afterbuild/ops
Solution

Migrate AI prototype to production.

From Lovable, Replit, Bolt, or Base44 to a stack you own. Here's the migration path, the risks, and the timeline — without losing customers.

Quick verdict

Migrating an AI prototype to production is a 6-phase playbook: audit, stand up target stack, move data, move code, cutover with DNS and redirects, decommission the old system. URLs, sessions, and SEO are preserved; downtime stays under 10 minutes. Typical range $15k to $60k fixed fee over 3 to 8 weeks depending on data volume and integration count. Audit in 48 hours.

The migration in 6 phases

01
Audit
Map what's there. Find every integration, secret, and external dependency. Identify what survives the migration vs what doesn't.
02
Stand up the target stack
Spin up the production stack in parallel. Get the boring infra working before touching code.
03
Move data
Schema export, transform, load to the new DB. Validate against the original. Run staging cutover.
04
Move code
Port pages and logic in dependency order. Refactor what AI generated badly. Add tests on critical paths.
05
Cutover
DNS swap, redirects, traffic monitoring, rollback plan ready. Keep the old system running for a week as backup.
06
Decommission
Verify everything works on production. Then cancel the old subscription.

What actually moves and what doesn’t

The decision tree on every migration is the same: the UI ports cleanly (Tailwind classes, React components, shadcn primitives), the data layer ports with care (Supabase schemas, RLS policies, storage buckets), and the integration code almost always needs a rewrite. AI builders generate webhook handlers, OAuth wiring, and Stripe integrations that look right but skip signature verification, raw-body parsing, idempotency, and error handling. We rebuild those four specifically — see Stripe webhook not firing and OAuth callback URL not working in production for the exact failure modes.

The target stack

For most prototypes we land on Next.js App Router, Supabase for auth + data, Stripe for payments, and Vercel for hosting. This isn’t dogma; it’s what inherits the AI-generated code cleanly and keeps the bill predictable. If you need a different runtime (Fly.io for long-running workers, Cloudflare for edge, a self-hosted Postgres for compliance) we route there instead.

How SEO and sessions survive the cutover

Same URLs where possible, 301 redirects where not, sitemap resubmitted to Search Console the day of cutover, canonicals audited before the DNS flip. Authenticated sessions survive because we port the Supabase user table by uuidand keep the JWT secret; users stay logged in through the migration. Stripe customer IDs port over so active subscriptions don’t get lost. The old system stays up for a week as a warm fallback.

What you get

A fixed-price scope after the 48-hour audit. A written cutover runbook with rollback steps. A Next.js repo you own, deployed to your own Vercel org. See the pricing page for tier breakdowns or the full App Migration service for the end-to-end scope.

FAQ
Why does migration take weeks, not days?
Because data, auth, and integrations have to land cleanly without losing customers. Rushing this is how teams lose accounts.
Will my SEO survive?
Yes — same URLs, 301s where they change, sitemap re-submitted, canonicals checked. We treat search like a launch dependency.
What if I want to keep some of it on the AI builder?
Hybrid is fine. Common pattern: keep the marketing/onboarding flows on the builder, move the app behind login to a real stack.
How much does a migration cost?
Typical range: $15k–$60k depending on data volume, integrations, and how much rewrite is needed. We give a fixed quote after the audit.
Next step

Ready to migrate?

Send us the prototype. We'll scope the migration in 48 hours.

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