Client Ops · Onboarding · 1–2 hours (or a free ticket to us)
How to migrate a WordPress site — Onboarding a Client Site Without a Minute of Downtime
Every client you win arrives as a migration, and the first thing they will judge you on is whether anything broke on the way in.
Straight answer first
Migrating a client site onto your own hosting account is an onboarding job with a technical middle: copy files and database to a fresh cPanel account, preview it on the real domain from your own machine, move DNS only once you are satisfied, and leave the old host running for a week. Or send us the old login details and the move is done for you at no charge.
What follows assumes the site belongs to somebody who is paying you and watching. The order below keeps the client out of the risk, and the warnings are about mailboxes and about who they think they are dealing with.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 24 August 2026
Intermediate
Skill assumed
5
Stages in the move
Free
Migration cost to you
Tested
On the platform you resell
For resellers and agencies, migration is the first delivery of the relationship. Almost everything the client believes about your competence gets decided in the day their site moves.
The mechanics are ordinary. The parts that go wrong are mailboxes nobody inventoried, and a DNS change made before anyone checked the copy.
Inventory before you copy anything
List what actually exists: the site, the databases, every mailbox and forwarder, the cron jobs, the certificate, and every DNS record including whatever a marketing tool added two years ago. Missing one mailbox is the single most common way a clean migration ends in an angry phone call.
Ask the client who else touches the domain. Half of all migration surprises are a third party — an email provider, a booking widget, a payment gateway — holding a record in the zone that nobody thought to mention.
Move it without the client in the risk
Build the copy on a new cPanel account, then edit your own machine's hosts file so you alone see the new server on the real domain. You verify the finished job on the real hostname before a single visitor is affected by anything.
Only then change delegation, and leave the old host paid for a week. A migration you can walk back is a migration you can do on a Tuesday afternoon instead of a Saturday night.
The email trap
Mail is where migrations strand people. Recreate every mailbox and forwarder before DNS moves, keep MX pointed where mail already works if the client uses an external provider, and warn the client that mail sent during the switch may sit in either place for a few hours.
Say that in advance and it is a technical detail. Say it afterwards and it is an excuse, which on a first delivery is expensive in a way that is hard to recover from.
What the client is told, and by whom
One message before, one after, both from you. Times, what to expect, what to do if they see something odd. Nothing that names your supplier, and no forwarded tickets from anybody else.
Then hand the free migration to us where it saves you a weekend. Send the old host's login details and the lot comes across — files, databases, mailboxes and configuration — checked before anything switches, which is a perfectly good use of a supplier who never appears on your invoice.
Why onboarding is cheaper on a reseller account
Client sites you already host somewhere else move across free, files, databases and mailboxes together, and you check the copy before DNS changes hands.
Each arriving client lands in its own cPanel account under your WHM panel, so the roster stays separated as it grows rather than becoming one large shared mess.
- Free migrations, client sites included
- A fresh cPanel account per client
- Your nameservers on the DNS change
- Support at any hour during the switch
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
The inventory is the job
Mailboxes, forwarders, crons and third-party DNS records — the list is what separates a clean move from a callback.
Verified before it is live
A hosts-file preview lets you sign off the real hostname while the client is still on the old server.
Mail planned, not discovered
Deciding where MX points before the move is how you avoid stranding a client's inbox for an afternoon.
One voice to the client
Two short messages from you, no forwarded supplier tickets, no panel screenshots.
A free move you can lean on
Hand the heavy lifting over at no charge and keep the client relationship entirely your own.
Separated on arrival
Every incoming client gets its own account rather than being poured into a shared one you will regret.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Take the inventory and the credentials
Site, databases, mailboxes, forwarders, crons, DNS records, and who else holds a record in the zone. Get the old host's login while the client still remembers it.
- 2
Decide the mail plan first
Recreate mailboxes on the new account, or leave MX pointed at an external provider. Write the answer down before you copy a single file, because it changes what the DNS change actually does.
- 3
Build the copy on a fresh account
New cPanel account, files up, database imported, wp-config pointed at the new credentials. Keep the account naming consistent with the rest of your roster while you are there.
- 4
Preview on the real domain, privately
A hosts-file entry on your own machine shows you the new server on the client's real hostname. Fix serialised URLs with WP-CLI search-replace, never with a text editor on the SQL dump.
- 5
Switch, watch, then stand the old host down
Move delegation, confirm the certificate issued, check mail in both directions, and keep the old account paid for a week. Then tell the client it is done, in one sentence.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- Client sites you already host moved across at no charge
- The full WHM panel, with cPanel accounts you create yourself
- A daily backup on every account, with restores you run yourself
- A 7-day money-back guarantee on reseller plans
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for any client
- Support answered by people, at any hour of the night
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- Free SSL on every client site, reissued for you
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- DDoS filtering handled out at the network edge
Across the Counter
Things people ask us all the time
Should I move a client's domain registration at the same time as the hosting?
Not on the same day. Move hosting first, confirm everything works, then transfer the name a week later. Doing both at once means a single failure has two possible causes and one very unhappy client.
The client's old agency is being obstructive about access — what now?
Work from what the client owns: the domain, the registrar account and their own copy of the content. A rebuild on a fresh account plus a redirect map is often faster than a fight, and the client is the one holding the domain.
How do I price a migration when every one is different?
Flat fee per site by size band, with the mailbox count as the second variable, because mailboxes are what actually consume the hours. Charge nothing on a site arriving with a maintenance contract and it pays for itself by month three.
Can I move a client on without them learning who the upstream is?
Yes. Point private nameservers on a domain you own, do the DNS change yourself, and keep the correspondence inside your own system. The client sees a nameserver carrying your brand and nothing else.
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Moving your site to another host? Start with this checklist.
A step-by-step order of work for a move your visitors never spot: which files to copy first, how to carry email across without losing one message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two mistakes behind nearly every hour of downtime people ring us about.
Move the roster and keep the customer.
Free migrations, WHM in the box, and a bill that counts only the accounts you actually run.
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