Migration guide
How to migrate from Cloudways to UpperLevel
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform (DIY-leaning, provisions on DigitalOcean/Vultr/Linode/AWS/Google Cloud; owned by DigitalOcean since 2022). If you have decided it is time to go, here is exactly what the move looks like: five steps, four of them ours. Our team does the hands-on work for free, you approve a preview, and your visitors never notice the switch.
- 111 5.0-star reviews
- Since 2016
- Human support in under five minutes
Why people make this move
What pushes Cloudways customers to switch
If you are leaving Cloudways because the post-acquisition support got slow and impersonal, the bill kept growing through paid add-ons and the post-promo jump, and the migration felt like your problem, UpperLevel maps directly onto every one of those frustrations: free hands-on migration, sub-5-minute human support, flat pricing with no renewal hikes or surprise add-on creep, and a stable independent team that has been at it since 2016 with 111 5.0-star reviews.
Support quality is widely reported to have declined after DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways in 2022. Trustpilot and Capterra reviews cite slow responses during peak hours, critical tickets left unresolved for days to weeks, and a sense that first-line replies feel scripted or bot-driven.
Billing complaints are a recurring theme: unauthorized or duplicate charges, unexpected server shut-offs on paid accounts, and disputes that are hard to escalate (no phone line, no clear complaints channel).
Aggressive upsells. Features many rivals bundle for free are paid add-ons here: premium and advanced support ($100 to $500/mo), Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, paid Safe Updates, Imunify360 malware scans, and offsite backups, which reviewers describe as nickel-and-diming or scare-tactic upselling.
Also cited by departing Cloudways customers
- Roughly 220 percent markup over the underlying DigitalOcean or Vultr retail price for the same hardware, so you pay a large premium for the management layer and then pay again for the add-ons.
- Migration friction. Free expert migrations are not always actually free anymore (customers report being billed after being promised a free transfer), and onboarding or migration can stall, leaving sites in limbo.
Want the full cost and support comparison? Read UpperLevel vs Cloudways
Before you start
Check your Cloudways renewal date first
The single most expensive migration mistake is timing: getting auto-renewed into another term days before you leave. Here is how Cloudways handles renewal, from sourced, dated references:
Cloudways markets itself as having no renewal price hikes, and that is largely accurate for the sticker rate. Unlike traditional cPanel hosts, the standard monthly price does not inflate year-over-year. The catch is the intro discount: the 30-percent-off promo applies only to the first 3 (sometimes 5) months, so once it lapses the bill jumps to the full standard rate (a roughly 43 percent effective increase) even though Cloudways will not call that a renewal hike. Historically, the base plan prices themselves were raised fleet-wide in 2023 (the first increase since 2017) following the DigitalOcean acquisition, so the prices never go up framing holds for the promo-to-standard transition but not across that acquisition repricing.
Details are reviewed before publishing, but figures change. Confirm your own renewal date and rate inside your Cloudways account before you schedule the move.
The plan
Leaving Cloudways in five steps
This is the whole process. You do step one, share access in step two, and approve the preview in step four. We do the rest.
- Step 1
Start your UpperLevel order and tell us about your Cloudways setup
Pick a plan, or call and we will help you choose. Tell us your domain, that you are coming from Cloudways, and anything unusual about your site, like a store, a membership area, or custom code. That is all the preparation there is.
- Step 2
Hand us your Cloudways login or a recent backup
We need a way to fetch your site: either temporary access to your Cloudways dashboard or a full backup export. Credentials are used only for the move, and we confirm with you before touching anything.
- Step 3
We copy your files, database, and email
Our team copies everything off Cloudways onto NVMe storage tuned for your site: files, database, and mailboxes where they apply. You keep working as usual, because your live site stays untouched while we work on the copy.
- Step 4
Review your site on a private preview
Before anything changes publicly, you get a preview link to click through your migrated site. Forms, store checkout, logins, we test them with you. Nothing goes live until you say it is right.
- Step 5
We flip DNS with no downtime, then you cancel
When you approve, we point your domain at UpperLevel with a cutover timed so visitors never see an outage. Only after your site is verified live should you cancel the old Cloudways plan, so there is never a gap.
Worth having handy before step two: your Cloudways dashboard login, access to wherever your domain is registered (for the DNS update), and any wp-admin credentials for the site itself. Missing one? Start anyway — we will find the path together on the phone.
After the move
What week one looks like on this side
The move is the start, not the finish. From the first night, daily backups run with 30-day retention, your SSL certificate renews itself, and malware scanning with unlimited removal watches the site you just brought over. Your invoice will read the same number next year, because the renewal price is the signup price. And when you have a question, the people who physically performed your Cloudways migration are the same ones answering the phone in under five minutes.
All included, all free
What moves with you
- Your full site: files, themes, plugins, and uploads
- Your database, copied and checked row for row
- Permalinks and internal URLs preserved, so search rankings carry over
- Mailboxes and forwarders, where your email lives with your host
- PHP version matched to what your site runs today
- Free SSL issued and forced before the cutover
- DNS handled for you, timed for zero downtime
- A human on the line the whole way, in under five minutes
Questions
The Cloudways move, answered
- How long does a Cloudways migration take?
- Most moves are finished within a day of us getting access, and we agree the timing with you up front. Larger or more complex sites can take longer, and we tell you that before we start, not after.
- Do I need to cancel my Cloudways account first?
- No, and please do not. Keep Cloudways active until your site is verified live on UpperLevel, so your site and email never have a gap. Once you confirm everything works, cancel the old plan and keep the difference.
- Will my site go down during the move?
- No. We work on a copy while your current site keeps running, test that copy on a private preview, and time the DNS cutover so visitors are never staring at an error page.
- What does it cost to leave Cloudways?
- Nothing on our side: the migration is free, with no per-site fee. Check your Cloudways renewal date before you start, because cancelling right after an auto-renewal usually means asking them for a refund instead of just not being charged.
- Can I move more than one site off Cloudways?
- Yes. Freelancers and agencies regularly bring batches of client sites across. Tell us the inventory up front and we sequence the moves so nothing overlaps, with each site getting the same preview-then-cutover treatment. Our Pro tier covers up to three sites.
Moving from somewhere else?
Guides for other hosts
Ready to be done with Cloudways?
Free white-glove migration, human support in under five minutes, and a 45-day money-back guarantee. Start today and your site can be moved, tested, and live before your next Cloudways invoice.