CMS renewals are often signed with little review. The quote arrives, the budget already exists, and a migration looks like a project no one has time to scope. The license fee may be predictable, but what about the developer hours required for routine updates, the cost of maintaining custom integrations, or the delays that keep campaigns from launching?
Renewing may be the right decision. But signing without evaluating these costs commits organizations to the same platform, costs and limits for another contract term.
The problem extends beyond individual platforms. Gartner found that marketing teams used just 33% of their martech stack's capabilities in 2023, down from 42% in 2022 and 58% in 2020.¹
At Condado, we approach technology decisions through a customer experience lens. The starting point isn't which platform to buy. It's whether the technology, processes and integrations already in place can support the experience the organization wants to deliver.
With customer expectations evolving and organizations investing in AI-powered experiences, the CMS is becoming more than a publishing platform. The way content is structured, managed and shared influences not only today's customer journeys but also the experiences organizations can build next
That distinction matters at renewal. Staying may be the right choice. But signing without reviewing the platform's full impact can commit the organization to another contract term of the same costs and limitations.
The questions listed below can help determine whether to renew, optimize or move on.
Renewal is the lowest-cost point to change platforms. A mid-contract switch means paying for two systems at once. At renewal, that overlap is smallest, and procurement, IT and marketing are already reviewing the same contract.
Content sprawl adds pressure. In Storyblok's State of CMS 2024 survey of more than 1,700 CMS users, 47% of respondents use two to three CMSs and 33% use four or more.² The main reason, cited by 67%, was reaching more channels.² Each additional system is another place where a price, policy or product detail has to be kept current.
Staying with the current platform is a valid outcome. In that case, the renewal is the time to renegotiate terms.
From a CX perspective, the renewal question isn't simply whether the CMS still works. It's whether the content environment can support the customer journeys, channels and business requirements ahead.
Start with evidence from the current environment, not a comparison of vendor feature lists.
These six questions can help uncover hidden costs, operational bottlenecks and future requirements before the contract is signed.
Choose a routine update, such as correcting a price, publishing a campaign banner or changing a product description. Measure the time between the initial request and the content going live.
If every update requires a developer ticket, technical handoff or deployment, your marketing team may be spending too much time waiting for changes that should be straightforward.
The customer impact matters too. A delayed policy update or outdated product description can create confusion long after the underlying business information has changed.
First, establish why the delay exists. It could be a platform limitation, restrictive templates, an inefficient approval process or a combination of all three.
What to measure: Average publishing time, number of technical handoffs and developer hours spent on routine content updates.
What it means for renewal: If configuration or workflow improvements can resolve the bottleneck, replacing the CMS may be unnecessary. But if the platform fundamentally prevents nontechnical teams from managing routine content independently, it may be time to evaluate an alternative.
The license fee rarely represents the full cost of operating a CMS.
Hosting, security patching, upgrades, agency retainers, custom integrations and internal developer time all contribute to the total cost of ownership.
For example, a platform with a relatively low annual license fee may become expensive if every new campaign, landing page or integration requires custom development.
There are also indirect costs. When publishing a new campaign requires weeks of development, or maintaining consistent content across channels involves repeated manual effort, the platform consumes resources that could be directed toward improving customer experiences.
What to measure: Calculate the total cost of ownership over the next three years, including:
What it means for renewal: Compare the projected cost of maintaining the existing platform against the cost of improving it or migrating to an alternative. Include one-time migration expenses, parallel-running costs and ongoing maintenance in that comparison.
The objective isn't necessarily to find the cheapest CMS. It's to determine whether the cost is justified by the capabilities and efficiency it delivers.
Your organization may manage customer-facing content across its website, mobile apps, knowledge base, chatbot, regional sites and other digital channels.
The challenge isn't necessarily the number of systems. It's how often the same information must be recreated or updated independently.
Now consider a single policy change. How many systems need a manual update before every customer receives the same information?
This is where content management becomes a CX issue. A customer may read one policy on the website and receive a different answer from a support channel. Even when each individual system works correctly, disconnected content can create an inconsistent experience.
What to measure: Identify where customer-facing content lives, which information is duplicated, and how many manual updates are needed when a single piece of information changes.
What it means for renewal: If duplicated content is difficult to maintain, consider whether improved integrations, centralized content management or a structured-content approach could reduce the workload.
A headless CMS like Storyblok may be worth evaluating when the organization needs to manage reusable content and deliver it across multiple digital experiences through APIs.
A CMS that worked for a single website may not be suitable for an organization expanding into new markets, languages, brands or channels.
In Storyblok's 2024 survey, 43% of respondents identified better content scaling as the most important missing capability in their existing CMS.²
Growth introduces requirements beyond simply publishing more pages. Teams may need localized content, shared components, regional permissions and workflows that maintain consistency while giving local teams appropriate control.
