Miva Reviews & Insights

Score7.5 out of 10

29 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Miva are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Limitless Customization Options: Users appreciate the platform's limitless customization options, with several reviewers stating that they can fully customize their store design and functionality to accommodate any design elements. They find it convenient to use external API options via XML and JSON, which adds even more flexibility to their customization capabilities.

Easy to Learn and Use: Many users find the platform easy to learn and program, specifically mentioning PHP, JQuery, and other programming languages. Some reviewers have praised its user-friendly interface and intuitive features, making it effortless for them to navigate and utilize the platform effectively.

Solid Architecture and Reliable Performance: The solid architecture of the platform is highly appreciated by users who find it reliable. Several users have mentioned that they trust the platform's performance as the company invests in its future development, ensuring a stable and dependable experience for their businesses.

Reviews

23 Reviews

Would Not Recommend. Beware of Terms and Conditions and Difficult User Experience

Rating: 1 out of 10

June 5, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Miva is our website platform. We have hosted on Miva for over 10 years. We are B2B and B2C and use Miva to list and manage our products. We do not use Miva to track or show inventory. We have to use Advanced Shipping Manager to manage how package shipping weights are broken down and displayed.

Cons

Search
Category and Sub Category Organization
Communication
Transparency
Customer Service
Speed of Answering Tickets
Speed of Resolving Customer Issues

Likelihood to Recommend

Miva is a SaaS closed platform. Page builder has bugs and errors, it's not as easy to work with as they say. To work with Miva, you need to work with their professional services or an agency, it's not a cheap platform to make changes to. Has anyone read the latest terms of service update from Miva sent out yesterday 5/21? It's extremely concerning. Miva could shut you off the day after a payment for your subscription fails. Why would they do this to their customers? Under section C. (ii) Payment Terms: d (ii) Customer shall be in default of this Agreement. If Customer’s Account is not paid in full on the invoice date, Miva reserves the right to interrupt or terminate Customer’s access to and use of the Services and to any other Miva Products and/or Services on the following day. Miva is not responsible for any losses or damages resulting from any interruption or termination of the Services due to outdated or incorrect payment information. Miva is based in San Diego, CA. Under California law (e.g., California Business and Professions Code § 17200 for unfair business practices), a 24-hour notice period for service suspension could be deemed unreasonable, especially for a critical business service like an ecommerce platform. Courts often expect “reasonable notice” (typically 5-30 days) to allow the customer to cure the default. This change isn't lawful and it's extremely concerning to anyone who hosts a website on their platform. No opportunity to cure? They used to have a 15 day grace period to cure. One would wonder why they would be unreasonable in taking this away when it's best practice throughout the e-commerce industry.

Victoria Cominos

Strategic Executive Assistant in Corporate at AlbanyCountyFasteners.com (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Miva is the sweet spot for mid-size companies who want better than off the shelf!

Rating: 9 out of 10

March 31, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Miva is the backend sales platform for our websites. They provide a very modern front end for our retail and wholesale customers as well as many integrations to automate our processes. One of their key strengths is customer support, so I've had a great experience working with them and our outside development team addressing our specific needs and functions. If they don't already have a module you can add on, they can either build it, or there are many outside development teams who can tackle the problem for you. The support staff at Miva are incredibly knowledgeable and US based, so an answer is always delivered in a timely manner, and probably with deeper insight than you'd ever expect! Miva works with their customers at such a personal level that I feel comfortable reaching out to any number of people at their company from the CEO all the way down and can expect a human response!

Pros

Customer support
Customization
Documentation
Flexibility
Integrations
Usability

Cons

Wholesale sales

Likelihood to Recommend

Miva has been incredibly easy to work with for our site buildouts. They have provided excellent support in all the situations where we needed them. Our sites need to accomidate retail and wholesale sales, with many different price levels as well as tax situations and if it wasn't already built in, they had modules that could handle our situation.

One area they need work on is for wholesale sales that require prebooking for later delivery and backordering out of stock items to be filled upon later deliveries. We've found another integration specialist who is working with us to fill our needs and they are excited to work with Miva so it may not be an issue for long.

Paco Goebel

Operations Manager in Information Technology at Motonation (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

If your looking for best-in-class B2B eCommerce features.. look no further.

