Move off ManageWP without a deadline hanging over you
Your sites stay where they are hosted, your ManageWP account stays active as long as you want, and we connect your portfolio with you rather than handing you a documentation link.
Assisted migration is free. We do the connection work with you.
Why agencies leave ManageWP
ManageWP is the most widely used tool in this category, and for plenty of people it is still perfectly adequate. The free tier genuinely covers unlimited sites and the core dashboard has been stable for years. Agencies rarely leave because it stopped working.
They leave because of how the bill grows. ManageWP prices premium capability as per-site add-ons: backups, uptime monitoring, security checks, performance checks, client reports and white-labeling are each bought separately, per site, per month. At five sites that is a rounding error. At forty sites with four add-ons each, it becomes a line item nobody can explain to whoever signs off costs.
The second reason is pace. ManageWP was acquired by GoDaddy in 2016 and the feature set has moved slowly since. That is not a scandal, since mature tools are allowed to be mature. But agencies running safe-update workflows, visual checks and client profitability reporting have ended up building those things around ManageWP rather than inside it.
What the switch actually costs you
Nothing about your hosting, DNS or client sites changes during migration. The connector is a standard WordPress plugin and can be removed at any time without leaving traces in your database.
- No DNS change, no hosting move, no downtime
- Sites stay connected to ManageWP until you disconnect them
- Run both platforms side by side for as long as you want
- We delete nothing on the other side
What moves across from ManageWP
Some things transfer automatically, some are rebuilt during onboarding, and a few never move at all. Here is the honest split.
Transfers automatically
- Site list and URLs
- Site groupings and tags
- Team member list and roles
- Update schedules and cadence
- Backup frequency settings
- Uptime check configuration
Rebuilt during onboarding
- White-label report branding and sender domain
- Client-facing report templates and recipients
- Update approval rules
- Care-plan entitlements and SLA definitions
- Notification routing to Slack, Teams or email
Stays exactly where it is
- Your hosting provider and DNS
- Your ManageWP account and its history
- Backups already stored with ManageWP
- Your client relationships and billing
How an assisted migration runs
Most portfolios under fifty sites are fully connected within one working session. Larger portfolios are staged in batches so nothing is rushed.
Scoping call, 20 minutes
We look at your ManageWP setup together, count the sites, note the plans and groupings you use, and agree a batch order. Ecommerce and business-critical sites usually go last, once you have seen the workflow on lower-risk sites.
Bulk connector deployment
You install the WPCentrify connector across your portfolio. ManageWP can bulk-install plugins, which is the fastest route: push our connector to every site from your existing dashboard in one action. Otherwise we supply a WP-CLI one-liner.
Verification pass
Every connected site runs a first health check: WordPress version, plugin inventory, update backlog, backup presence, SSL expiry and an uptime baseline. You get a portfolio report before you have changed a single setting.
Policies and client mapping
We rebuild your update schedules, backup frequencies, client groupings, report templates and team permissions to match what you had, then automate the parts that were previously manual.
Parallel running
Keep ManageWP active as long as you like. Most agencies run both for one billing cycle, confirm the backups and reports agree, then disconnect.
What changes on day one
The most immediate difference is that updating stops being a checklist and becomes a workflow. Instead of selecting sites and pressing update, each update runs a preflight sequence: a restore point is taken, the update applied, health checks and visual comparisons run against key pages, and the change is either kept with evidence attached or rolled back automatically.
The second difference is that the portfolio view leads with risk rather than with a site list. The dashboard opens on what needs attention — failed jobs, untested backups, sites outside SLA, plugins with known vulnerabilities across several clients — rather than an alphabetical grid you have to scan yourself.
The third is that client-facing work stops being a separate manual process. Reports and entitlements sit next to the technical record of what was actually done, so the monthly report is assembled from real events rather than from your memory of the month.
Where you may prefer to stay
Migration is not automatically the right call. Be honest about these before you move:
- Your ManageWP setup works and nobody is complaining
- You are mid-way through a busy client season with no slack for tooling changes
- You use only the free tier and add nothing to it
- Your portfolio is under five sites, where any platform overhead is hard to justify
We would rather you stayed on ManageWP than switched badly. Our ManageWP comparison sets out where it is genuinely the better product.
Questions about leaving ManageWP
No, and we would advise against it. Keep the account active through at least one full billing cycle after connecting to WPCentrify. Run both in parallel, confirm the backups and reports match what you expect, then cancel on your own terms. There is no technical conflict in having two management connectors installed at once.
No. Migration installs a connector plugin on each site. It does not touch DNS, does not move hosting, and does not modify your theme, database or content. The heaviest thing that happens on day one is a read-only inventory scan of your plugin and theme versions.
Historical archives stay in ManageWP's storage and are not transferred, because they are held in their format on their infrastructure. Instead we take a fresh full backup of every site during onboarding, so you have a complete verified restore point from day one. Keep your ManageWP account alive until the new backup history is deep enough for your comfort.
Connector deployment across 40 sites usually takes one to two hours if you can bulk-install plugins, and a working day if each site needs manual access. Policy and report rebuilding adds another two to three hours. Most 40-site agencies finish inside one day.
It stops. Backups, uptime monitoring, security and vulnerability scanning, performance monitoring, client reports and white-labeling are included in the plan rather than charged per site. Model your current add-on total against our pricing first — for small portfolios with few add-ons, ManageWP can still work out cheaper.
No. Assisted migration is free during early access regardless of portfolio size. We do it because a badly executed migration produces an unhappy customer, and we would rather spend the hour up front.
Before you decide
ManageWP alternative
A balanced feature and pricing comparison, including where ManageWP still wins.
Read the comparisonPricing
What WPCentrify costs at 10, 50 and 200 sites, with no per-feature add-ons.
See pricingSecurity practices
How connections are authenticated, what we store, and how to revoke access.
Read securityMove off ManageWP on your own schedule
Tell us how many sites you manage and we will plan the batches with you. No cancellation deadline, no forced hosting change.
Free during early access. No credit card required.