Move WordPress to Cloudways from Bluehost or GoDaddy (2026)

To move WordPress to Cloudways from Bluehost or GoDaddy, use one of two free routes: the Cloudways WordPress Migrator plugin, which typically finishes in under an hour, or Cloudways’ free expert migration of your first site, usually done in 1-2 business days. Lower your DNS TTL to 600 seconds a day ahead, switch the A record after testing, and keep the old host for 72 hours.

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The file transfer is rarely what goes wrong. The risky moment is the domain repoint, when visitors could hit a broken site or nothing at all, and the second risk is canceling the old host too early and losing the fallback. Both are avoidable with the order below, and most of it is identical whether you’re leaving Bluehost or GoDaddy.

Two free ways to move WordPress to Cloudways

The Cloudways WordPress Migrator plugin (listed on WordPress.org as bv-cloudways-automated-migration) is the self-serve route, and it’s free. Create a destination WordPress application on Cloudways first. Then, on your old site, go to Plugins → Add New, search for “Cloudways WordPress Migrator”, install and activate it, and fill in the form: your email, acceptance of the terms, the destination URL, the SFTP host (your Cloudways server IP), the database name, and the SFTP credentials (the server’s master username). Click Migrate. Cloudways’ plugin page says the job typically takes less than an hour, varying with site size, and its migration add-on page says WordPress users can migrate unlimited sites this way at no cost.

The free expert migration is the hands-off option, offered under Cloudways’ Application Migration add-on: “We’ll move your first website to Cloudways from any web host for FREE.” It’s usually completed within 1-2 business days, and Cloudways’ FAQ states the website remains accessible during the transfer. It’s the better call for less technical owners, larger WooCommerce stores, and anyone who can’t easily dig out SFTP and database details on the old host. One catch: Cloudways’ pricing page notes the Autonomous free trial plan doesn’t include managed migration, so don’t plan on the trial to get the expert move.

These are two different services, not two speeds of the same thing, so don’t expect hour-level turnaround from the expert route. If neither fits, the manual fallback still works: download the site files over FTP and export the database through phpMyAdmin, then import both on Cloudways. It’s slower and leaves more room for error.

Bluehost vs GoDaddy: what changes before you start

The migration itself is the same for both hosts. What differs is where you take the backup, where DNS lives, and how the refund works. GoDaddy adds one fork: it sells cPanel Web Hosting and a separate Managed WordPress product. GoDaddy’s own auto-migration is “only available when migrating to GoDaddy”, and GoDaddy documents no export-out tool for Managed WordPress. Its manual route is files over FTP plus a database export through phpMyAdmin. If you can’t find those on your Managed WordPress plan, the Cloudways expert migration avoids needing them.

Bluehost’s backup paths come from its manual-backup and Softaculous help articles; the GoDaddy rows come from its cPanel backup and A-record help pages. If your domain is registered at GoDaddy, DNS is edited in Domain Portfolio, which is separate from the hosting product.

Shared steps to move WordPress to Cloudways

This order keeps the old site serving real visitors until the new one is proven:

1. Take an independent backup using your host’s path from the table, and store it off the host you’re leaving.
2. Screenshot every DNS record (A, CNAME, MX, TXT) as a rollback reference before you edit anything.
3. Lower the A record’s TTL to 600 seconds at least a day before cutover. GoDaddy’s custom TTL floor is 600 seconds, so one number works for both hosts.
4. Create the WordPress app on Cloudways, then run the Migrator plugin or request the expert migration.
5. Test the migrated app on Cloudways before any DNS change: pages, forms, logins, and checkout if you run WooCommerce.
6. Switch the A record (and the www CNAME on GoDaddy) to the Cloudways server IP during a low-traffic window, checked in your analytics rather than guessed.
7. Install SSL and confirm auto-renewal once the domain resolves to Cloudways.
8. Keep the old account untouched for 72 hours, then cancel (inside the refund window, if you’re still in one).

Zero-downtime DNS cutover on Bluehost and GoDaddy

DNS records carry a Time To Live (TTL) that tells resolvers how long to cache them. If your A record’s TTL is 86,400 seconds (24 hours), a change made today may not be honored everywhere for a full day. Lowering it to 600 seconds only helps if you do it in advance: the old, longer TTL has to expire from caches first. That’s why the TTL edit is step 3, not part of the cutover.

