Your move to Ghost®, done for you
Send us an export from WordPress, Substack, beehiiv or another Ghost host. Our team brings over your posts, subscribers and paying members, and fixes what the importer gets wrong. Your old site stays live until you're happy with the new one.
No credit card required
Moving from
A typical move
- Your time
- About 30 minutes
- Our time
- Usually done within a day
- Downtime
- None
- Cost
- Free
Big or unusual moves are free with a yearly plan. Here's how that works.
200+ sites moved by our team so far.
Where are you moving from?
Every platform moves a little differently. Pick yours to see what comes with you, what stays behind, and what we'll need from you.
From Ghost(Pro), a server of your own, or another host
Free on any planSame software on both ends, so nothing gets converted. We clone your site 1:1 from a full backup, and you log in with the same email and password as before.
Comes with you
- Posts and pages, in every status
- Members, with their labels and newsletter preferences
- Staff accounts and their logins
- Stripe, with every paid subscription still billing
- Your theme, routes, redirects and integrations, API keys included
Stays behind
- Ghost's web analytics history. No host can export it.
- Your Social Web (ActivityPub) data, for the same reason
- Your own Mailgun account. Newsletter sending is included here.
Your part
On Ghost(Pro), ask their support for a full backup before you cancel and forward us the link. On your own server, it's a database dump and your content folder.
Good to know
Size isn't a problem: we've moved sites over 100 GB. If your install runs on SQLite, tell us before you export so we can plan the move with you.
From Substack, paid subscribers included
Free on any planGhost has a Substack importer built in. Run it yourself, or send us your export and we run it for you, then tidy up what it leaves behind.
Comes with you
- Posts and drafts, with their authors and images
- Free subscribers
- Paid subscribers, still billing through your Stripe account
- Sections, which we rebuild as tags with their own pages
- Old links on your own domain, redirected to the new ones
Stays behind
- Comments. Ghost has no way to import them.
- Links on a substack.com address. Only your own domain can be redirected.
- Substack's 10% cut of your paid subscriptions
Your part
Download your export and both subscriber lists, free and paid, from Substack's settings. With paid subscribers, connect the same Stripe account in Ghost first.
Good to know
Export your subscribers before Substack's support removes their 10% fee. After that, Substack lists everyone as free. And don't disconnect Stripe in Substack yourself: that cancels and refunds every paid subscription.
Step-by-step guides
From WordPress, your whole archive
We run Ghost's WordPress migration tool on your export. It downloads every image from your live site, so nothing keeps pointing at the old server.
Comes with you
- Posts, pages and authors
- Categories and tags (categories become tags)
- Images, collected from your site
- Your link structure, dated URLs included
Stays behind
- Your theme and plugins
- Custom post types. They arrive as tagged posts.
- PDFs and audio files, which move by hand
- A WooCommerce shop. Ghost isn't built for selling products.
Your part
Download an export under Tools → Export in WordPress and send it to us. Keep the old site online until we're done: the images come from there.
Which price applies
Smaller sites are free on any plan. Large archives, or sites where Ghost's own importer gives up, are free with a yearly or lifetime plan.
Step-by-step guides
From beehiiv, posts and subscribers
Free with a yearly or lifetime planWe take your post export, collect the images from your live site, and build a clean import for Ghost. You can also try Ghost's built-in beehiiv importer yourself, on any plan.
Comes with you
- Posts, with their images
- Drafts, still as drafts
- Free subscribers
- Paid subscribers, matched to Stripe
- Old /p/ links, redirected to the new ones
Stays behind
- Boosts, the ad network and the referral program
- Your stats and open-rate history
Your part
Send us your site's address, plus the post and subscriber exports from beehiiv's settings.
Good to know
beehiiv locks the Stripe account it set up for you. With paid subscribers, you'll create a new Stripe account and move your subscriptions into it. We'll explain every step.
From almost anywhere else
Ghost's official tools cover more than 30 platforms, and we've written our own scripts for a few that aren't on the list. Some we see often:
- Medium, Blogger, Tumblr
- Posts and images, through Ghost's official importers.
- Squarespace
- Blog posts and images, one blog at a time. Pages and design stay behind.
- Wix
- Wix has no full export, so we rebuild your posts and pages in Ghost, bring contacts over as members and redirect old links.
- Jekyll, Hugo
- Markdown posts imported, images collected from your live site.
- Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite, Buttondown
- Your subscriber list, and Buttondown's archive too. Campaign stats and automations stay behind.
- Steady, Mollie, other non-Stripe payments
- Your members come over. Their subscriptions can't, because card details never leave a payment provider, so paying readers sign up again on Ghost.
Which price applies
Subscriber lists and official importers are free on any plan. Platforms we have to script, like Wix, Jekyll or Hugo, are free with a yearly or lifetime plan.
Not on the list?
Send us a link. If your platform has any kind of export, we can usually work with it. Email us your site.
What it costs: nothing
We don't charge for moving your site. There's only one condition, and it only applies to the big moves.
Most moves
Another Ghost host, Substack, Medium, smaller WordPress sites, and subscriber lists from Mailchimp, Kit or MailerLite. Start monthly and we'll move you all the same.
Plans from $14.50 a month.
The big ones
Thousands of posts, an importer that chokes on a plugin, beehiiv, Wix, Jekyll, Hugo. These can take us a day or more. A yearly plan tells us you're staying, and lets us put that time in without sending you an invoice.
Yearly is $145, two months cheaper than paying monthly.
Not sure which one you are?
Send us a link to your site. We'll tell you before you pay anything.
Not a migration
A new design. If you'd like a theme made for your publication, that's custom development, with the estimates published.
How the move works
Six steps. You do the clicking that only you can do, and we do the rest. Nothing changes for your readers until the moment you decide to switch.
Your time
~30 min
Downtime
None
Done by our own small team, not a ticket queue or an agency. The people who import your site are the people who answer your emails afterwards.
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1
Start a free trial
You 2 minYou get a Magic Pages site on a temporary address. No credit card, 14 days to look around. Moving a Ghost site? Don't build anything on it yet, because the import replaces it.
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2
Send us your export
You 10 minWe'll tell you exactly which button to press on your current platform. Big files go by any file-sharing link.
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3
We import it
Us Usually within a dayPosts, images, members and settings come over. Then we fix what importers get wrong: tags, featured images, links.
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4
Check it over
You As long as you likeClick around on the temporary address. Your old site keeps running, and your readers don't notice a thing. Anything looks off? Tell us and we fix it.
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5
Go live
Together 5 minPick a plan and point your domain at us, usually two DNS records. We add anyone who signed up on the old site in the meantime, and set up your newsletter's sending domain.
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6
We keep an eye on it
Us First few sendsKeep the domain you already send from, and most moves see no change in open rates. A brand-new sending domain takes two or three newsletters to settle, and we can pull your delivery stats any time you ask. Will my open rates drop?
Will I lose what I've built?
After 200+ moves, these are the questions we hear before almost every one. Here's what actually happens.
Will my subscribers come with me?
Yes. Readers sign in to Ghost with a link sent to their inbox, so there are no passwords to reset. Importing them sends no emails, so nobody gets a surprise welcome message.
Will my paying members keep paying?
If they pay through Stripe, yes. Ghost connects to your Stripe account and the subscriptions keep running. Nobody has to enter their card again.
Will my newsletter still land in inboxes?
Yes, 98% of newsletters sent through us do. Keep the domain you already send from, and most publications see no drop at all. A new sending domain settles within a few sends.
Will my site go down?
No. Your old site stays live until your domain points to us, and the new one is ready before that happens. Visitors never see a blank page.
Will I lose my Google rankings?
We keep your URLs where Ghost can reproduce them, and redirect the ones it can't, so links from search engines and other sites keep working.
Will my posts look the same?
From another Ghost host, exactly the same. From anywhere else, your words, images and tags come over intact, and the design changes to a Ghost theme you choose.
Before you move
Yes. We don't charge for moving your site to Magic Pages. Most moves are free on any plan. The big or unusual ones are free with a yearly or lifetime plan, because they can take us a day or more. You'll know which one yours is before you pay anything.
Some moves take us an hour, others a few days: thousands of posts, an importer that chokes on a plugin, images collected one by one from an old server. A yearly plan tells us you're planning to stay, and that lets us put the time in without sending you an invoice for it. If you're on monthly, you can switch to yearly whenever you're ready.
There's nothing to undo. Your old site was never touched, your readers never saw a thing, and your domain still points where it always did. The trial site simply goes offline.
Yes. Ghost has built-in importers for Substack, WordPress, Medium, Squarespace and beehiiv in its settings, and plenty of people use them on their own. If something comes out wrong, send us a message and we'll take a look.
From another Ghost host, yes: integrations keep the same API keys, and code injection, routes and redirects come along. From another platform, plugins and scripts were built for that platform, so some of it needs rebuilding for Ghost. We'll tell you what during the import.
A migration moves your content. Most people start with one of Ghost's themes or one of ours and adjust it from there. If you'd like a theme made for your publication, that's custom development, with the estimates published.
No. You'll download an export from your current platform, and later change two DNS records where you bought your domain. We'll tell you exactly what to click for both.
Something we didn't cover? Email us directly.
Join 1,600+ Publishers Who Chose Magic Pages
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Join 1,600+ publishers who chose Magic Pages as the home for their Ghost site.
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— Jannis, Founder of Magic Pages
