Muvi Review, Pricing & Features: All-in-One OTT Platform for VOD, Streaming & Audio

Muvi Pricing & Cost

Here's an overview of Muvi pricing:

  • Pricing starts at $399 per month for basic features and a shared server, up to $3900 per month for the Enterprise package.
  • Most popular plan is Muvi Standard at $399 per month.
  • Mobile & TV apps come at an additional cost and are available only with the Starter Plan and more expensive plans.
  • 14-day free trial.

If you're interested in Muvi, start a free 14-day trial today.

Table of Contents

Muvi Full Review

Muvi is a cloud-based over-the-top (OTT) platform that allows content creators to build custom video-on-demand (VOD) and live streaming channels (video/audio) for the web, mobile devices and television. Since its founding in 2011, Muvi has grown to encompass over 580 platforms, which cover everything from live sports to religious events and radio broadcasting. Muvi’s primary focus is enterprises.

As an end-to-end solution, Muvi helps with all the technical aspects of your content platform, from managing IT infrastructure to setting up payment gateways. Users can build personalized websites to showcase their video, audio and physical goods without any coding or development experience. The built-in templates are limited; however, the visual editor is easy enough to use. With a little bit of effort, you can build a customized site that represents your brand. AWS Cloudflare CDN is used to deploy unbuffered videos globally.

Muvi offers native mobile and TV apps that allow you to reach consumers via multiple devices, including iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Apple TV. The company will build your apps and deploy them to different stores with your branding, making it extremely easy to develop a multi-channel presence. However, the applications are an add-on service that incur a charge on top of our regular subscription fee.

With a comprehensive set of features, versatile service offering and intuitive design, Muvi makes it possible for anyone to broadcast on live radio or launch a video-on-demand channel like Netflix.

Key Features

Below, we'll discuss the key features of Muvi and how they can benefit your business.

Content Management System

Muvi has an advanced content management system (CMS) that allows you to manage many different types of content efficiently. Audio-on-demand (AOD), video-on-demand, live streaming and even eCommerce (Muvi Kart) can all be combined on one platform and delivered to your audience with ease.

Before you start adding content, you will need to select categories to display, and you will need to assign a content format. You can structure content as either single-part (one-off) or multi-part (parent/child). If you’re looking to create a TV show with several episodes, you can set each episode as a child and set the series itself as the parent. Single-part content can be used for standalone content, such as full-length movies and one-off live streaming events. Selecting the right format is extremely important because different format metadata is necessary to make your video search-engine friendly.

Muvi Review Managing Content

Once you’ve selected the content category, you can upload your content and manage it in the libraries. Muvi has separate spaces for uploading video, audio and images. You can upload a large variety of formats, but you should stick with .mp4 for faster encoding. Content can be uploaded from your computer, server-to-server, from Dropbox, via FTP or via an S3 Sync (Amazon’s S3 server). FTP is recommended for fast uploading. You will need to use an FTP client (such as FileZilla), which can be difficult for non-technical users, but detailed instructions are available in the help section.

For growing businesses looking to keep costs down, one significant advantage of Muvi is that it doesn’t limit the number of videos you can upload. Muvi supports videos of up to 63GB. For reference, an hour of a 1080p video on YouTube (bitrate 8 Mbps) has a file size of around 3.6GB. For larger files, you will need to submit a support ticket.

Muvi Review Uploading Content

Once your content has been uploaded, you can manage all of it from within the Video Library. This is where you can edit the metadata details, add a poster for display, generate an embeddable link and enable ads for your content. One unique feature of the Video Library is the option to add related content to improve your viewers’ experience. For example, you might want to link “Professional Basketball Dribbling Tips” and “Perfect Your Basketball Jump Shot” together, allowing viewers to see the related video below the original content. However, you will need to enable the Advanced Video Player to use this feature.