Even with a short TTL, the hosts’ own figures are conservative. Bluehost says propagation can take up to 48 hours; GoDaddy says most changes apply within an hour but can take up to 48. During that window some resolvers still send visitors to the old IP, which is why the old account must keep serving the site. A GoDaddy migration guide advises leaving the old account untouched for at least 72 hours, and that’s the safe window for Bluehost too.

Email is a separate task. Moving the website doesn’t require moving your mailboxes; email follows the MX records, not the A record. Check your current MX values before touching anything, and after saving the A record change, confirm MX is unchanged. If your mail is hosted by Bluehost or GoDaddy itself, plan where it will live before you cancel. Mail isn’t part of a Cloudways app plan; it’s a paid add-on, with Rackspace Email at $1.50 per mailbox per month (25GB) and Titan Pro at $1.99 per mailbox per month.

Post-migration checks: SSL and staging

Once DNS points at Cloudways, install a free Let’s Encrypt certificate from the application’s SSL Certificate section. Per Cloudways’ documentation, the certificates last 90 days, auto-renewal is on by default, and renewal runs about 30 days before expiry. Confirm the auto-renewal setting is on anyway; a missed renewal reintroduces the downtime you just avoided.

For anything risky after the move, such as plugin updates or theme changes, Cloudways offers one-click staging in Application Management. Per Cloudways’ post-migration checklist, it clones files and database into a separate password-protected app, and you can push or pull changes between staging and live. See our review of Cloudways staging for how that works day to day.

When to cancel Bluehost or GoDaddy (and whether a refund still applies)

Both refund windows count from when you bought the plan, not from your migration. If you’ve been with Bluehost or GoDaddy for longer than the window, which is true for most people moving, no refund applies: cancel once the 72-hour safety period is over. If you signed up recently, the rules below decide whether money comes back.

Bluehost offers a thirty-day money-back guarantee on Shared, VPS and Dedicated hosting fees. Monthly-term services, domain registration, setup fees and add-ons are excluded, and the domain fee plus taxes is deducted from the refund. Requests go through chat or phone.

GoDaddy, per its refund policy, allows refunds within 30 days (720 hours) on annual plans and only 48 hours on plans shorter than a year, and hosting already performed is non-refundable. Refunds aren’t automatic: delete the product first, then contact GoDaddy by phone, SMS or chat; email requests aren’t processed. Closing the whole account forfeits the refund, so delete the product, not the account. If you bought a sub-annual GoDaddy plan in the last 48 hours, its refund deadline lands before the 72-hour safety period ends, so decide which matters more: the refund or the fallback.

What Cloudways costs after the move

Cloudways sells two routes. Flexible lets you pick the cloud provider and server size; the cheapest DigitalOcean Standard server is $11/month with 1GB RAM and 1 vCPU (as of 2026-10-19). Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud are also offered, but the pricing page gives no single entry price for them, and AWS and Google Cloud vary by region, so check the Cloudways pricing page for your setup. Autonomous is the WordPress-focused tier: Growth at $99/month (150GB bandwidth, 20GB disk), Scale at $199 and Plus at $399, and these paid plans include free managed migration.

Cloudways runs a 3-day free trial without a credit card, plus a 30% discount for 3 months on all plans, which is enough to build the destination app and try a plugin migration before paying. The Autonomous trial doesn’t include managed migration.

Prices checked: 2026-10-17

Cloudways is a managed layer over those cloud servers, not a raw VPS: you pay a markup so you don’t handle installation, migration and server upkeep yourself. Our Cloudways vs Vultr comparison shows what that trade looks like against running the same hardware directly.

Who should make this move (and who shouldn’t)

If your site is regularly slow under normal traffic, your renewal price no longer makes sense, or you run WooCommerce and want a server you size yourself instead of a shared plan, moving to Cloudways solves a real problem.

It’s a worse fit for a single low-traffic blog with no plans to grow, or for an owner who doesn’t want a control panel more involved than cPanel; the $11/month entry server only pays off once traffic or performance needs outgrow shared hosting. It’s also a poor time to move if you’re mid-term on a plan whose refund window has passed and the site runs fine.

Queue the TTL change first, cancel the old host last

The transfer, by plugin or by Cloudways’ engineers, is the easy part when you move WordPress to Cloudways. What decides whether visitors notice is the order: TTL down to 600 seconds a day early, test on Cloudways, switch the A record without touching MX, then wait 72 hours before you cancel Bluehost or GoDaddy (inside its refund window, if you’re still in one).

Lower the TTL today, since it’s the one step with a built-in wait, then start a Cloudways trial and build the destination app while the old TTL expires.