Key facts (UK, 2026)
• Moving a WordPress site between hosts is often free: many hosts include migration. Krystal, for example, moves sites from other cPanel hosts free if you ask within 30 days of signing up.
• A freelancer typically charges about $200–$1,000 (roughly £150–£750) for a standard WordPress move.
• Wix sites can't be moved to another host at all. Squarespace only exports some content. Leaving either usually means a rebuild: about £175–£1,200 for a small business site.
• Moving a .co.uk domain works by changing its “IPS tag”. The new provider often charges a year’s renewal (about £10–£20); some old providers charge to release it.
• Google says to keep 301 redirects for at least a year when page addresses change, or you risk losing rankings.
How much does it cost to move a website in 2026?
It depends far more on what you're moving from than on how big your website is. Typical UK costs for a small business site:
| Type of move | Typical cost | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress to a new host, you have all the logins | £0–£100 | New host’s free migration, or a free plugin if you do it yourself |
| WordPress move done by a freelancer | About £150–£750 | Copying files and database, testing, pointing the domain, checking email |
| Just the .co.uk domain to a new provider | £0–£20 | Changing the IPS tag; often includes a year’s renewal |
| Wix or Squarespace to your own website | About £175–£1,200+ | A rebuild: new pages, your words and photos copied across, redirects |
| A “free” or pay-monthly package you don’t own | About £175–£1,200+ | A rebuild, plus getting the domain released to you |
The freelancer figure is from Duplicator’s 2026 migration price list (in US dollars). The rebuild figure is the small-site range from our guide to how much a website costs in the UK. Agency “migration projects” you may see quoted at £8,000 and up are for large company sites with redesigns and integrations, not a trade or local business website.
What affects the cost of moving a website?
The platform it’s built on
This matters most. WordPress and most ordinary hosting can be copied to another host in full. Website builders can’t. Wix says your site “must run on Wix’s servers”, so there’s nothing to copy, only content to rebuild.
Whether you have the logins
If you can log in to your hosting, your domain and your WordPress admin, a move is quick. If only your old designer can, everything waits on them. That waiting is often the biggest cost, even if it isn’t in money.
Who the domain is registered to
If the domain is in your name, you can move it whenever you like. If a designer registered it in their own name, it legally isn’t yours until they transfer it to you. See do I own my website?
Whether page addresses change
A straight host-to-host move keeps every page address the same, so Google barely notices. A rebuild usually changes some addresses, and each old one needs a redirect to its new page.
Email and extras
Email on the old hosting, contact forms, online booking, or a shop all add steps. None of them is hard, but each needs checking after the move.
What should I get before I leave my web designer?
Ask for these in writing, before you tell them you’re going if you can:
- The domain login, and which company it’s registered with. Check the registrant is you or your business.
- The hosting login, or at least who the host is.
- The website admin login (for example WordPress), as an administrator.
- A full backup of the website: files and database for WordPress.
- Email settings: where your email is hosted and how many mailboxes you have.
- Google Analytics, Search Console and Google Business Profile: make sure you are an owner, not just the designer.
Nominet’s lookup shows which company a .uk domain is registered through. To see whose name it’s in, log in to that account or ask the provider. If it isn’t you or your business, sort that first. Everything else depends on it.
How do I move a .co.uk domain to a new provider?
.uk domains don’t use a transfer code. Instead, you ask your current provider to change the domain’s “IPS tag” (sometimes called the Nominet tag) to your new provider’s tag. The new provider tells you what their tag is. It usually takes effect within a day or two.
Most new providers charge nothing for this, or a year’s renewal. Some old providers charge a fee to release the domain, so check before you start. If your provider won’t cooperate and you are the registrant, you can make the change through Nominet yourself, though Nominet may charge for this.
Moving the domain and moving the website are two separate jobs. You can move one without the other.
Will I lose my email if I move my website?
