Cutting Hosting Costs by 80%: Migrating Hans Steel from WordPress to Next.js

The Problem: WordPress Was Too Expensive for a Brochure Site

Hans Steel, a Canadian steel manufacturing company, was spending over $300/month on a WordPress site that did nothing dynamic. Managed hosting, bandwidth overages, a premium page builder plugin, and occasional emergency fixes added up to $3,600/year — for a site that essentially never changed.

What the Site Actually Needed

After auditing their WordPress installation, the requirements were simple: a homepage, an about page, a products page with downloadable PDF specs, a gallery, and a contact form. No e-commerce, no user accounts, no dynamic content. Just a digital brochure — and WordPress was massive overkill for it.

The Migration: WordPress to Next.js on Netlify

I migrated the site to Next.js with static site generation deployed on Netlify. Every page is pre-built as static HTML — no database queries, no PHP execution, no plugin overhead at runtime.

• Image optimization: Next.js automatically converts product photos to WebP and serves responsive sizes. The homepage dropped from 8MB to 800KB of images.
• Contact form: Replaced the $30/month form plugin with Netlify Forms — zero cost, same functionality.
• No plugin maintenance: Seven plugins eliminated. No more monthly updates or security patches.
• Edge caching: Static pages cached globally on Netlify's CDN. Bandwidth charges dropped to zero.

The Results

• Hosting cost: $300+/month → $0/month (Netlify free tier)
• Page load time: 4.2s → 0.9s
• Lighthouse score: 45 → 98
• Annual savings: $3,600+/year

Hans Steel's sales team now focuses on selling steel instead of managing a website. If you run a content-stable small business site on WordPress, the numbers almost certainly work in your favor too.

Key Takeaways

• Audit before you migrate. Understanding exactly what functionality is used prevents over-engineering the replacement.
• Bandwidth is the hidden WordPress cost. Static sites eliminate it entirely on Netlify and Vercel free tiers.
• Most plugins solve WordPress problems. Caching, security scanning, and form handling plugins are unnecessary on a static site — those problems don't exist.
• Static does not mean limited. A statically generated site can still handle contact forms, image galleries, and SEO just as well as a dynamic CMS.