Case Study: Big Couch Media achieves a 40-site Drupal migration in 45 days and exits hosting with Pantheon

How the agency got out of the hosting business for good

Big Couch Media, a Drupal-focused digital agency founded by John Studdard, was hampered by constant server capacity problems, time-consuming infrastructure management, and chaotic workflows that forced staff into change‑control and manual merges. Managing seven cloud servers, wrestling with IP/DNS moves, and supporting inconsistent local development environments kept the team from taking on bigger projects and threatened to require dedicated hires for server and code management.

Big Couch migrated 40 client sites to Pantheon in 45 days—largely via automated migration scripts—allowing the agency to exit the hosting business, shut down most servers, and scale resources on demand. The move preserved pricing for 90% of clients, delivered a 30–40% performance boost (page loads around 0.4s), enabled developers to work on any OS, and freed the team to pursue larger, more complex projects.

Big Couch Media

John Studdard

Principal & Co-Founder