Rating: 10 out of 10

January 27, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Miva to drive our eCommerce engine for our B2B operations. We have used it to bring our ERP system to our customers in a way they can interact with that is familiar and comfortable. Miva has been a groundbreaking change to how we are able to do business. We have many business units, each working with distributors or agencies in different ways, on top of a large support staff that manages orders. Since we have so many locations and different workflows, we needed something that was flexible. We evaluated many solutions when looking for a platform that could scale with us, and Miva was the clear choice and winner. One of the main drivers of that was the ultimate ability to customize the platform to work for our business and scale. You can adjust and edit all facets of the customer experience and a large number of the backend connections that just wasn't an option in many other platforms. Offering customized products to a different customer base was another headache that we were able to solve easily with Miva. Miva supplied us with the necessary toolset to create great websites.

Pros

Customization of the platform is limitless
External API options via XML and JSON
Easy to learn and program (PHP, JQuery, etc)
Solid Architecture - Reliable
Invests in the platform for the future

Cons

Native Integrations
Mobile App
Passwordless Login / Wallet

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Marc Vasquez

Director of Global eCommerce at Ideal Clamp Products, Inc. (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Easy for Beginners to Use, Powerful Enough for Larger Businesses, Flexible Enough to Meet Specialized Needs

Rating: 10 out of 10

July 26, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm a software engineer, not a merchant. I've been working with Miva for more than 20 years. My specialty is writing plug-in modules that customize the store's behavior. Miva Merchant is extremely versatile and flexible. It's quite powerful and easy to use out of the box, but modules can do anything you can imagine to enhance your site and streamline your workflow. A module can change the way your products are displayed, provide special fees or discounts, and modify shipping costs. It can connect to other servers to upload or download data, so you don't have to do it by hand. I'm not aware of any other e-commerce package that can beat Miva in this. The company is big enough to be stable and reliable, but small enough that they treat customers like real human beings. They have some very smart people in charge, and the top executives even answer my emails personally (although I'm careful not to abuse the privilege). There's also an active user community, and a set of Web forums where experienced users answer questions for newbies. The company also participates in these.

Pros

One of my clients sells online professional training courses. I wrote a module for him that lets customers take their exams on the Web site. It saves their work, computes their score, and even prints out a diploma when they pass.
Miva Merchant has built-in support for the most common payment processors ( PayPal Authorize.net, etc.) and shipping carriers (UPS, FedEx, Post Office, etc.). But if you want to use one that they don't support, I can write you a module for that. Or I may have one already that will work for you; I've written a lot of them.
Miva Merchant isn't just for online shopping. Some merchants use it to handle telephone orders, or for purchases in their brick-and-mortar stores. I've written modules to help with this.

Cons

As a software engineer, I find their technical documentation to be sketchy and hard to use. But that's only a problem for those of us who write modules or do other deep dives into the internal functioning.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you have a really small business -- a handful of products, and very low income -- Miva Merchant might be overkill. But if you want to start small, and be able to grow without migrating to another e-commerce package, Miva is an excellent choice. They do provide free stores for development, so you can try it out before you sign up to do actual commerce.

Kent Multer

Proprietor at Magic Metal Productions (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

24 years of experience

Review from a "non-tech" business owner

Rating: 10 out of 10

June 4, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm not your typical "tech-savvy" online retailer, so you're going to want to read this review. I'm the target audience for Wix and Shopify, and I have chosen not to use them. This is why: Our company has used Miva Merchant for our online retail presence for over 20 years. It's easy to use, especially considering my degrees are in psychology and absolutely nothing to do with tech. Their tech support is insanely good compared to other companies. They answer all of my questions, even the dumb ones. And there a lot of dumb ones. I need the versatility of Miva Merchant for the look and feel of the website almost daily. I have a very rudimentary "web" background from the 90's-early 2000s when my parents owned the company. Since I've only recently re-entered this company when my parents retired, I'm way behind the curve on what I can do (but I am constantly learning). This is where Miva Merchant really shines for me. I want to be more independent with caring for the upkeep of the website. Miva Merchant has tons of guides on using their platform, but the engineers and techs at Miva Merchant are willing to help and have made my experience jumping back into online retail a breeze. To be honest, I've looked at other platforms like Shopify Plus and Wix. It's just not what we need. We have so many product lines and recently added a wholesale line. I need a platform that's tailor-made for retail and this works for our small business. We're about to completely overhaul the look and feel of the website and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else when this happens. If I had to pinpoint one aspect of why I have chosen to stay with Miva Merchant, it's customer service. They don't farm it out. I can call or email 24/7 and I get immediate service. I never call them and get a foreign company with impersonal, handbook-driven customer service. I will emphasize that point especially if you are 1) new to online retail or 2) upsizing your online presence.