Website Customization

Like most OTT platforms, Muvi allows you to create your own branded, full-featured website to display your content. There’s no coding required, and the entire process is reasonably straightforward. You can use a custom domain name (for example, https://www.yourbrand.com) to control your traffic, add static pages (e.g., an About page) and set up a menu structure to improve navigation. Thanks to the platform’s white labeling capabilities, you can customize the website to match your branding. You can even watermark your videos.

Muvi offers six templates to get you started quickly. The designs are clean and responsive; however, the choices are limited, and some templates are suitable only for specific offerings (e.g., audio only). If you don’t like any of the templates, you can use the visual editor and the Muvi BYOD (build-your-own-framework) to customize or build your own template. This is much more technical and requires knowledge of HTML/CSS. If you’re set on creating a particular design or functionality, Muvi can build a custom template for a one-time fee of $5,000.

Muvi Review Branded Website Example

Marketing

As an end-to-end platform, Muvi offers several ways to market your content, including email marketing, SEO and social media. Publishers can have customized email messages automatically sent to subscribers when specific actions occur. For example, you can send an email to a user when they sign up or when their subscription payment fails. Publishers can also send weekly or monthly newsletters to offer discounts and early-bird specials or to simply let subscribers know about new releases. Business owners who have a global audience will be pleased to know that Muvi also translates your written content into multiple languages.

Muvi Review Marketing Automation

Regardless of how established your business is, SEO is essential to your marketing strategy. Muvi recognizes this and has several built-in tools for optimizing your site and content for search engines. Title tags and meta descriptions can be added to each page to improve your visibility and ranking. There is a large range of tools for making your website SEO-friendly, including Google Webmaster & Analytics integration, XML Sitemap, SSL certificate and H1 tags functionality.

Because of recent predictions suggesting that the average Facebook user will soon be worth more than the average TV viewer, social media marketing has never been more essential for businesses. Fortunately, Muvi offers built-in social media integration, which allows you to easily share content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Plus and any other platform.

You can use social media to build anticipation for upcoming content releases, to gain valuable feedback by posting questionnaires, to notify viewers about the latest releases or to organize competitions to engage your audience. Viewers’ ability to log in from their social media accounts eliminates the need for lengthy sign-up forms. Muvi allows you to add re-targeting codes to analyze and track the performance of selected pages with respect to individual social media platforms.

Muvi Review Social Media Integration

Monetization

Muvi supports a huge range of monetization options, including subscriptions (SVOD), pay-per-view (PPV) and ad-supported networks (AVOD). You can combine multiple payment options to diversify your revenue streams and maximize your earning potential while reducing risk. For example, you can set different pay-per-view prices for subscribers and non-subscribers. You might also want to combine ads with non-subscriber content, utilize coupons, set different prices for specific episodes or even offer a temporary free trial.

Muvi Review Creating a Subscription Plan

Muvi allows viewers to access content with or without registering and to make payments directly on your platform (iOS, Apple TV, website, etc.). A large selection of built-in payment gateways is available, including Stripe, PayPal and Authorize.net. Unlike DaCast, Muvi supports multiple currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, INR, etc.), but some currencies can be used only with specific Payment Gateways and in specific countries.

Muvi Review Payment Gateway Options

Muvi Kart

Muvi Kart is a unique feature that allows you to sell physical products to complement your live streaming and VOD channels. For example, you might want to sell apparel, books or other merchandise that is related to your content. You can add Muvi Kart to your existing website or set up a separate store through the Muvi platform. Muvi Kart offers excellent flexibility for setting shipping prices by country, providing free products at checkout and monitoring order status.

Muvi Kart is an excellent addition to your content, but the initial setup can be tedious and slightly confusing. Each product must be individually added via the “Content Library” (not through the Muvi Kart section). Although it’s not a full-fledged eCommerce solution like Shopify, Muvi Kart does include the basics and makes everything available on one platform.

