Guide
Lovable to WordPress Agency: When to Hire One
Hire a Lovable to WordPress agency when your site has logic behind it: logins, Supabase data, dashboards, API calls or custom interactive components. For a marketing site made of sections, cards, images, forms and a blog, a converter does the same job for free in a browser. Many projects sit in the middle: convert first, then pay a developer for the few parts that did not come across. This guide shows how to tell which case you are in before you spend money.
What a Lovable site actually is
Lovable builds React and TypeScript apps styled with Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui. Apps created from 13 May 2026 use TanStack Start and are server-rendered. Older apps are React plus Vite and render in the browser.
That matters for the move, because WordPress does not run React. A WordPress site is PHP, templates and blocks. So nothing is "transferred" in the literal sense. Your layout, type scale, colors, images and copy are translated into block markup and a theme.json.
Anything that was JavaScript behavior on the Lovable side has no direct equivalent. It is either rebuilt with a WordPress plugin, rebuilt as custom code, or dropped. That single fact decides whether you need an agency.
When a converter is enough
Most Lovable sites that go to WordPress are marketing sites. Hero, feature grid, pricing table, testimonials, FAQ accordion, contact form, a few inner pages. Those are static layout and content, and tooling handles them well.
Our converter runs in the browser. You give it the Lovable ZIP or a GitHub repository, and it produces a WordPress block theme: templates, header and footer template parts, one pattern per page, theme.json with your palette and fonts, and your images copied into the theme. Conversion, review and the theme download are free.
- Sections and grids become columns blocks, so the desktop layout holds up.
- Design tokens land in
theme.json: Tailwind colors, the type scale and Google Fonts. - Content blocks convert: headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, images and aspect ratios, cards, buttons, accordions, hover colors.
- Site plumbing converts: header navigation, the site logo, page routes and titles, redirects from
public/_redirects, page language and hreflang. - Plugin-backed features convert: contact forms to Contact Form 7, product listings and pages to WooCommerce, blog-like data arrays to real posts and categories with a query loop.
- SEO fields from TanStack Start
head()entries are written to Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress, along with JSON-LD.
When to hire an agency
Hire a developer or an agency when the value of the site lives in code rather than in layout. No conversion tool can port application logic, and a tool that claims it can is guessing.
These are the honest non-starters. If your project depends on them, budget for build work, not for a conversion.
- Authentication and dashboards. Login screens and anything behind them are reported, not converted. WordPress has its own user system; the screens have to be rebuilt.
- Supabase and API calls. Data reads and writes do not carry over. Someone has to design the WordPress equivalent, usually custom post types or an external service.
- Custom React state and event handlers. Filters, calculators, multi-step flows, anything that reacts to a click beyond a link.
- Embedded media and canvas work. Iframes, canvas, Lottie, video or audio without a static
src, and third-party widgets. - Absolutely positioned decoration. Overlapping shapes and layered art pinned with absolute positioning do not map to block layout.
- Open Graph and per-page meta on older React plus Vite apps. Those are set by JavaScript, so they are not read during conversion and need to be entered again.
The middle path most projects take
In practice the split is rarely clean. A site is 80 percent static marketing pages and 20 percent something clever. Paying an agency to rebuild the 80 percent is paying twice for work a tool already does.
The cheaper order is: convert first, look at the result, then brief a developer on what is left. You arrive with a working block theme instead of a blank WordPress install, and the quote covers a much smaller scope.
The review screen helps here. It shows the converted site next to the original inside WordPress Playground, in your browser, before you download anything. Two free AI-fix attempts come with every account, and the fix agent can read the source project, measure both pages and edit the theme. Paid plans add credits and saved projects; see pricing.
- Export your project. GitHub sync works on every plan; the ZIP download needs a paid plan. See how to export Lovable code.
- Run the ZIP or repository through the converter and open the side-by-side review.
- Write down every difference you can see, page by page.
- Spend the free AI-fix attempts on the differences that are layout or styling.
- Install the theme on a staging site:
Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme → Activate. - List what is genuinely missing. That list is your agency brief.
How to brief an agency well
Agencies price uncertainty. A vague "move my Lovable site to WordPress" invites a large number, because the quote has to cover the worst case. A specific list of missing features invites a small one.
Give them the source project too. The React code is the clearest specification of what the site did, and a good developer will read src/pages and src/App.tsx on older apps, or src/routes on newer ones.
Ask for these things in writing before work starts.
- A block theme, not a page builder. Block themes are edited in the Site Editor under
Appearance → Editor, with templates and template parts as HTML files and design tokens intheme.json. That keeps the site editable by you later. - Named plugins. Know whether they plan to use Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress, and why.
- Who owns the code. Ask for the theme files and a repository you control.
- Staging before launch. Agree that
Settings → Reading → Discourage search engines from indexing this sitestays checked until launch day, and gets unchecked on it. - URL parity. Hand over your old URL list. Slugs are set per page and the structure lives under
Settings → Permalinks. - A handover session. Thirty minutes in the Site Editor is worth more than a PDF.
Questions to answer before you decide
Run through this list honestly. If you answer yes to any of the first three, start talking to a developer. If it is only the last three, start with a conversion.
If you are still unsure which route fits, converter vs manual rebuild vs headless compares the three paths on cost, control and what you end up maintaining. For anything about Lovable itself that is not covered here, check Lovable's documentation.
- Does a user log in? If yes, that part is a build, not a conversion.
- Does the site read or write data at runtime? Supabase, an API, a database view. Same answer.
- Is there interaction beyond navigation and a form? Filters, calculators, live previews.
- Is the site mostly sections, images and copy? Then a converter covers it.
- Is the blog a data array rendered in React? That becomes real posts and categories.
- Is the shop a product list? That becomes WooCommerce products and pages.
FAQ
Do I need an agency to move a Lovable site to WordPress?
Not for a standard marketing site. Sections, grids, cards, images, navigation, a contact form and a blog convert with tooling. You need a developer when the site has logins, Supabase data, dashboards, API calls or custom React interactivity, because those have no WordPress equivalent and must be rebuilt.
What should I send an agency when I ask for a quote?
Send the exported Lovable project, either a ZIP or access to the GitHub repository. Add a list of pages, a list of features that are not just layout, and your current URLs. If you have already run a conversion, send the resulting theme and the list of differences you spotted, since that shrinks the scope a lot.
Can I convert the site myself and hire help only for the gaps?
Yes, and that is usually the cheapest order. Convert first, review the result side by side, fix layout issues with the AI attempts included in every account, then hire someone for the parts that are genuinely missing. The developer starts from a working block theme instead of an empty WordPress install.
Will an agency rebuild my Lovable app logic in WordPress?
They can, but it is new development rather than a migration. Authentication, dashboards and data-driven screens have to be designed again using WordPress users, custom post types or an external service. Price and plan that separately from the marketing pages.
How do I keep my search rankings during the move?
Keep the same URLs where you can, and redirect the ones you change. Check that each page has its title and description set in your SEO plugin, since older React plus Vite apps store meta in JavaScript that does not carry over. Leave the staging site set to discourage indexing, and uncheck that box only when the real site goes live.