Pros

customer service
tech support
diverse retail platform

Cons

some integrations are limited or difficult (apple pay, etc.) but I have not found these to impede the functionality

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are familiar with online retail, you will find it easy to use and love the diverse way of arranging your store and products. If you are brand new to online retail, Miva Merchant has partners that can help you design the perfect present that is easy to maintain.

Rebecca Blackburn

COO (Chief Operations Officer) in Corporate at GlitzOnline (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

20 years of experience

Innovative Company

Rating: 7 out of 10

June 3, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Miva Merchant gave us the possibility to have a functional website, a website that is under our control, and a user-friendly website. All those were problems that now are in the past.

Pros

We are more than happy with Miva Merchant's support team, they are excellent at responding to any inquiry and ready to help on the spot.
Also, Miva Merchant's online resources to facilitate the proper and most effective use of its product are priceless.
Miva Merchant is a responsible, reliable, and innovative company that takes care of its customers in the best possible way!
Miva Merchant has people dedicated to supporting you with ideas and suggestions to make your website a success.

Cons

I guess it could have more tools to categorize and classify products easier and be able to add or cut some features on the listings in bulk. I have been having a bit of trouble with that.
I do believe Miva Merchant is a costly product for medium businesses. A bit more than what it should be.

Likelihood to Recommend

In my experience, MIVA should be great for any business that can afford it and is willing to exploit all it offers (great resources)

MIVA Merchant could be a bad investment for small to medium companies; unless they have direct sales as their main profit generator and have the financial ability to invest in MIVA to develop as a successful ecommerce business as well.

Ale McComic

Imports at Alexander's Tractor Parts (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Powerful Built-in Features & Extensibility

Rating: 10 out of 10

May 30, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have been using Miva for 10+ years. We run a company that sells building and maintenance supplies to the self-storage industry nationwide. Miva was initially recommended to us by a developer who did custom programming. It took us a while to get our footing and the product seemed complex at first because of our specialized needs. Over the years a few things happened: We became more comfortable with the product, Miva continuously rolled out refinements and we came to appreciate that a lot of what seemed like complexity was really a very robust and capable system that allows for significant customization. We looked at leaving Miva early on, but are glad we stayed. Most stores will find Miva just what they need right out of the box. Others, like us, may use Miva's built-in scripting language, pay for some custom development, or use one of the many free or paid modules to customize the product further. We have found the forums, support staff, online documentation, and Miva's own and 3rd party developers to be exceptional. Some people gripe about the price - we did too- but after reviewing many of the other options in our case we would pay the same or more, for a lot less.

Pros

Robust and logical admin interface
Great templating system and scripting
Excellent documentation and support

Cons

Lots of features may initially challenge some users who are used to carts with basic functionality and drag and drop design, shortcodes, and the like
Some editing of the website will require tech-savviness. For example on some larger updates templates will need to be edited to enable some new functionality
Most add-on modules provide bigger system functions to drop in, occasionally again with some tech savviness or professional installation or configuration possibly required. Some often requested smaller functionality has to be custom developed probably because the module developers focus on the bigger products. For example, I see frequent requests for the ability to buy products by dimensions, or someone wants to add a date and time stamp of some sort. If they either self-developed or subsidized development or had some other way to foster the development of smaller drop-in blocks, modules, or templates that might be something useful to consider for the future.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for medium to large volume stores or stores that anticipate long-term growth. Does a lot right out of the box and is probably suitable for most users. For more complex stuff or modifications, it would be useful to have at least one person who is tech-savvy, willing to work through documentation, or willing to pay for assistance when you need to extend functionality. Less savvy companies might also consider adding a professional support plan.

Humberto Abreu

Marketing & Design in Information Technology at All From 1 Supply (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Why Linentablecloth.com left Miva Merchant

Rating: 1 out of 10

October 11, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We left Miva for Shopify in September 2021. We used Miva for almost four years. But it became too costly compared to alternatives like Big Commerce and Shopify, and they've really fallen behind as a platform. Shopify has many more features, is much easier to use, and costs us 1/3rd the monthly rate we were paying Miva.

