Sitecore 9 Mainstream Support Is Ending: are you getting Sitecore Upgrade inquiry?

As a Sitecore platinum partner, we are frequently consulted by many prospects for Sitecore upgrade project. Specially during the time when mainstream support is ending for any major Sitecore version.

In case, you don’t know when mainstream support is ending for your Sitecore version, you can checkout Sitecore Product Life Cycle article.

In most inquiries, a handful of details are shared about current project situation, asking for upgrade effort estimation along with pricing. It is very difficult to share accurate upgrade estimation without knowing some insights of existing Sitecore implementation.

If you are facing the same situation and looking for a questionnaire checklist to use when presented with a Sitecore upgrade project then you are at right place.

Here are top 15 generic Sitecore upgrade questions that can help you to better estimate.

What is your major.minor version of Sitecore?
How many websites are there? Are they all under single Sitecore instance or multiple instances?
How many environments do you have in total? (e.g. Dev, QA, UAT, Staging, Prod)
Is the website hosted on-premise or cloud?
If cloud, then who is your hosting provider Azure or AWS?
If on premise, are you willing to move to cloud?
Is there any Sitecore module used in current Sitecore implementation? If so, please share the list
Are you using Sitecore MVC / JSS / SXA?
Is there any ORM module such as GlassMapper used in current Sitecore solution?
Are you using WFFM (Web Form For Marketers) module in current version of Sitecore?
Is there any custom database implemented in current solution? If so, how many?
Do you want to migrate xDB data?
Is there any integration in existing Sitecore ecosystem? If so, please share the list.
Could you please share high level architecture diagram of your current ecosystem with all integrations?
If there are any enhancements/features planned to be implemented by client in-house team once source code is handed over to vendor for upgrade project? If so, please share the details of all such features and who will be responsible for merging those changes.