The decision to leave WordPress for Statamic is one teams make for a small number of recurring reasons. Plugin sprawl. Update risk. The desire for a clean editor experience. The need to integrate with an existing Laravel application. The wish to keep content under version control.
The migration itself is a real piece of work. The stages below cover a typical UK content site in 2026.
Step one: map the content model
WordPress and Statamic both have posts, pages and custom content types, but the shapes differ. WordPress uses post types, custom fields, taxonomies and meta. Statamic uses collections, entry blueprints, fieldsets and taxonomies. A field-by-field map between the two is the first deliverable of any migration.
Most WordPress sites have accumulated custom fields through Advanced Custom Fields, often with naming that made sense at the time but not now. A migration is the right moment to clean that up. The new Statamic structure can be more deliberate than the old WordPress mess if the team is willing to make decisions during the mapping.
Step two: preserve the URLs
URL structure preservation is non-negotiable. Every URL on the WordPress site needs an equivalent URL on the Statamic site, or a 301 redirect to the closest equivalent. Skipping this step destroys the SEO value of the existing site.
For straightforward blog and page hierarchies the mapping is direct. For custom permalink structures, archive pages and category and tag hierarchies, the mapping requires more thought. Build the redirect map before the migration runs, not after.
Step three: extract the content
WordPress data lives in MySQL. The standard export tools are XML-based and lose fidelity on custom fields and media. The reliable approach is a direct database query that pulls posts, meta, taxonomies and media references, and writes them out as Statamic YAML and Markdown files matching the new content model.
Media assets need to come over with their references intact. URLs in post content that point at the WordPress uploads directory need rewriting to match the new Statamic assets container. This is a known migration gotcha and should be tested on a sample before running over the whole site.
Step four: replace plugin functionality
WordPress sites accumulate plugins. Most of them have a Statamic equivalent or can be rebuilt natively in Laravel, but the rebuild is usually faster and cleaner than trying to recreate a heavy plugin via a Statamic add-on.
Common patterns: forms move to a Statamic forms add-on or directly to Laravel routes; SEO plugins become Statamic SEO Pro or hand-rolled meta; cache plugins disappear because Statamic does not need them; image optimisation moves to Statamic's built-in Glide processing.
Step five: rebuild the templates
Statamic uses Antlers or Blade for templating, not the PHP-template-soup of WordPress themes. The frontend code is rewritten rather than ported. For a typical brochure or blog site that is one to two weeks of work.
The rewrite is a chance to apply current frontend practice. Cleaner CSS, sensible image handling, modern JavaScript patterns. Most WordPress themes carry years of accreted decisions that the rewrite gets to discard.
Step six: editor onboarding
The Statamic control panel is different from the WordPress admin. For most editors it is more pleasant once they are familiar, but the first week is a learning curve. Plan for a short training session, written documentation of the most-used workflows and a fallback contact for editor questions during the first month.
Realistic timeline and cost
A typical UK WordPress site of moderate complexity migrates to Statamic in four to ten working weeks end-to-end. The cost range with a senior freelancer sits between £8,000 and £35,000 depending on content volume, plugin replacement work and the depth of the design rebuild.
Sites that have been built carefully on WordPress migrate faster. Sites that have accumulated five years of plugin spaghetti take longer because every plugin is a question about whether the functionality matters enough to rebuild.
Worth weighing alongside the migration cost is the direction of Statamic itself. The Statamic price hike and the quiet exit problem covers the licensing change and what it means for sites already on the platform.
For more, see Statamic agency UK or Statamic developer UK.
Frequently asked questions
Can we keep our WordPress design when moving to Statamic?
Yes. The design can be reproduced exactly on Statamic, or refreshed as part of the migration. The decision is independent of the platform move.
Will our SEO survive a migration?
If URL structure is preserved with proper 301 redirects, SEO survives. Rankings sometimes dip for a few weeks then recover. Skipping the redirect map is the main cause of long-term SEO damage.
Is there a plugin to migrate WordPress to Statamic automatically?
No, and any automated tool that promised this would lose fidelity. Migration involves real decisions about content model, URL structure and plugin replacement that automation cannot make.
Planning a WordPress to Statamic migration?
I handle the full migration, redirect map and content model decisions so SEO and editor workflow survive the move.
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