Miva vs. Squarespace

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Miva
Score 5.6 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Miva Merchant is a point-and-click, online store development and management system that allows merchants to build their online store through a web browser, and lets developers provide aftermarket enhancements for the online store.N/A
Squarespace
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
$12
per month
Pricing
MivaSquarespace
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MivaSquarespace
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMiva employs a revenue-based pricing model. The Miva platform is best suited to growing mid-size and enterprise merchants that have complex business needs and are making (or planning to make) $1 million or more in annual online revenue.Personal: $12/month (paid annually) $16/month (paid monthly) Business: $18/month (paid annually) $26/month (paid monthly) Basic Commerce: $26/month (paid annually) $35/month (paid monthly) Advanced Commerce: $40/month (paid annually) $54/month (paid monthly)
More Pricing Information
Features
MivaSquarespace
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Miva
8.3
2 Ratings
8% above category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Product catalog & listings8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Product management8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk product upload9.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Branding8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile storefront9.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Product variations8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Website integration7.82 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual customization8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
CMS5.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Miva
7.5
2 Ratings
1% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Abandoned cart recovery7.32 Ratings00 Ratings
Checkout user experience7.82 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Miva
7.7
2 Ratings
8% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
eCommerce security7.72 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Miva
7.3
2 Ratings
2% below category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Promotions & discounts8.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Personalized recommendations6.82 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO6.82 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Miva
8.0
6 Ratings
3% above category average
Squarespace
-
Ratings
Multi-site management9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
Order processing7.86 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory management7.22 Ratings00 Ratings
Shipping7.72 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom functionality8.12 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Miva
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.5
59 Ratings
6% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.559 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Miva
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.3
51 Ratings
8% above category average
API00 Ratings8.044 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings8.733 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Miva
-
Ratings
Squarespace
7.8
88 Ratings
3% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.076 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings8.069 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.387 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings7.188 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.185 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings6.784 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings9.076 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings7.569 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Miva
-
Ratings
Squarespace
8.2
78 Ratings
11% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings8.966 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.171 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings8.044 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.058 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings8.958 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MivaSquarespace
Small Businesses
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
MivaSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
5.1
(22 ratings)
8.3
(88 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(16 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(5 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(4 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MivaSquarespace
Likelihood to Recommend
Miva
I feel that in the manufacturing and B2B space, Miva excels. They have the right talent on their team to ensure the technology works and scales with your business. From my experiences, Miva works with you to ensure that there is a fit. They are looking to build a partnership, and they have the ability to really understand your needs and uses. If you have a complex use case, or website need - Miva is the fit. There has not been anything that we have thrown at the platform that it cannot handle in some function. Their API library is constantly expanding, and we have even been able to improve tools that we wrote when we first started with Miva in the new API to get more function and speed. If you are simply looking to dropship goods, offer a very small product catalog, or not customize a template for different types of users, Miva may not be a great fit. Miva can do those things, but it really shines when you are working with large datasets of both customers, orders, products, and images.
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Squarespace
I have a gorgeous website that I made myself, thanks to Squarespace. I'm able to integrate marketing emails, SEO, analytics, online carts, pretty much instantly. If you want to get started fast, it's really great. I think if you want to customize square space and you're having trouble, it would be most helpful to hire a square space designer. That's what I would have done in retrospect.
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Pros
Miva
  • The ability to quickly change the look and feel of any given page in the store. The storefront, category, product description, and all checkout pages are easily customize-able using simple HTML language.
  • With minimal effort, more sophisticated changes and behaviors of the store can be modified using MivaScript, the language Miva Merchant is built upon.
  • New features are very easy to add using a huge selection of 3rd party feature modules that typically sell for less that $100. Miva has so many features already built in, but if there is a major common feature not already in the code, it's almost a sure bet that there is a affordable and easy to install module that will meet your e-commerce business requirements.
  • Miva corporation provides a high level of free support 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.
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Squarespace
  • Stupid simple to use. I know very creative people who cannot code and this is probably the easiest ever platform for them!
  • Pretty website templates and great functionality with showing off portfolios.
  • They've already figured out what are the problems that non-coding people have when creating websites and they've figured out a simple solution for all of it.
Read full review
Cons
Miva
  • The Miva admin area hasn't been the most user-friendly in the past. However, the admin in the the upcoming new Miva Merchant 9 Release has been completely revamped, is VERY user-friendly, and is formatted for desktop as well as mobile devices.
