Your CFO forwards the Optimizely renewal quote at 9:47 AM. The number hasn't moved since last year—still six figures, still opaque, still tied to features your team disabled months ago. By 10:15, three stakeholders have replied-all asking if there's a better option. There is. We've guided seven enterprise teams through Optimizely exits in the first quarter of 2026 alone, and the pattern is consistent: they left for composable architectures (Sanity, Contentful, or Storyblok), cut CMS costs by 40–68%, and reclaimed developer velocity within 90 days. But the migration itself? That's where teams either save six months or lose them. What follows is the architecture decision, the pricing breakdown, and the three failure modes we've watched companies hit when they move too fast or pick the wrong replacement.

Now, I'm not here to bash Optimizely; it provides legitimate functionality. But let's face facts — the market's shifted since 2023. There are now other contenders that really outshine Optimizely in certain niches and often at a far cheaper rate. Let me share what we've gleaned from hands-on migrations, complete with pricing info and those sneaky gotchas no one seems to tell you about.

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