Move from a monolithic CMS to a headless architecture.

Cost depends on content volume, number of integrations, and design system maturity. As a benchmark: an editorial site of 500 pages with 3 third-party integrations (CRM, ESP, payment) lands between 40,000 and 80,000 EUR in a fixed-price nearshore Tunisia engagement. A multi-site portal with 5,000 pages and complex editorial workflows can exceed 150,000 EUR. The Intake scoping phase locks an explicit range. See the delivery models.

Three safeguards: (1) complete URL mapping before any development, exhaustive 301 redirect table validated by the SEO lead; (2) comparative Core Web Vitals audit before/after to ensure the headless move improves performance and introduces no CLS or LCP regressions; (3) daily Search Console monitoring for 90 days post-cutover, automatic alert on any drop in impressions or positions. On our own site we preserved 51 WordPress redirects with no ranking loss.

8 to 16 weeks depending on volume. For a brochure site of 100 pages without complex integrations, 8 weeks are enough (scoping 2, dev 4, UAT + cutover 2). For a multi-site portal of 5,000 pages with CRM, ESP, payment, and multilingual content, plan 14 to 16 weeks. A pilot on a sub-perimeter (one section, one language) in 4 weeks validates the mechanics before committing to the rest.

The main risk of a headless migration is editorial resistance: loss of the familiar WYSIWYG, new workflows, draft API. Our approach: live previews on the front-end from day one (Next.js draft mode or Astro view transitions), 2 hands-on training sessions with editors (before cutover and 2 weeks after), visual workflow documentation. Success is measured by article publishing time: it must remain less than or equal to the previous baseline within 30 days of cutover.