Not if you plan for it. It depends where your email lives:
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace: your email isn’t affected by moving the website, as long as the email settings in your domain (the MX records) are copied across exactly.
- Email on your old hosting (common with cheap hosting packages): the mailboxes need moving too, and the old hosting should stay live until they’re copied. Many hosts include this. Krystal’s free migration, for example, includes mailboxes from cPanel hosts.
This is where most moves go wrong, so it’s worth a second check. If you’re rethinking email anyway, see how much does business email cost?
Can I move my Wix or Squarespace website to another host?
Wix: no. Wix says plainly that your site must run on its servers. The content you build belongs to you, and a domain bought through Wix can be moved away, but the website itself has to be rebuilt elsewhere.
Squarespace: partly. Squarespace can export some content as a file for WordPress: standard pages, one blog, text and image blocks. It doesn’t export the design, store pages, portfolio pages, video blocks and several other page types, and images may not come across. So it saves some copying, but it’s still a rebuild.
A rebuild isn’t all bad news. It’s a chance to fix what wasn’t working, like one page trying to cover every service. But it needs redirects, or you lose what Google already knows about your site. More on builders: is a free website really free?
Will moving my website affect my Google rankings?
A straight move to a new host, with the same page addresses, has little effect. Changing page addresses is where rankings get lost.
Google’s advice for a move where addresses change is to use permanent (301) redirects from every old address to its new one, and to “keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year”. It also says a small to medium site “can take a few weeks” for most pages to move over in search results (Google Search Central).
Before you move, list every page on your current website (your sitemap is a good start) so none gets forgotten. After the move, check Google Search Console for errors, and resubmit your sitemap to Google and Bing.
What's the safe order for moving a website?
- Get the logins and a full backup, and check the domain is in your name.
- Set up the new hosting and copy (or rebuild) the website there.
- Test it on the new host before anything changes for customers.
- Copy your email settings, and move mailboxes if they’re on the old hosting.
- Point the domain at the new host, and add redirects if any page addresses changed.
- Check your contact form, phone links and email all work. Send yourself a test message.
- Only then cancel the old hosting. Keep the domain renewed.
Done in this order, customers shouldn’t notice anything, and there’s no gap where your website or email is down.
Can I move my website myself?
If it’s WordPress and you have the logins, often yes: ask your new host about free migration first. It’s the domain settings, email and redirects that catch people out, so take your time with those. If your old hosting included maintenance, check what you’ll be losing too: how much does website maintenance cost? and how much does hosting cost?
This is the kind of work Website Clarity does: taking over websites from a previous designer, moving them without losing what Google already knows, and rebuilding sites that can’t be moved. See website services.
Common questions
- How much does it cost to move a website to a new host?
- If it's WordPress and you have the logins, often nothing: many UK hosts include free migration. A freelancer typically charges about £150–£750. Moving from Wix or Squarespace means a rebuild, usually about £175–£1,200 for a small business site.
- How long does it take to transfer a website?
- A WordPress move to a new host usually takes a day or two, including testing. A .uk domain transfer normally takes effect within 24–48 hours. A rebuild from Wix or Squarespace takes longer: typically a few weeks for a small site.
- Can I move my Wix website to another host?
- No. Wix says sites must run on Wix's servers. You own your content and can move a domain bought through Wix to another provider, but the website itself has to be rebuilt elsewhere.
- Will I lose my email if I change web host?
- Not if the email settings (MX records) are copied across. If your email is on the old hosting rather than Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the mailboxes need moving too, before the old hosting is cancelled.
- Does changing hosting affect SEO?
- A move that keeps every page address the same has little effect. If addresses change, Google recommends permanent (301) redirects from each old page to its new one, kept for at least a year.
- How do I get my domain name back from my web designer?
- If the domain is registered in your name, ask them to change the IPS tag to your new provider, or do it through Nominet yourself. If it's registered in their name, they need to transfer the registration to you. Ask for this in writing.