Moving from Avada to Gutenberg or Elementor: What a Migration Involves

Moving a website from Avada to Gutenberg or Elementor is a rebuild, not a conversion: every page built with Avada's builder has to be recreated in the new editor, while posts, images, users and plugin data stay in WordPress. It is worth doing when Avada is holding the site back on speed, editing or cost, and it goes well when page addresses, content and search signals are mapped before any page is rebuilt.

This article is for business owners and marketing managers with a site on Avada who are considering a switch, or who have been quoted for one. It covers the reasons to move, the reasons to stay, what the work involves, the SEO and content risks, and the cost drivers.

#Why businesses move away from Avada

Businesses switch builders when the current one costs them more in time, speed or flexibility than a move would. Avada is a capable, long-established theme, so the reason is usually a specific fit problem, not a general fault.

The common reasons I hear:

• Speed. A multipurpose theme carries code for many features, and older Avada sites with sliders and layered sections can be heavy on mobile.
• Editing. The team finds the builder hard to use, or new staff already know Elementor or the block editor.
• Developer availability. The agency that built the site has gone, and the new developer works in a different toolset.
• Direction of WordPress. The block editor is part of WordPress itself, and some businesses prefer to build on the core editor.
• Licensing and ownership. The licence was in a former developer's name, or the business wants fewer paid dependencies.
• A redesign is due. If every page will be redesigned anyway, it is the natural moment to choose the builder again.

#When staying on Avada is the better call

Stay when the site works and the complaint is fixable. A migration spends real money to arrive at a site that, to a visitor, may look the same.

If the problem is speed, a tune-up of hosting, images and unused features is much cheaper than a rebuild. If the problem is licensing, sort it out rather than rebuild: an Avada Classic licence is a one-time purchase with lifetime updates, and only support needs renewing, while an Avada One subscription keeps the site working if it lapses but, as Avada's pricing page (opens in a new tab) explains, stops updates and patches. Either way, put the licence in your own name. If the problem is that nobody knows Avada, a short handover or training session may be all you need. I continue to build and maintain sites on Avada as part of Avada website development.

#Gutenberg or Elementor: where to move to

The destination depends on who edits the site and what you want to optimise for. Both are sound choices for different teams.

The lock-in row deserves attention. Moving from Avada to Elementor swaps one builder format for another, and a future move would be another rebuild. Moving to the block editor puts content in WordPress's native format. My full comparison is in Elementor vs Gutenberg vs Avada.

#Why there is no convert button

Each builder saves pages in its own format, so one cannot read another's layouts. Understanding this explains the whole cost of a migration.

Avada's documentation says its builder stores page layouts using a structured shortcode system (opens in a new tab). Elementor's developer documentation says it saves page data as JSON in post metadata (opens in a new tab). The block editor serialises blocks into HTML (opens in a new tab), using HTML comments as block delimiters.

Switch off Avada, and a page built with it shows its text mixed with raw shortcode tags. The words are still in the database. The layout is not something another editor can use. Tools that claim to convert automatically tend to produce pages that need as much repair as a rebuild.

#What a migration involves

A good migration is a sequence of small, checked steps on a copy of the site, and the live site is untouched until the end.

#Audit

The audit lists every page, its address, its layout type, its traffic and anything special on it: forms, sliders, pop-ups, embedded maps, tracking. It also lists what Avada provides beyond pages, such as the header, footer, portfolio items, sliders, forms and custom CSS, because each needs a replacement.

#Design decisions

A migration can keep the current design or change it. Keeping it is cheaper and lower risk. Changing it turns the job into a redesign, which is fine as long as it is priced and planned as one.

#Rebuild on staging

The new theme and editor are set up on a private copy. Shared parts come first: header, footer, global colours and fonts, and reusable sections. Then each layout type is built once as a template, and pages are filled from it.

#Content transfer

Text and images are moved page by page and checked against the original. Blog posts written in the standard editor need little work. Posts built with Avada elements need cleaning.

#Functions that lived in Avada

Anything Avada supplied has to be replaced: contact forms, sliders, portfolio or project items, mega menus, pop-ups. Form entries and email routing need particular care, because a form that looks right but sends nowhere is the costliest mistake in a migration.

#Launch

Launch is a planned switch with a backup taken first, redirects in place, forms and tracking tested, and a check of every important page on a phone.

#SEO risks and how they are handled

The main SEO risk is changing things Google has already learned about your site. A migration that keeps addresses, content and titles steady usually has little lasting effect on rankings.

Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes (opens in a new tab) recommends mapping each old URL to its new one, using permanent server-side redirects, avoiding redirect chains and keeping redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year. It also notes that rankings may fluctuate temporarily while Google recrawls the site.

The simplest protection is not to change addresses at all. A builder migration does not require new URLs, and I advise against renaming pages during one unless there is a strong reason. The website launch SEO checklist covers the checks on launch day.

#Content risks beyond SEO

Content gets lost in places nobody looks. Builder migrations fail quietly, on pages the owner has not opened for a year.

Watch these in particular:

• Content inside tabs, accordions and sliders, which is easy to skip when copying.
• Pop-ups, announcement bars and sticky buttons that were set globally.
• Custom CSS and small scripts added in theme options over the years.
• Translations, if the site is multilingual.
• Downloads and PDFs linked from old pages.
• Thank-you pages and form confirmations that visitors reach only after submitting.

#What drives the cost

Cost follows unique layouts and special functions, not the page count. Thirty pages that share three templates are a smaller job than twelve pages that are each different.

The main drivers:

1. Number of unique layouts and how complex they are.
2. Whether the design stays or changes.
3. Functions to replace: forms, sliders, portfolios, mega menus, pop-ups.
4. WooCommerce, which adds product, cart and checkout templates.
5. Languages, each of which multiplies content checks.
6. Custom blocks or fields needed in the new build.
7. SEO care: URL mapping, redirects and checks after launch.

As a planning guide consistent with my article on WordPress website redesign cost, a migration with a builder change for a site of 15 to 30 pages is roughly 100 to 200 hours, or about USD 1,000 to 3,000 at my hourly rate of USD 10 to 15. Smaller sites with a few shared layouts sit below that. These are budgeting estimates from my own work, not a market average. A page builder migration with a clear page list gets a fixed written quote.

#Do it yourself or hire help

A very small site can be migrated by a careful owner. If you have five simple pages and no store, rebuilding them in the block editor on a staging copy is a realistic weekend project.

Hire help when the site earns money or ranks well. The risk is not in building pages. It is in what you cannot see: redirects, form routing, tracking, speed and the forgotten pages. A professional works on staging, keeps a rollback ready and hands over a list of what changed.

#Questions to ask before you approve a migration

Ask these of any developer quoting the work, and expect specific answers.

1. Will page addresses stay the same, and how will any changes be redirected?
2. Will you work on a staging copy, and how is the final switch made?
3. How will you check that no content is left behind?
4. What replaces each Avada feature we use today?
5. How will forms, tracking and conversions be tested?
6. What is the rollback plan if something fails on launch day?
7. What do we receive at handover: logins, licences in our name, a guide to editing?

#Where to start

Start with an inventory: export a list of every page with its address and note which layouts repeat. Then write down the one or two problems that made you consider moving. If a developer can solve those on Avada for a tenth of the cost, do that. If not, the inventory is already the first step of the migration brief.