How to Move a WordPress Site to Managed Hosting
Last updated: October 28, 2026
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"Moving hosts" sounds technical, but in plain terms it means copying your website — its pages, images, and settings — from the company that currently keeps it online (your host) to a new one, then telling the internet where it lives now. Managed WordPress hosting means the new host also handles the chores: updates, security, and backups. Our hosting guide covers how to choose; this page is the move itself. The reassuring part: the two hosts we recommend, Kinsta Kinsta and WP Engine WP Engine, will do most of it for you, free.
Before you move: the checklist
Make a full backup — before anything else
A backup is a complete copy of your site you can restore from if anything goes wrong. Use your current host's backup tool or a backup plugin, and save the copy somewhere that isn't the old host — your computer or cloud storage. Do not skip this step because the move is "supposed to be easy." The backup is what makes the whole process low-stress: with one in hand, almost nothing can go permanently wrong.
Write down your current logins
You will need three sets of credentials (your usernames and passwords): your WordPress admin login, your account at your current host, and your account where your domain name is registered — the domain is your site's address, like yourbusiness.com, and it may be registered with a different company than your host. Dig these out and have them in front of you before you start; hunting for a password mid-move is where most frustration comes from. A password manager makes this step painless next time.
Pick a quiet time
Schedule the move for when your site gets its fewest visitors — for most small business sites, that's an evening or a weekend. A well-run move has little or no visible downtime (time when the site can't be reached), but the quiet window means that if anything does hiccup, almost nobody sees it. Also avoid moving right before a sale, an event, or anything that sends a crowd to your site.
The move itself: two routes
Route A — let the new host migrate it (recommended)
Both Kinsta and WP Engine offer a free migration service: you sign up, give them your current WordPress login through their secure form, and their team copies the site to their servers and checks it over. You don't touch the files at all. This is the route we'd tell any beginner to take — the people doing it move sites all day, and if something needs fixing, it's their job to fix it. When they're done, they'll show you a preview of your site running on the new host before anything goes live.
Route B — a migration plugin (if you'd rather do it yourself)
A plugin is a small add-on that extends WordPress. Migration plugins package your whole site into a file on the old host, which you then upload into a fresh WordPress install on the new host. It's a genuine option and plenty of people do it — but it puts the fiddly parts (large files, timeouts, settings that don't carry over) on you. If your site is small and you enjoy this sort of thing, fine. Otherwise, Route A exists precisely so you don't have to.
Point your domain at the new host (the "DNS" step)
Here's the one technical term, in one plain sentence: DNS is the internet's address book — it turns your domain name into the address of the server your site lives on. After the copy is sitting on the new host, someone has to update that address book entry so visitors land on the new copy instead of the old one. Your new host will give you the exact values to enter, and hosts like Kinsta and WP Engine walk you through it (their support will often do it with you on chat). After the change, it takes a little while for address books everywhere to catch up — anything from minutes to a day — during which some visitors see the old site and some see the new one. That's normal, and it's why step 3 said to pick a quiet time.
After the move: check these four things
- The site loads — everywhere. Click through your main pages on your phone and your computer, not just the homepage. Check images especially.
- Forms work. Send yourself a test message through your contact form and any quote or booking form. Forms are the most common silent casualty of a move, and "silent" means customers' messages going nowhere.
- The padlock shows. Your address bar should show a padlock and your address should start with https:// — that means the secure connection (SSL, the encryption between your site and its visitors) is set up on the new host. Managed hosts provide this; if the padlock is missing, ask their support before you do anything else — it's a standard part of going live with them.
- You can log in. Open your WordPress admin page and sign in. Then make one tiny change — fix a typo anywhere — and confirm it saves and appears. That proves you're editing the new copy, not the ghost of the old one.
Once those four pass, let the old hosting run for a few more days before cancelling it — it's a cheap safety net while the address-book change settles worldwide. Then cancel, and you're done.
Still deciding between the two hosts? Our Kinsta vs WP Engine head-to-head gives a verdict by buyer, and the best hosting for a first business site guide covers the budget option too.