Data migration without the horror stories
moved, verified, and never deleted twice
Most data migration horror stories come from skipping the boring parts: no backup, no verification, cutting over everything at once with no way back. We have recovered a factory's ERP from a lost cloud account, so we build every migration assuming something could go wrong, and plan for it before it does.
What it is
Data migration moves data from one system to another, a CRM, an ERP, an e-commerce platform, a database, while preserving its meaning and integrity, which is rarely as simple as exporting from one and importing into the other. The two systems almost always structure the same real-world concept, a customer, a product, an order, slightly differently, and the actual engineering work is in that translation: mapping fields correctly, handling the edge cases that do not map cleanly, and verifying nothing was lost or corrupted in the process.
When you need it (and when you do not)
You need this when switching platforms, a CRM, an e-commerce engine, an ERP, or recovering data from a system you are losing access to, a SaaS account that got locked, a vendor that is shutting down, a cloud contract ending. It is also necessary when consolidating two systems that grew up separately, two brands’ CRMs after a merger, for instance, into one.
You do not need a formal migration project for moving a small amount of simple, well-structured data between two systems that both support a standard export and import format, that is a straightforward task, not a project. The investment in a careful, staged migration makes sense once the data volume, complexity or consequences of getting it wrong justify the extra rigor.
How we build it
Every migration starts with a full backup of the source system, taken before anything else happens, regardless of how confident anyone is that the migration will go smoothly. Field mapping is documented and reviewed with you before it runs, not discovered through trial and error against live data. We run a test migration against a copy of the source data first, finding the edge cases, a field that does not map cleanly, a record format the destination system rejects, before they can affect anything real. The actual cutover is staged where possible, moving and verifying data in groups rather than flipping everything at once, with a parallel-run period comparing both systems side by side before the old one is retired. A rollback plan exists and is tested before cutover begins, not written in a panic if something goes wrong afterward. This is exactly the discipline that let us recover a factory’s full production and stock ERP from a lost cloud account with zero data loss, and the same approach we used migrating a D2C store’s catalogue and order history during a platform rebuild.
What to watch
The most expensive migration mistakes come from skipping verification, assuming an export that looks complete actually is, without checking record counts and sampling values against the source. We treat verification as a required step with a defined pass condition, not an optional nice-to-have if time allows. The source system should stay untouched and available until the destination is fully verified and the team has confirmed it is working correctly in real use, deleting or disabling the old system too early is the single most common cause of a migration becoming unrecoverable. Cost of ownership after a migration is usually low, the work is a one-time project, but budget time for a short post-migration period where edge cases surface under real usage that a test migration did not catch.
We also keep the migration scripts themselves as artifacts after the project ends, not discarded once the cutover succeeds, because a later question about why a specific record looks the way it does is much easier to answer with the actual transformation logic in hand than from memory months afterward.
Price and timeline
| Scope | Price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Clean, documented source system | from $1,500 | 1 to 3 weeks |
| Legacy or undocumented system, large volume | from $5,000 | 4 to 6 weeks |
Related
Built as part of custom development. Often follows an ERP integration or CRM integration project, and pairs with monitoring and observability to watch the new system after cutover. See the recovery version of this project in the factory ERP recovery on self-hosted infrastructure and the Thailand D2C store audit and rebuild. Tell us which systems and how much data need to move: get in touch.
FAQ
How much does a data migration cost?
A migration between two systems with a straightforward, well-documented data model starts at $1,500. A migration involving a legacy system with an undocumented or unusual structure, or very large data volume, runs $4,000 to $12,000.
How long does it take?
1 to 6 weeks depending almost entirely on how well the source system's data model is understood going in, a clean export takes days, a legacy system nobody has documented in years takes real investigation time first.
What if something goes wrong during the migration?
The source system is backed up and untouched until the destination is verified, and we have a tested rollback plan before cutover begins, not a vague intention to figure it out if needed.
Can you migrate from a platform we no longer have admin access to?
Sometimes, depending on what access remains, read-only access, an old export, or browser automation against a surviving login. We have recovered a full ERP's data this way after losing a cloud account, so we know what is actually recoverable before promising anything.
Do you migrate the whole system at once?
Usually not. We prefer a staged cutover, moving and verifying data in groups, with both systems checked against each other during a parallel-run period, rather than one irreversible all-at-once switch.