From WordPress to Contentful

We are the WordPress to Contentful migration experts

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Last verified: August 3, 2026

The process

How we migrate from WordPress to Contentful

01
Access and gating audit
First we check the existing WordPress and see whether the data is clean enough to move straight over to Contentful, and plan around any auth walls or bot protection in the way.
02
Rendering assessment and extraction
Then we work out how WordPress renders its pages and pull the content out, even without CMS access.
03
AI-assisted sanitization
Everything extracted runs through our sanitization pipeline, which flags slop, normalizes structure, and leaves us clean content to work with.
04
Content-model design with the client
Before anything moves, we agree the Contentful content model with you, shaped around how your editors actually work.
05
Transform and soft-migrate
We transform the content to the agreed schema and run a full dry run, so mappings and edge cases prove out before production.
06
Execute the real migration
Once the dry run is clean, everything moves into Contentful in one controlled cutover.
07
Redirect mapping and throttled sitemap submission
Every old URL gets mapped to its new home with the right redirect, so rankings and link equity survive the move.
08
Agentic-browser QA
Finally, automated browsers sweep the new site for data issues, design regressions, and missing SEO signals.
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Challenges with WordPress

Key pain points

Talking trash about WordPress is therapy at this point. We've had to build it for years, and it's consistently awful. I guarantee that if you have used it for long enough, you've experienced a site-breaking PHP error or been locked out of your admin panel due to a faulty plugin. We know the world of horrors, and we regret adding to that share of the web. Yes, it really does power over 40% of all sites, roughly 41.5% at the last count.

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Potential security vulnerabilities

When you power half the internet, the hackers notice. WordPress stays safe, but only if someone is constantly updating, patching, and watching it like a hawk, which, trust us, you don't want to.

Heavy reliance on plugins

If you want any new feature, install a new plugin. Before you know it, your site is held together by 27 plugins and a prayer that none of those plugins are removed from the market.

Compatibility issues

Themes, plugins, and core updates sometimes play nicely together, leading to surprise breakages and debugging sessions you didn’t plan for.

Maintenance takes time

WordPress doesn’t run itself. You have to run backups, security patches, plugin conflicts, and random errors. Someone has to tuck it in at night.

Performance needs tuning

WordPress sites need caching, CDN, and database optimization to stay fast, especially if you plan to scale.

Requires careful management - Contentful

Customization has limits

You think you can do a lot with themes and plugins, but when it comes to custom experiences, it means custom dev work (or going headless entirely).

Benefits of Contentful

Key advantages

Contentful is one of the most established headless CMS choices, and we still see plenty of customers land on it after a shortlist.

It's built around structured content, so you model fields once and pull them into any front end you like. That means no copy-pasted components scattered across pages. It also has first-party support for A/B testing and personalization through its Studio add-on, which most competitors don't match natively. The app ecosystem covers SEO, translation, validation, and asset management, and editors get live side-by-side preview for content they're working on.

If your team has the budget and the developer resources to model content properly, it's a solid pick.

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API-first design

Contentful was built for APIs from day one, which means your content plugs cleanly into apps, websites, and mobile.

Developer-friendly flexibility

Schemas, content models, and references can be tuned however you like. If your stack is anything beyond "cookie-cutter," Contentful won’t get in your way.

User-friendly interface

Editors enjoy using it. Clean UI, quick search, structured fields, and no "where does this go again?" confusion.

Extensive integration capabilities

Plug in analytics, eCommerce, automation, and translation. Contentful plays nicely with almost anything. And if something isn’t supported yet, you can wire it up yourself without hacking the platform apart.

Scales under traffic

Contentful's global CDN holds up under heavy load. We've run it on sites pushing millions of monthly requests without needing bespoke infrastructure to handle spikes.

Cloud-based architecture

You don't have to install, patch, or maintain anything. It’s fast, globally distributed, and always up to date. Your content team can ship from anywhere without a DevOps babysitter.

