Why we’re excited about Hyvä Commerce

What is Hyvä Commerce?

At its core, Hyvä Commerce is a subscription product (license pricing €3,000/year) that bundles together Hyvä Theme, Hyvä UI, Hyvä Checkout, plus new capabilities like Hyvä CMS, Admin Image Editor, and the promise of tools further down the roadmap (dashboard, media optimisation, etc.).

Because it's built on top of Magento 2 (Open Source or Adobe Commerce), the extensibility, ecosystem, and the parts of Magento we love remain intact — but now with a cleaner, more streamlined experience.

If you're already using Hyvä Theme or Hyvä Checkout, there's a "trade-in" path so you can consolidate into Hyvä Commerce while gaining those extra features.

What’s new (and why it matters)

From where we sit as an agency, the new features are not just “nice to have,” they open doors to smoother workflows, happier merchants, and cleaner technical foundations. Here are the highlights:

Hyvä CMS with Liveview

This is a killer one. Instead of toggling between admin editors and preview modes, Hyvä CMS offers real-time, drag/drop content editing with immediate storefront previews. Changes you make = what you see. No surprises.

That lowers the barrier for marketing/merchandising teams to update pages, banners, content — without constantly bugging developers. It also reduces context switching and speeds time to content iteration.

Admin Theme & fresher UI

Magento’s backend is powerful but can be… uninspiring. Hyvä Commerce introduces a modern, polished Admin Theme that doesn’t reinvent the wheel — everything still works as you’d expect — but delivers a nicer feel and better usability.

That’s especially appealing to merchant teams who live in the backend day to day. A more enjoyable interface isn’t just cosmetic: it helps reduce friction, mistakes, training time.

Built-in Image Editor

No more relying on external tools for simple image tweaks or cropping. With the Image Editor baked into the admin, you can make small adjustments on the fly — reframe, rotate, tweak — right where you’re managing content.

That’s a big quality-of-life win.

Roadmap: dashboard, media optimisation, etc.

Hyvä Commerce is launching with a core set, but the roadmap is promising. Upcoming features include an Admin Dashboard (key metrics at a glance) and Media Optimisation (ensuring fast-loading, visually rich pages) among others.

Because Hyvä is also committing to frequent updates, the product is less “static launch” and more "living platform."

Benefits for merchants & agencies (why this changes things)

From the agency side, Hyvä Commerce lets us deliver more with less friction. From the merchant side, it means better tools, faster iteration, and lower maintenance overhead. Here’s what we see as the biggest wins.

Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)

By bundling many features (theme, UI, checkout, CMS, image editing) in one, there’s less need for ad-hoc extensions, glue code, or custom hacks. That simplifies upgrades, reduces integration maintenance, and cuts technical debt.

Plus, the intuitive tooling means merchant teams can self-serve more, reducing support overhead.

Better performance & SEO

Hyvä Theme + Checkout (already proven) continue to push toward optimal performance, which helps with Core Web Vitals, conversion, and SEO.

New media and optimisation features will only enhance that.

Improved admin & merchant experience

When non-technical teams can directly update content or images more easily, that speeds campaigns, promotions, A/B tests, and general site freshness. The more empowered the merchant team is, the less dependency on dev cycles.

Maintain Magento’s flexibility & ecosystem

This is perhaps the most reassuring bit: you don’t lose Magento’s extensibility. Hyvä is compatible with many existing extensions (especially those made Hyvä-aware) and supports integration with ERPs, processes, and more.

In other words: you get the best of both worlds — a sleeker, more modern “shell” over Magento’s meat and bones, without sacrificing what made Magento great in the first place.

How we as an agency are adapting (and how we’ll use Hyvä Commerce)

With Hyvä Commerce’s release, we see shifts in how we approach project planning, architecture, and client collaboration. Here’s how we plan to embrace it (and how we recommend clients do, too):

Strategy first, new baseline second

We’ll lean into Hyvä Commerce as a baseline for new builds (where Magento is already in scope). Instead of layering disparate tools, we can start from a modern, cohesive foundation.

For clients migrating from “vanilla Magento + custom theme + various modules,” we can propose “replatform onto Hyvä Commerce” as a clean, future-proof upgrade path.

Focus on innovation rather than plumbing

Because so much of the repetitive, “boilerplate” admin / content work is now baked in (CMS, image editor, UI polish), we can spend more of our time on creative direction, custom features, business logic, and delivering value, rather than wiring basic admin tools.

Collaboration with merchants is smoother

Because merchants and marketing teams will have more control via CMS, image editing, dashboards, etc., the feedback loop is shorter. We anticipate fewer small “tweak requests” and more autonomy for content teams.

Ensuring extension compatibility & ecosystem participation

One change: making sure third-party extensions are compatible with Hyvä’s architecture. Hyvä maintains a “compatibility module tracker,” and provides documentation and support to vendors to help them make their extensions Hyvä-ready.

As an agency, we’ll prioritise extension partners who support Hyvä, or build compatibility bridges ourselves. That way, clients don’t lose investments in existing tools.

What to watch out for / caveats (and how to mitigate)

To be fully transparent, every new platform shift has trade-offs. We don’t see showstoppers, but here are things to keep in mind — and how we intend to handle them.

• Extension compatibility gaps: Some extensions with heavy frontend logic may need adjustment or rewriting. Mitigation: check compatibility first; leverage Hyvä’s documentation and the extension-vendor support they offer.
• Migration complexity: Moving from existing setups (especially with Page Builder, or complex content structures) to Hyvä CMS may require planning. Hyvä offers to let you enable Hyvä CMS on selected pages/blocks initially.
• Subscription model / licensing: Hyvä Commerce is subscription-based (renew annually). Clients must commit to that. But you get updates, support, and evolving features as part of it.
• Learning curve: Admin users will need orientation to the new UI, CMS, image editor. We’ll treat training as part of onboarding.

The future is looking bright

In many ways, Hyvä Commerce feels like a natural “next chapter” for Magento and the Hyvä ecosystem. It’s not a disruptive break, but a thoughtful evolution — one that respects what’s good about Magento, while breathing fresh air into its admin, content workflows, performance, and usability.

For merchants, Hyvä Commerce offers more control, fewer moving parts, lower maintenance, and a path toward faster iteration. For agencies like ours, it means we can deliver better, faster, cleaner solutions — and focus more on innovation, not plumbing.

We’re genuinely excited to get our hands on it, start building new Hyvä Commerce projects, and see how the ecosystem grows. If you’re curious how this could work for your store — whether a brand new build, a migration, or a refresh — we’d love to chat.