What to measure: Review the content requirements in your digital roadmap for the next two to three years. Consider planned brands, languages, regions, digital channels and integration needs.
What it means for renewal: Determine whether the current CMS can support those requirements through existing capabilities and configuration, or whether each expansion introduces additional custom development.
A platform should make growth manageable without creating unnecessary content duplication or technical complexity.
AI is changing how organizations create, manage and deliver customer experiences. From AI-powered search and support assistants to content automation, many emerging use cases depend on accurate, structured and accessible content.
But adding AI capabilities doesn't fix fragmented content or inconsistent information. If a customer service assistant draws from outdated policies or duplicated product information, it can deliver the wrong answer faster.
Before renewing, consider whether your CMS can make approved content available to AI-powered systems, support reliable updates and maintain appropriate governance across channels.
What to measure: How content is structured, whether it can be accessed through APIs, how information is kept current, and whether permissions and governance support planned AI use cases.
What it means for renewal: Determine whether your existing CMS can support your AI roadmap through configuration and integrations or whether underlying content architecture limitations need to be addressed. A new CMS isn't automatically the answer, but AI readiness should be part of the platform evaluation.
Even if you intend to renew, understanding what a future migration would involve is valuable.
Content portability, proprietary templates, custom extensions and tightly coupled integrations can make moving away from a CMS more difficult over time. As customer journeys evolve, the organization may need to connect new digital experiences, replace individual systems or share content with additional technologies.
Before signing, establish what you own, what you can export and how dependent your digital experience is on the current platform.
What to measure: Assess the availability of structured content exports, media assets, APIs, template dependencies, integration documentation and URL mapping requirements. Review contractual notice periods, termination terms and data-access provisions.
What it means for renewal: A complex migration doesn't automatically justify staying. But it should be factored into the financial and operational decision. If switching costs are already high, further customization may increase the effort required to change platforms later.
Answering the six questions should lead to a business decision, not automatically to a migration.
Most organizations will find themselves considering one of three options.
Before deciding, compare the total cost of each option alongside implementation effort, operational disruption, technical dependencies and long-term business value.
For organizations considering migration, the assessment should also account for SEO preservation, content restructuring, redirects, integration testing and the temporary cost of operating two environments.
The right choice is the one that addresses the underlying business problem, not simply the one that introduces a newer platform.
If your CMS assessment reveals persistent content bottlenecks, duplicated information or difficulty scaling across channels, a headless CMS may be worth considering.
Traditional CMS platforms often manage content and presentation together. A headless CMS separates content management from the front-end experiences that display it, allowing teams to deliver structured content through APIs.
This approach can be particularly valuable when organizations need to support multiple websites, applications, brands or markets.
Storyblok, for example, combines a headless architecture with visual editing capabilities designed to make content management more accessible to nontechnical teams.
Depending on how the platform is implemented, organizations can benefit from:
These benefits depend on implementation decisions. A headless CMS still requires developers to build and maintain front-end experiences, integrations and reusable components.
It also isn't automatically the best option for every organization. If your current platform meets your requirements, supports efficient publishing and remains economical to operate, optimization or renewal may be the more practical choice.
The real question is whether a different content architecture would solve problems that your existing CMS cannot address effectively.
We recently applied this approach with a global university managing more than 3,000 website pages across three institutional entities and multiple regions.³
The university was considering renewing its existing SharePoint environment. But routine content changes required developer involvement, information was duplicated across the website, and limited performance tracking made it difficult to understand how the digital experience was performing.³
Rather than treating renewal as the default, Condado evaluated whether the existing platform could support the university's content operations and future requirements.
The recommendation was to move to Storyblok because the existing environment couldn't adequately address the team's publishing and content management challenges.
Condado then redesigned and migrated the website, consolidated content across the university's entities, and worked with Storyblok to support additional language requirements, including Urdu, Swahili and Amharic.³
Your CMS may still be the right platform for your organization. But that decision should be supported by a clear understanding of operating costs, publishing efficiency, future requirements and migration risks.
An independent assessment can help determine whether renewing, optimizing or replacing the platform provides the strongest business case.
Condado works with marketing, digital and technology teams to evaluate content platforms, identify operational constraints and plan practical improvements.
Through its CX strategy and advisory services, Condado helps organizations assess their current environment and make informed technology decisions. Where a new content platform is justified, Condado's Storyblok consulting and implementation capabilities can support the transition from strategy through migration and integration.
Before signing your next CMS contract, make sure you're investing in a platform that supports where your business is going—not just where it has been.
Explore Condado's CX Strategy and Advisory Services
Claudeforce connects Salesforce data, workflows, permissions, and business logic with Anthropic’s Claude. Here’s what has shipped, what remains early, and what enterprises should evaluate.
Condado has become part of One Primero — a consolidated operating brand bringing Condado's contact center expertise and Tricension's technology delivery capability together under one name. Same team, same relationships. New name.
