners without technical or programming skill can do some tasks manually using the WordPress dashboard, thereby reducing the overall budget needed.

You deal with me directly and I tailor the migration to the specific needs of your project. There are no set limits to the amount or type of content you can migrate. We work together closely to discover how best to approach the migration. Between us, we will strike a balance between your budget and work needed for you to comfortably take over your new WordPress site.

Can I migrate only my content?

Yes. There are two options when migrating your site:-

1. Content only
This is for when you already have a web developer to build your WordPress site and you only want to export the Drupal content. To do this, all I’d need is your Drupal database dump file or access to your database.

2. Full migration
Aside from the content, a full migration would also include setting up WordPress, replicating functionality and either replicating the design as a WordPress theme or doing a re-design. This is essentially building a new site from scratch so in order to quote for this, I’d need either a specification document or access to your Drupal site in order to create one.

What is your Drupal to WordPress content export process?

I’ll first run a database diagnostic on a copy of your Drupal installation. This is to analyse the scope of the project and to check if there might be any issues with the migration. (Sometimes, previously installed buggy modules cause problems.) Once we’ve identified and fixed any potential issues, I’ll then run my standard migration script to get the first usable export. I define a ‘useable export’ as one where you can theoretically continue without my help, perhaps by finishing up through the WordPress control panel UI. You’re therefore never ‘locked in’ to my service.

At this stage you will have:

  • A basic installation of WordPress on a generic theme on my test server. This will let you inspect the migrated content to get an idea of how it will look at your end.
  • A MySQL dump file that you can import into your database.

For many site owners, manual finishing up of a typical Drupal to WordPress migration project can be quite tedious, especially on sites with lots of content, custom content types and functionality. An important part of what I do is saving you time by writing custom scripts that will fine-tune the results to your requirements. While the first export is fairly simple to run, further customisation is very much an iterative process of fine tuning until you’re satisfied with the end result. The more you need me to do, the more budget you’ll need.

How long does a migration project take?

On average, I recommend leaving at least six weeks from project sign-off. Large migration projects can take several months.

Will the amount of content be a factor in price, complexity or timescales?

No, the amount of content to be migrated is rarely a factor in project price, complexity and time. I write a set of custom migration scripts after analysing your site and requirements. The scripts can be run many times on your entire database and will do the 'heavy lifting' of the migration project. The major factors that usually affect project price, complexity and time are:

  • the number of custom content types;
  • replicating Drupal modules as WordPress plugins;
  • preserving SEO;
  • the web design process for custom themes.
What kind of migration tools and software do you use?

I use a variety of custom-built tools and scripts, mostly coded in Python, that I've built throughout the years. I also use freely available open source software like MySQL Workbench and phpMyAdmin.

Acknowledgements for my Drupal to WordPress Migration Tool:

Which Drupal versions can you migrate?

I can migrate any Drupal version.

Do you comply with GDPR?

Yes, I comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Under the GDPR, I'm classed as a data processor since my work involves obtaining, storing and processing databases which may contain personal information. As a small firm, the regulations are far more lenient for me. Nevertheless, in order to meet my clients’ own GDPR-compliance, I have put in place the following measures:

  • My privacy policy has been updated for GDPR compliance.
  • For each project, I only request the minimum amount of migration data to complete the project requirements.
  • I delete migration databases and backups within 90 days after a project close-down. This length of time is necessary and reasonable as completed projects can sometimes restart with new requirements.
  • I only work with third-party contractors or agencies who have been approved by my clients. When working with third-parties, I only transfer migration data to the contractor or agency after obtaining explicit permission from my client.
  • I only use services that are PCI, DPA and GDPR compliant.
  • I record migration database transfers to service providers in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
  • Full-disk encryption; encrypted communications and file transfers; and two factor authentication are enabled whenever possible to help prevent data breaches.
  • In order to help detect if I've been breached, 'bugs' and 'honeypots' are implanted within my systems.
  • If a data breach occurs that poses a risk to people's rights and freedoms, the project sponsor will be informed as soon as the breach is discovered.
Can you cite some case studies for previous migrations?

Case study 1: Local news site

A site with over 45,000 Drupal nodes. Despite having a large amount of content, the migration was relatively straightforward because the client had a basic Drupal setup consisting of pages, stories and a few simple custom content types. They did not need any special functionality replicated.

Timescales: Migration completed within two weeks of starting the project.

Main challenges presented:

  1. Errors during import due to incorrect character encoding when the client made the database dump. This was easily fixed by showing the client how to correctly dump the database.
  2. Target WordPress environment kept running out of memory after export. This was solved by adjusting the client's server configuration.
  3. The client did not know how to operate their hosting control panel so this project also required unexpected sys-admin work.

Case study 2: Special interest site with global readership

A site with around 20,000 nodes, 4,000 terms and 10,000 user profiles.

Timescales: approximately 7 weeks from first enquiry email.

Main challenges presented:

  1. There were many duplicate terms that needed to be handled and cleaned using custom queries. (Duplicate terms cannot be migrated into WordPress.)
  2. An old Drupal module caused hard-to-find corruption that was causing the migration queries to fail. This was tracked down to a few entries that were incorrectly had a creation year of 1970.
  3. I needed to write many custom queries to handle very specific migration requirements. (e.g. removing unwanted posts, removing spam comments and authors, resolving duplicate content.)
Can I preserve my search engine optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine optimisation is a complex topic. The short answer is yes, I will be able to preserve your SEO. In practical terms, how much is preserved depends on your budget. If SEO is a primary concern, please let me know and we can discussion your options in detail. For more information about preserving SEO during a Drupal to WordPress migration, please see this guide.

What are my payment options?
  • UK-based clients may pay by bank transfer to my Pound Sterling UK bank account. All prices are exclusive of VAT unless otherwise specified.
  • International clients may pay into my US Dollar or Euro bank account, or by Bitcoin, PayPal or credit card. Other payment methods may incur additional transaction charges.
Can I have more information about your Drupal to WordPress migration service?

If you need more information before starting your migration project, feel free to read through my archive of Drupal to WordPress migration posts. The following might be of particular interest: