Tool 02 / Migration ROI Calculator

Calculate what your platform migration is worth.

A 12-month revenue projection from CWV recovery and AI citation lift. Every benchmark below is editable. Pretend the math is fake until you can't.

Inputs

Live calculation — nothing to submit.

Every constant the calculator uses is right here. Swap any value to your own benchmark and the math above re-runs live. Reset returns everything to the defaults sourced in the methodology section.

Platform traffic lift (% of current organic)

Squarespace 7.1 % CWV pass 34% → 95% post-migration; LCP 3.6s → 1.8s. Wix Studio % CWV pass 22% → 95%; LCP 6.8s → 1.8s. 200–400KB unremovable platform JS. Shopify % Theme-dependent. Headless rebuild typically clears 20% of leaked rank. Webflow % Already decent; gain is mostly schema density + llms.txt support. WordPress % Theme + plugin dependent. Conservative midpoint across observed migrations. Framer % Perf is OK; the AI-blocker is the issue (404 on llms.txt, no canonical control). Other / unknown % Median observed lift across mixed-platform migrations.

Vertical AI traffic floor (visitors / month)

Financial advisors $5M+ prospects increasingly start with ChatGPT; named-firm citation density is high. Med-spas High-intent local + treatment queries; AI cites named clinics readily. Plastic surgeons Procedure research is heavily AI-mediated for $5K+ ticket items. B2B SaaS (niche) Buyer journeys now spend ~40% of research time in LLM chats per CB Insights 2025. Cosmetic / implant dentists Implant + veneer queries are AI-favored; high local-pack citation overlap. Accountants (CFO advisory) Smaller floor — buyer journeys remain referral-heavy but AI usage is rising fast. Real estate (top 25%) Largest floor — neighbourhood + agent queries are AI-saturated. Premium HVAC Service-area + brand-name AI lookups are climbing as Google referrals erode. Other vertical Conservative cross-vertical median.

Achievable AI citation share (% of vertical AI traffic)

Financial advisors % NAPFA / CFP / BrokerCheck citation density caps share without those listings. Med-spas % High share — AI cites named clinics with full schema + reviews readily. Plastic surgeons % Procedure pages with deep MedicalProcedure schema get cited reliably. B2B SaaS (niche) % Highest achievable share — narrow category + thin competitor schema. Cosmetic / implant dentists % High overlap with local-pack citations; share constrained by directory dominance. Accountants (CFO advisory) % Thin competitor schema in CFO-advisory niche; entity-graph depth is rare. Real estate (top 25%) % Most competitive — Zillow / Redfin / Realtor.com saturate AI citations. Premium HVAC % Service-area pages with LocalBusiness + Service schema gain share quickly. Other vertical % Conservative cross-vertical default.

Other constants

AI traffic conversion premium % Growth Marshal Feb 2026 study; corroborated by Profound 2025 referral panel. AI-sourced visitors convert ~31% better than baseline organic. NorthEra Starter cost $ Current Starter tier price (USD). NorthEra Full cost $ Current Full tier price (USD).

How the math works.

No magic, no hand-waving. Three lines, one total, every constant exposed. The whole point is that you can argue with the inputs instead of the conclusion.

1. Traffic recovery from CWV repair

Squarespace passes Core Web Vitals on 34% of pages. Wix on 22%. Webflow and Framer do better but still drop double-digits in plugin-heavy or image-heavy builds. Pages that pass CWV rank measurably better in Google's Page Experience signals — recovering that lost rank surfaces traffic the platform was leaking. The platform-specific lift % is calibrated against published CWV pass-rate deltas + median LCP recovery post-migration to a static stack.

monthly_visitors × platform_lift_pct × current_conversion_rate × AOV × 12

2. AI citation lift

When ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini cite a brand by name, that citation drives a click. The vertical AI traffic floor is how many of those AI-mediated visitors are addressable in your category each month — calibrated against named-firm citation rates from the Pillar 1 research. The achievable share is the realistic capture rate post-migration: schema-deep, llms.txt-enabled, entity-graph wired. Conservative numbers — Growth Marshal's Feb 2026 study found full schema attribute population yields a 54.2% citation rate, but we de-rate to leave headroom.

vertical_ai_floor × achievable_citation_share × current_conversion_rate × AOV × 12

3. Conversion premium on AI traffic

AI-sourced visitors convert at roughly 31% above baseline organic. The number comes from Growth Marshal's Feb 2026 study and corroborates with Profound's 2025 referral data — AI-mediated visitors arrive pre-qualified and pre-educated, which compresses the funnel. We apply this as a multiplier on the AI line only (not on traffic recovery) so it's additive and never double-counted. The result becomes the displayed AI total.

ai_citation_lift_dollars × (1 + 0.31)

4. Payback against build cost

Year-1 delta divided by 12 gives the implied monthly contribution. NorthEra Starter is $1,990; Full is $4,990. Months-to-payback = build cost ÷ monthly contribution. Anything under one month renders as weeks.

payback_months = build_cost ÷ (year_one_delta ÷ 12)

Source data: Core Web Vitals pass rates from CrUX + HTTP Archive (April 2026 snapshot). Citation share calibration: NorthEra primary research across 25 vertical-specific prompts per category. Conversion premium: Growth Marshal Feb 2026, Profound 2025 referral panel. The defaults are conservative on purpose — overrides are right above this section if you have better numbers.

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