Five questions your leadership team will ask about this migration

You’ve accepted that your Umbraco 13 site needs to move to version 17 before December 2026. The compliance risk is clear. The technical case is made. Now comes the harder part: getting the rest of your organisation to see this as an investment worth making properly, not just a cost to absorb as quickly and cheaply as possible. 

The difference between a migration that simply meets the deadline and one that genuinely improves your digital operation comes down to how the project is framed internally. These five questions are the ones your leadership team, finance director, and fellow stakeholders will ask. Having answers ready turns a technical requirement into a strategic proposal. 

1. What are we actually paying for here? 

This is usually the first question from finance. The honest answer is that you’re paying for two things simultaneously: the compliance necessity (moving off an unsupported platform) and the capability opportunity (moving onto a better one). 

The compliance cost is unavoidable. After December 2026, Umbraco 13 receives no security patches, .NET 8 loses Microsoft support five weeks earlier, and Cyber Essentials certification fails automatically for any site running unsupported software. Doing nothing has a cost too — it just arrives as risk rather than invoice. 

The capability cost is where the investment decision lives. A like-for-like migration — same design, same functionality, new platform — is the minimum. But organisations that spend the same period also consolidating templates, improving editorial workflows, or connecting business systems via the Management API come out of the process with a materially better digital operation. The incremental cost of adding scope during a migration is typically lower than running a separate project later. This is the argument that earns budget beyond the bare minimum. Frame it as: we have to spend X regardless. For Y more, we come out of this with genuine improvements rather than just staying level. 

2. Why can’t we just do a straight swap? 

You can, to a degree. Content data migrates directly from version 13 to version 17. The upgrade path is direct with no intermediate versions required. Your website’s front-end appearance doesn’t change unless you choose to redesign. 

The complication is the backoffice. Umbraco rebuilt the editorial interface between version 13 and version 17, replacing the underlying framework entirely. Any custom backoffice extensions your current site uses will need reworking. For some organisations this is minimal. For others with heavily customised editorial environments, it represents the bulk of the project effort. 

Understanding the extent of your custom backoffice work is the single most important thing to clarify before engaging an agency. If you don’t know, ask your current development team or agency to audit it. The answer determines whether your migration is a two-week project or a two-month one. 

3. Choosing the right agency partner 

Not every agency that lists Umbraco on their website has delivered a major version upgrade. The jump from 13 to 17 is architecturally significant, and experience with this specific transition matters. 

When evaluating partners, ask for specifics. Have they completed a version 13 to 17 upgrade for a referenceable client? How did they handle the backoffice extension rework? What tools do they use for content migration — manual effort or automated tooling? Umbraco’s partnership tiers (Platinum, Gold, Silver) indicate the agency’s relationship with Umbraco HQ, including access to product teams and early roadmap visibility. These matter, but they’re credentials rather than proof of delivery. Ask for both. 

Cultural fit sounds like a soft consideration, but it matters for a project where your editorial team needs to be actively involved in testing, training, and feedback. An agency that treats migration as a purely technical exercise, without involving your content team, is likely to deliver a platform that technically works but doesn’t match how your people actually operate. 

4. What does success look like beyond meeting the deadline? 

This is the question that separates a compliance project from a strategic one. If the only success criterion is “live on Umbraco 17 before December,” you’ll get exactly that and nothing more. Every decision will optimise for speed rather than quality. 

Document what different stakeholders actually want from the outcome. Marketing might want faster publishing workflows or the ability to manage personalisation without third-party tools. IT might want simplified integrations, reduced technical debt, or a clearer upgrade pathway for the future. Finance wants controlled costs and measurable return. Your CEO wants to know the digital estate is on solid foundations. 

Writing these down before you brief an agency serves two purposes. It gives you objective criteria to evaluate proposals against. And it prevents the mid-project conflicts that arise when stakeholders discover their unstated expectations aren’t being addressed. Even a brief document — half a page per stakeholder group — is worth the effort. 

5. The question nobody asks early enough: what happens after go-live? 

Migration projects tend to consume all available attention. The deadline dominates. But the day after launch is when the real value of your investment starts to emerge — or doesn’t. 

Who manages ongoing updates and security patches? How is platform performance monitored? When the next Umbraco version arrives, who plans the upgrade path? How does your editorial team get support when they encounter issues in the new backoffice? If your agency relationship ends at go-live, you’re starting a new procurement process at exactly the point where you need continuity. 

The strongest outcomes come from organisations that plan the ongoing relationship alongside the migration, not as an afterthought. Managed services, quarterly strategic reviews, and proactive version management are the difference between a platform that stays healthy and one that gradually drifts back toward the technical debt you just spent significant budget clearing. 

These five questions aren’t just preparation for an agency conversation. They’re the framework for an internal business case. When your finance director asks why this costs more than a simple platform swap, you have the answer. When your CEO asks what the organisation gains beyond compliance, you can point to specific improvements. When your editorial team asks whether this will disrupt their work, you can set honest expectations. 

The organisations that get the most from this migration are the ones that frame it as a transformation project with a compliance deadline, not a compliance project with optional extras. 

Taking the next step 

MSQ DX has put together a comprehensive Umbraco 13 EOL planning guide that expands on each of these questions with practical preparation steps, agency evaluation criteria, and what to expect from the upgrade process. It’s designed as the document you share with your leadership team to get the conversation started. 

Download the Umbraco 13 EOL Planning Guide

If you’re ready to understand what the upgrade involves for your specific implementation, MSQ DX offers three starting points: a 30-minute fit discussion, a one-hour upgrade complexity assessment, or a stakeholder opportunity session that helps your wider team see what becomes possible after migration. 

Book a conversation with MSQ DX