Common questions

WordPress to Contentful migration FAQs

Answers to the most common questions about WordPress to Contentful migration

WordPress.org itself is free, but hosting, themes, premium plugins, and maintenance add up quickly. Managed hosting like SiteGround looks cheap at intro pricing, around $3-8/month, then renews closer to $18-45/month. Add a premium theme ($50-200 one-time), a few paid plugins ($100-500/year), and a security solution. Realistically, you're looking at $30-100/month for a properly maintained small business site. WordPress.com's managed plans run $9/month (Personal, or $4/month billed annually) to $70/month (Commerce, or $45/month billed annually) on annual billing. Since September 2025, plugin installs work on every paid plan from Personal up, not just Business as they used to. WordPress.com Enterprise starts at $25,000/year.

It depends on what you're building. For marketing sites, Webflow or Framer will get you further with less pain. For content-heavy projects that need a headless CMS, Sanity is our go-to recommendation. It gives developers full control over the frontend while editors get a clean, modern interface. If you're a developer looking for alternatives specifically, Next.js paired with Sanity or even a static site generator will outperform WordPress on speed, security, and developer experience.

We start by exporting your WordPress content using WP's REST API or a database export, then restructure it for the target CMS. Posts, pages, categories, tags, media, and custom fields all get mapped to the new schema. The frontend gets rebuilt in a modern framework like Next.js. The whole process usually takes 3-6 weeks depending on how many custom post types and plugins you have. We've done this migration enough times to have solid tooling for it.

If you're a developer tired of PHP and plugin conflicts, look at headless CMS options paired with a frontend framework. Sanity with Next.js is our top pick. You get TypeScript, version control for your content schema, and a frontend you actually enjoy working with. Strapi is another option if you want self-hosted and open-source. For simple sites, Astro with markdown content is surprisingly powerful and deploys anywhere.

For most teams we work with, yes. The maintenance burden alone costs more than people realize. Between plugin updates, security patches, performance tuning, and the occasional site-breaking PHP error, WordPress demands constant attention. Modern alternatives give you better performance, stronger security by default, and a developer experience that doesn't feel like 2010. The migration itself is an investment, but the reduced ongoing costs and improved site speed usually pay for it within 6-12 months.

Contentful has a Free tier with 10 users, 100K API calls per month, 25 content types, and 10,000 records. The Lite plan is $300/month for 20 users, 1M API calls, and 100GB CDN bandwidth. Enterprise is custom pricing with unlimited API calls and an uptime SLA of up to 99.99%. We've seen teams hit the free tier's API ceiling or content type cap fast, and the jump to Lite is often forced by a single limit rather than a feature need.

The migration is step one. Our Contentful team handles what comes after: builds, integrations and the content model work that keeps the new platform clean.

Contentful development agency

Projects migrated without a hitch

Join the growing list of successful migrations

Slingshot Bio

Roboto converged Slingshot Bio's WordPress and Shopify sites into one headless Shopify build on Next.js and Sanity, instrumented end to end and AI-ready.

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Jamb

We rebuilt Jamb on Sanity and Next.js, merging two legacy PHP sites into one calm catalogue without losing the SEO equity their antique and reproduction collections had built up.

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Jamb mantelpiece with gilded mirror, hanging lantern, and antiques

Tray.ai

Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform

View case study

The Tray.ai website homepage after the large-scale re-platforming migration

Mario Testino

From Sanity overages to instantaneous publishing, we brought Mario Testino into the fast lane, and did it in style.

View case study

The Mario Testino photography portfolio site with instant publishing

Get in touch

Tell us what you're building. We reply within one working day. Jono or someone on the team picks up every message personally.

We are the WordPress to Contentful migration experts

How we migrate from WordPress to Contentful

Access and gating audit

Rendering assessment and extraction

AI-assisted sanitization

Content-model design with the client

Transform and soft-migrate

Execute the real migration

Redirect mapping and throttled sitemap submission

Agentic-browser QA

Challenges with WordPress

Benefits of Contentful

Common questions

WordPress to Contentful migration FAQs

Answers to the most common questions about WordPress to Contentful migration