Migrate every client WordPress site onto one bill

Order the roster

• Start with a small brochure site whose owner will answer the phone.
• Then the sites you already have a file backup and a database export for.
• Leave WooCommerce and anything with a payment form until you have finished a boring site. A store can run. It does not get a checkout SLA.
• Skip multisite. It is not a supported move.
• Skip anything that only works with SSH into the old server.

One site, all the way through

• Keep the old host online until the preview looks right. Do not cancel it first.
• Create the WordPress site here. It gets its own database, its own files, HTTPS on a preview address, and an owner login. The temporary password is emailed once.
• On Business, an eligible client site is moved for you. Eligible means a normal single WordPress site: theme, plugins, uploads, and its database. Bring a file archive and a database export, or the access your current host uses for a transfer.
• If you replace the database yourself, WordPress users become the users from the old site. The fresh owner password only works before that replace.
• Review the homepage, an interior page, wp-admin, and a form on the preview URL. Take a recovery point before you change DNS.
• Attach the domain the way the dashboard shows. After the certificate is on that domain, set both WordPress addresses to that https URL.
• PHP is 8.4. Confirm plugins on the preview before the public domain moves. A plugin that only runs on an older PHP version will fail here too.

Then the next one

Each site is its own database and its own files. A mistake on one preview does not rewrite the others. Take a recovery point on each site before its DNS change.

Invite the client when that site’s preview is accepted. Editor or viewer. Do not collect this by emailing your own password around.

DNS and mail

Change web DNS for one domain, watch it, then do the next. MX records stay at the mail host. WPHost does not receive the client’s email. Uptime checks on Business email you if a hostname that was up starts failing the five-minute check.

From a specific host