Pros

Rock Solid Hosting
Great Support
Good Shopping Cart Platform

Cons

Far too costly compared to alternatives
Not easy to learn or use
Limited integrations to other popular services like: Trust Pilot, Google Shopping, etc.
[In my experience, ]company management is stubborn and deaf to customer input

Likelihood to Recommend

MIVA used to fill the space for companies that weren't small, but also weren't huge. Now [I believe] they're just plain too expensive for the little guy, and also for the small and medium sized online retailers. Seems they've thrown competitive pricing to the wind, and have given into blatant greed. [In my opinion, Miva Merchant is] definitely not worth what they try to charge.

Verified User

Administrator in Corporate (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Miva Merchant, a solid and affordable platform for e-commerce

Rating: 10 out of 10

April 4, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are an independent Miva Merchant support organization that helps clients leverage the power of the Miva Merchant e-commerce platform. Our own Web site uses the Miva Merchant system as it's shopping cart system so we are drinking our own kool-aide as well. Ten years in this community we have seen Miva Corporation and the Merchant product and selection of features and service grow substantially. Most of our clients are looking for full featured e-commerce systems that are more open than something like IBM WebSphere Commerce Server and at a greatly redued cost. Miva Corporation's Merchant application fits our clients functional requirements at a very affordable price point.

Pros

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.

Cons

The system could really use a better order reporting and management system
Robust shipping functionality for UPS, USPS, and Federal Express should be included in the system if possible.
Softgood/secured content delivery would be a welcome added feature.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need an e-commerce system that is flexible and full featured at a reasonable price point I would say Miva Merchant is very hard to beat.

Steven Seale

Senior Solution Architect / Technical Project Manager in Information Technology at WFH Systems (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

One of the best ecommerce shopping carts available

Rating: 10 out of 10

April 2, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Miva Merchant as an ecommerce solution for my clients. Miva Merchant is easily capable of handling everything from smaller stores/individual sales to large and enterprise level businesses. The design is fully customizable in Miva, so I can implement my own or others' custom designs into a store and also adjust the code for SEO, google snippets, etc. Miva is extremely secure and passes all PCI/PDA-SS requirements which is extremely important. Miva is fully compatible with a number of popular third-party services like PayPal, Power Reviews, Shipworks, Authorize.net, etc and can be easily integrated with others.

Pros

Expandable Functionality: Store functionality (gift certificates, coupons, shipping,etc) can be customized via code on the page templates, or third-party services/modules can be integrated to add features. Even better is that more and more of the third-party features are being built into the core features with new releases!
Design: The store design can be fully customized to accommodate almost any design elements. Access to the page template code allows you to make customizations such as adding third-party code snippets (order tracking, live chat software, etc), adding if/then logic statements for dynamic customization, or to add a full custom design to the entire store.
Security: PCI/PDA-SS compliant - There are not a lot of carts out there that are fully PCI compliant, and this is especially critical now (credit card companies are really beginning to crack down on this).

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

How many products are in the store? What type of products do you sell, and do they have any variations/attributes (eg size, color, model #, etc)? How much traffic does your store get monthly, or what are your monthly sales? What methods of payment do you offer? What shipping methods do you offer for your orders? Do you offer affiliate accounts? How custom of a design are you looking for?

Miva is very well suited for small business to enterprise level business sites or for stores that require lots of customization.

Chris Janus

Owner, Developer in Information Technology at Janus Design (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Loading Reviews List....

Powerful Built-in Features & Extensibility

Rating: 10 out of 10

May 30, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Robust and logical admin interface
Great templating system and scripting
Excellent documentation and support

Cons

Lots of features may initially challenge some users who are used to carts with basic functionality and drag and drop design, shortcodes, and the like
Some editing of the website will require tech-savviness. For example on some larger updates templates will need to be edited to enable some new functionality
Most add-on modules provide bigger system functions to drop in, occasionally again with some tech savviness or professional installation or configuration possibly required. Some often requested smaller functionality has to be custom developed probably because the module developers focus on the bigger products. For example, I see frequent requests for the ability to buy products by dimensions, or someone wants to add a date and time stamp of some sort. If they either self-developed or subsidized development or had some other way to foster the development of smaller drop-in blocks, modules, or templates that might be something useful to consider for the future.

Likelihood to Recommend

Humberto Abreu

Marketing & Design in Information Technology at All From 1 Supply (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile