Migrations: how we move your site, step by step

Migration is included on every plan, and it’s done by hand — a human on our team moves your files, databases, email, and DNS. Not a script that emails you when it fails. This page is the long version of that promise: what happens, in what order, and what you approve before anything changes for your visitors.

The short version: we copy your site to our servers while your current host keeps serving traffic, stage it at a preview URL, and only change DNS after you’ve reviewed it and said go. Zero downtime is the goal — we can’t guarantee the behavior of every DNS resolver on the internet, but the process is built so that most customers see no interruption at all. And if we can’t migrate you cleanly, cancel inside your 30-day money-back window for a full refund.

What we need from you

1. Access to your current host. A control panel login is easiest. A full backup you already have works too.
2. Where your DNS lives — your registrar, or a DNS provider like Cloudflare. The cutover is one record change; we either make it with access you give us, or tell you exactly what to change and when, if you’d rather keep that in your own hands.
3. Anything unusual. Subdomains, cron jobs, licensed plugins, external services that call into your site. The more we know up front, the less we discover mid-move.

Send it to migrations@candorhost.com or open a ticket at my.candorhost.com. We reply within one business day to schedule the move with you.

What we move

What	Where it ends up
Website files	Your own isolated container on our servers. Afterwards you manage them from the FTP Accounts tab or over SSH.
Databases	MySQL databases and users, recreated under the Databases tab. Plans include 2 (Solo), 10 (Studio), or 30 (Org).
Email	Mailboxes recreated on our platform — 10 on Solo, 50 on Studio, 200 on Org — managed from the Email Accounts tab. If your email lives at Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, we leave your MX records alone and nothing about your email changes. More in the email guide.
DNS	Your records, recreated and ready before cutover — see the DNS guide. Your domain’s registration stays wherever it is; hosting and registration are separate decisions on purpose, and transferring the domain to us is available but never required.

One honest check before we start: your site has to fit the plan. Storage is 10 GB on Solo, 30 GB on Studio, 75 GB on Org — all the numbers are on the platform page. If your site won’t fit, we tell you before the move, not after.

The migration, step by step

1. You ask. Email or ticket, as above. We reply within one business day to schedule.
2. We take inventory. Access details, site size, databases, mailboxes, subdomains, where DNS is hosted. Boring, and the step that prevents surprises.
3. We copy everything. Files and databases move to our servers. Your current host keeps serving traffic the whole time — visitors notice nothing.
4. Your site goes up at a preview URL. We send you a link to your site running on Candor, while the live site still runs on your old host. Click through it like a skeptic: pages, images, forms, your admin login.
5. Anything wrong gets fixed on the preview. We never cut over a broken site. If something doesn’t look right, it gets fixed while your old host is still the live one.
6. We lower the DNS TTL. At least a day before cutover, the TTL on your domain’s records drops — typically to 300 seconds. This collapses the switch from “up to a day of split traffic” to minutes, and makes it just as fast to reverse.
7. You approve, then DNS flips. The cutover happens only when you say so. Because the TTL is already low, propagation typically completes in under an hour. A free Let’s Encrypt certificate is issued automatically, so HTTPS works on the new home.
8. We check the result. Site loads over HTTPS, admin works, forms submit. Once a migration is underway it gets priority attention until it’s done — a migration-in-progress ticket gets a first response the same business day, per the support standard.

The rollback story

Until you approve step 7, there is no risk: your old host is still serving every visitor, and if the preview isn’t right, you simply don’t switch.

After cutover, the rollback is one DNS record. Changing it back to your old host’s address undoes the move, and because the TTL is still at 300 seconds, that takes effect in minutes. Your files on the old host haven’t been touched — we copy, we don’t cut-and-paste.

Keep your old host around briefly

Don’t cancel the old account on cutover day. Keep it running for a couple of weeks — up to 30 days if your billing allows — as cheap insurance: it’s your rollback target, and it’s where any file or mailbox you forgot about still lives. Cancel autopay so you’re not billed another term, but leave the account intact until you’re confident nothing was missed. If you’re mid-way through a prepaid term, there’s no rush at all — we can stage and cut over whenever it suits you.

Timing, cost, and the guarantee

• Cost: included on every plan. There is no migration fee, and no plan on which it’s an upsell.
• Scheduling: we reply within one business day (Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm ET) to set a schedule with you. How long the move itself takes depends on how much there is to move — we’ll give you an honest estimate when we’ve seen the inventory.
• The guarantee: if we can’t migrate your site cleanly, cancel inside your 30-day money-back window for a full refund of your hosting fees.

Once you’re moved in, day-to-day management happens in the portal — start with getting started, and check backups: automatic snapshots are included on every plan and run every 12 hours, so your first one lands the same day — or take a manual snapshot from the Backups tab the moment you’re moved in.

Prefer to run the move yourself? Our WordPress migration checklist is the same process, written for you to follow against any host — including us.