Most businesses don’t overspend on cloud migration because cloud is “expensive.”
They overspend because of assumptions.
Cloud migrations for small and medium organisations typically fall into these broad ranges:
Your cost depends far more on what you’re moving, how clean your current environment is, and the level of security and identity work needed, than on the cloud platform itself.
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Cloud migration isn't just copying data from one system to another.
In practice, cloud migration means moving:
Owen Hanley, Sales Director of One2Call, reflects what many organisations discover during planning:
“The biggest factors that affect the cost are the scope and complexity of workloads, the volume and structure of data, security and compliance requirements, and the change management needed to bring users along.”
If an environment is clean and modern, migration is easy.
If not, the migration process makes that complexity visible very quickly!
So in reality, the cost of migration is driven by the scope of the project, not by the cloud costs themselves.
So if you're looking to assess the costs of your upcoming migration costs, "what am I moving, and how easy will it be to move" is a good question to start with.
Legacy systems dive up migration costs by creating extra work before migration can even begin.
Older hardware and outdated software introduce "technical debt", meaning problems that have built up over time that now need solving.
This usually requires:
“Aged hardware and software introduce technical debt. Older applications and operating systems often need modernisation or workarounds, and that ultimately drives project cost.”This is not down to inefficiency or poor planning. Systems designed years ago were not built for modern, identity-led security environments.
Most cloud migration budgets break down like this:
1. Discovery & Planning (25–40%)
Understanding what exists, what’s broken, and what needs to change.
2. Remediation & Readiness (30–50%)
Fixing identity, security, and networking issues that have silently built up.
3. Data Migration & Cutover (20–30%)
Moving data, syncing changes, and performing out‑of‑hours work.
Skipping these stages does not remove cost, it just moves it further down the line.
In simple terms, you either pay to prepare properly or you pay to fix problems later.
Two companies with 100 users can have:
That difference usually comes from structure, not scale.
Common sources of complexity include:
Data size and user numbers usually affect migration cost more than most businesses expect.
Data volume increases cost because moving large amounts of data takes longer and is harder to control.
This shows up as:
User numbers increase cost because more people are affected by the change.
This usually means:
Many businesses increase their own cloud migration costs through late changes and unrealistic expectations.
This is very common.
Typical examples include:
Yes - common unexpected costs include:
“Some organisations choose a lift-and-shift without putting conditional access or a zero-trust baseline in place, meaning access is not tightly controlled. That almost always leads to rework, incidents, and unplanned licensing changes later.”
Doing security properly at the start is consistently cheaper than fixing it later.
In simple terms, speed without structure usually creates problems.
Are you designing for speed, or for stability?
For most small and medium-sized businesses, cloud is cheaper over time if it is managed properly.
Cloud removes:
Cloud becomes more expensive than on-prem when no one actively manages it.
Costs rise when:
Both hide costs that are easy to miss.
On-prem often hides:
Cloud often hides:
The idea that on-prem equals control and cloud removes it is oversimplified.
Danny Kirkby, CEO of One2Call, frames this clearly:
“On-premises offers maximum physical control, but flexibility is limited by hardware capacity and in-house expertise. Cloud environments often give more usable control through automation, visibility, and tooling, even if some deep customisation is constrained.”For many organisations, cloud increases day-to-day control because problems are easier to see and fix.
Cloud security is not weaker — it’s shared. Providers secure the infrastructure.
Customers must secure access, identity, and data configuration.
“On-premises environments put full responsibility on the organisation. In the cloud, security operates under a shared responsibility model. The provider secures the infrastructure, but customers must configure identity, access, and data protection correctly.”Cloud platforms often make compliance easier to evidence, but misconfiguration remains the biggest risk.
“The decision isn’t really about technology. It’s about operating model, responsibility, and risk ownership. Cloud shifts responsibility, not risk, and on-prem only delivers control if the organisation has the skills and processes to manage it properly.”Poor decisions usually come from underestimating the effort required to run on-prem systems, or the discipline needed to manage cloud properly.
Cloud migration costs and cloud versus on-prem decisions are driven by clarity, not platforms.
You'll stay in control if you understand:
Good IT decisions should feel calm and predictable.
No surprises.
No panic.
No expensive lessons learned the hard way.
Before deciding whether cloud is too expensive, ask yourself one final question.
If someone asked why your migration costs what it does, could you explain it confidently?