Analytics

Comprehensive analytics is available to help you gauge all aspects of your business, including how different types of content are performing. There are several pre-set reports, including the revenue associated with specific monetization methods, with user behaviors (registrations and actions), with bandwidth usage and with in-depth video views. Filters allow you to manipulate and view the data by section. For example, you can analyze available devices (web, iOS, Android, Fire TV), users’ viewing locations and engagement levels. Each report can be downloaded as a CSV file.

Muvi Review Analytics Example

Muvi vs. the Competition

We'll analyze how Muvi stacks up against its competitors.

Muvi vs. Uscreen

Uscreen allows content creators to launch a profitable video-on-demand service that offers both pay-per-view and recurring subscriptions. Starting at $149/month, it’s a more cost-effective option than Muvi’s $199/month. However, the platform doesn’t support audio channels or the sale of physical goods.

Both companies help content creators build a fully branded website, but the selection of templates on these platforms is fairly limited. Uscreen’s basic customization tools don’t fare well against Muvi’s extensive branding options, which go well beyond color and layout and include a channel logo, a favicon, a banner and featured sections in addition to optional design tweaks and third-party integration.

Muvi offers greater flexibility when it comes to monetization and payment methods. Unlike Uscreen, Muvi allows building an additional, advertising-based revenue stream. As the content creator, you receive 100% of the profits and can choose to run your own ads or link to ad networks.

One advantage of Uscreen is its Collaboration feature, which allows content creators to work with one another. For example, you can share your videos on more established channels to broaden your audience or welcome creators with similar content to share their videos on your platform to maximize profitability. Because of its growth features and low cost, Uscreen may be a better option for those starting out with video-on-demand.

Muvi vs. DaCast

DaCast is a live streaming platform that allows you to host on-demand videos and monetize content via subscriptions, pay-per-view or ad networks. While DaCast is primarily for live streaming, Muvi is an OTT "hybrid" platform that allows any type of content (live video streaming, video-on-demand, audio-on-demand and physical products) to be combined and monetized.

Both platforms offer an "out-of-the-box" solution, including a fully functional website, a customizable HTML5 video player and an integrated paywall. However, Muvi’s feature list is much more impressive: it includes marketing (SEO, email) and native TV and mobile apps (at an additional cost).

DaCast is by far the cheaper option. The entry-level plan starts at only $19/month (Muvi starts at $199/month), making it suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. DaCast does have Enterprise plans for $289/month, but larger organizations that are looking to combine and monetize different types of content (video, audio) in addition to selling physical goods will benefit from more robust software like Muvi’s products.

Is Muvi Right for You?

Muvi is one of the first "hybrid" platforms that allows publishers, broadcasters and content creators to monetize in a variety of ways and simultaneously manage and distribute any type of content for any device. The addition of Muvi Kart creates a unique ecosystem that allows businesses to maximize their revenue by selling physical goods alongside content.

With its "out-of-the-box" approach, Muvi takes the hassle out of launching and managing multiple content channels, leaving you with more time to focus on growing your business and expanding your audience.

Although you may pay slightly more for Muvi’s "hybrid" model, the software’s flexibility makes Muvi extremely scalable in the context of a global market. The company’s highly regarded customer support and regular updates mean you can quickly adapt to changing markets and seize opportunities that may not be available on other platforms.

If you're interested in Muvi, start a free 14-day trial today.

Muvi FAQs

Muvi is a cloud-based over-the-top (OTT) platform that allows content creators to build custom video-on-demand (VOD) and live streaming channels for the web, mobile devices, and television.

Muvi pricing starts at $399 per month for basic features and a shared server, up to $3900 per month for the Enterprise package.

Muvi comes with several valuable tools:

  • Content management system
  • Website customization
  • Marketing
  • Monetization
  • Analytics

Bruce Hogan

Bruce Hogan is Co-founder & CEO of SoftwarePundit. He leads the team's research and publishes content about software products and trends. Bruce has experience investing at multi-billion dollar private equity firms, leading teams at venture-backed technology companies, and launching new businesses. You can connect with Bruce on LinkedIn.

Bruce is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Dental software
  • Mental health software
  • SEO software
  • Social media software