A headless CMS platform is often free or low-cost to license. The implementation cost lives almost entirely in schema design, editor experience, and the custom frontend needed to render the content, which is different math than a traditional CMS quote.
Weighing Sanity against Payload or Strapi for the build?
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Use the cost calculatorWhat you are actually paying for
Unlike WordPress, there is no default theme or admin UI to fall back on. Every part of the experience is built intentionally.
- Content schema design: defining document types, fields, and relationships that match how the team publishes.
- Studio or admin configuration: making the editing interface usable for non-technical staff.
- Frontend build: the Next.js (or other) application that queries and renders the content.
- Preview and workflow tooling: draft states, live preview, and publishing permissions.
How platform choice affects cost
Sanity, Payload, and Strapi differ in hosting model and how much comes configured out of the box, which shifts where the cost lands.
- Sanity's hosted Studio reduces admin UI build time but content modeling still needs deliberate design.
- Payload's code-first schema gives more control but requires more upfront engineering time.
- Strapi's self-hosted model adds infrastructure and maintenance cost beyond the initial build.
- None of the three meaningfully change frontend build cost, since that work is framework-side either way.
Cost ranges by project type
Directional guidance, not a quote. Scope always dominates the final number more than the CMS platform chosen.
- New marketing site with a headless CMS from scratch: schema, studio, and frontend all built together, typically the same range as a full site rebuild.
- Migrating an existing WordPress site to headless: adds content audit and migration effort on top of the build.
- Adding a headless CMS to an existing Next.js frontend: usually the smallest scope, focused on schema and query integration.
How to keep the cost predictable
Most overruns come from schema decisions made too late, after editors are already using the system.