  • Some fairly standard ecommerce functionality like Gift Certificates, Coupons, Sale Prices, etc have previously required third-party modules or template customization. However, many of these features are being built into Miva Merchant upcoming releases.
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Squarespace
  • As a wine company it would really love it if Squarespace had an easy plugin for wine club subscriptions.
  • Squarespace would be awesome if it could automatically take your photos that you upload on the site and optimize them for the web and for the website.
  • I do wish we could have more than two contributors for the basic website costs.
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Likelihood to Renew
Miva
For most clients, the MIVA Merchant platform, in combination with 3rd party plugins from ADS, Emporium Plus, eMediaSales and Sebenza, has all of the bells and whistles they need. While MIVA is lacking in a mobile friendly option and the ability to easily sell soft goods like mp3's or eBooks, these additions are coming to MIVA soon. The lack of connectivity to popular POS systems is also a negative for us. We will certainly continue to offer MIVA Merchant to clients.
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Squarespace
Unless our website requires significantly more functionality in the future, I can't see us terminating our contract
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Usability
Miva
I won't say usability is all bad with Miva; basic product configuration isn't complicated and assigning products to categories works well. However, when you go beyond the most elementary tasks, things almost always become needlessly cumbersome and the information stored by the platform is inherently poorly organized. They've really hyped that Miva 9 released last year features a re-worked admin interface, but from our perspective they've simply given it a fresh coat of paint, made the layout passably mobile friendly, but yet still have not in a substantive way addressed the glaring deficiencies at the core of the platform itself. Adding custom admin area bookmarks is a band aid, not a proper fix.
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Squarespace
It's simple to use for someone who is really good with computers as well as those who are not. I've been using my personal squarespace for years and have also helped clients build a starting page which they are later able to manage theirselves.
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Reliability and Availability
Miva
I work with multiple Miva sites daily, and uptime is fantastic. Outages are rare from my experience, and any issues have generally been short and handled quickly.
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Squarespace
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Miva
I would give 10, but there were a couple of times when I was misinformed and I had to do some unnecessary work. When you have to work on every product individually and then you discover you could have done it in bulk it kind of makes you roll your eyes back. I also have an issue still with some shipping settings that no one seems to understand. But the support team is super friendly, they are trying
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Squarespace
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
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Implementation Rating
Miva
Creating the Miva store originally took a reasonable amount of time, 2-3 months, but we were unable to migrate our orders and customer accounts from the old platform. Additional refinements were required over the following 6 months to refine the functionality and features so that they worked properly for our store and fulfillment process.
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Squarespace
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Miva
Versatility and customer service. There is nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of a task and having to do tech support via a computer-generated chat box. Miva Merchant gives you a live tech support engineer 24/7.
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Squarespace
Overall, as a designer, it makes perfect sense for small to large businesses to use a site such as SquareSpace. Costs are relatively reasonable with the ability to go in and do custom code.
The issue is certain aspects of it, depending on the plan, you can't do. So, if you want to do API to the site, you need to use the top-tier program to do so. Even at custom code, you won't have access to the API section.
As well, like all templates and themes, everybody is using the same style too.
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Scalability
Miva
Miva has proven to be a great solution for smaller mom-and-pop stores through large enterprise-class businesses with tens of thousands of products. Performance is just as strong on enterprise-class stores as on considerably smaller stores, and an increasing number of marketing/sales tools are continually being added to the core Miva functionality to keep up with current marketplace demands.
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Squarespace
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Miva
  • Running a business in general (and this applies to e-commerce of course) involves not enough time to do too many things. Any place one can automate/streamline/ simplify some of these myriad things, you gain more time to focus on high value activities. We have found that the more we have been able to leverage Miva's capabilities (often with our own tools), the more time we can spend on marketing, sales and product development.
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Squarespace
  • The key positive impact on my overall business objectives is how simple Squarespace sites are to implement new information. Whenever our services change, we can quickly update pages or even change how the website flows, in a very short window of time. This allows me to get back to more urgent work sooner.
  • Our Squarespace site for Club Swim Show helped present our web series to potential partners; Club Swim Show went on to partner with a popular swimming magazine and reach a larger audience through that magazine's hosting thanks to the professional design of our original website.
  • Squarespace does not bring in customers to my storefront, which is fine for me, since I sell things infrequently and it is not my main business, but might work against someone who is expecting a Shopify or Etsy level connection with buyer markets.
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ScreenShots