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BloomNation is an all-in-one website and point-of-sale (POS) platform for independent florists: software built so a shop can run and grow its own brand, prices, and customers in one system.
FTD is one of the oldest names in flowers. For florists, it offers shop software (Mercury HQ), a website product (Mercury Online), and membership in the FTD/Mercury wire network. This is a fair, factual comparison, not a takedown, and it sticks to what each company’s own materials say. But the two companies were built to do different things. BloomNation is a technology company built to make local florists independent: their own brand, website, customers, and margins. FTD began in 1910 as a network for routing orders between shops, and that wire network is still at the core of what it offers florists today.
This is the distinction that shapes everything else. BloomNation was built from the ground up as software to help a local florist run and grow their own branded business: their own site, their own customers, their own prices. FTD began as Florists’ Telegraph Delivery in 1910, created so florists could route orders to one another across a network, and that order-routing network, today the Mercury Network, is still what its florist membership is built around. FTD also sells flowers directly to consumers under its own brands and routes those orders to member florists. Both companies offer florist software today, but one exists to help you build your own business and the other exists to move orders across a shared network. Put simply: FTD is built around fulfilling orders that move across a network, while BloomNation is built around helping you gain and keep your own customers.
FTD is a floral wire service founded in 1910 that runs the Mercury Network, connecting roughly 20,000 member florists in the U.S. and Canada. For florists, its current technology includes Mercury HQ, a cloud-based shop-management and POS system that brings local, wire, and website orders into one dashboard, with delivery tracking, routing, proof-of-delivery, and payment processing. FTD also offers Mercury Online, a website product that florists pair with Mercury HQ so online orders flow into the same system. Separately, FTD operates consumer flower brands, including FTD.com and From You Flowers, that take orders from the public and route them to member florists through the network.
BloomNation is an all-in-one platform built for a florist’s own shop. In one native system you get a branded website with an integrated POS, delivery routing with zones and same-day cutoffs, events, proposals and invoicing, recipes, purchase orders and inventory, house accounts, and built-in SEO and Google Business Profile tools. On top of that, BloomNation runs a marketplace that connects florists with more customers and can send additional orders. Unlike a wire or order-gatherer order, those run through the florist’s own storefront and POS, and the customer becomes the florist’s to keep.
On a feature checklist, FTD’s own materials list the core tools a shop needs, a cloud POS, order management, website, delivery routing, and payments, and so does BloomNation (we’re describing features, not rating performance). So the decision isn’t the checklist. It’s the model, and who ends up owning your brand and your customers.
| BloomNation | FTD | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin and core purpose | A technology company building software to make florists independent and grow their own brand and customers | Founded 1910 as a florist network for routing orders between shops; still built around the Mercury wire network |
| What it is | All-in-one florist platform + optional marketplace | Florist software (Mercury HQ) + website (Mercury Online) + wire network, plus FTD’s own consumer brands |
| Cloud POS | Yes | Mercury HQ |
| Your own website | native and integrated | via Mercury Online, a separate product paired with Mercury HQ |
| Delivery routing + proof of delivery | Yes | Mercury HQ |
| Integrated payments | Yes | Mercury HQ |
| Wire-network membership | Not required | Required (FTD membership) |
| Sell your own products at your own prices | across your site | on your Mercury Online site, yes. But wire orders are codified catalog products you fulfill to spec, at a price set by the order, not by you |
| Marketplace that connects you with customers | and the customer becomes yours | FTD’s consumer brands send orders to member florists, but the customer stays with the brand/network |
| Operates its own consumer flower brands | No | Yes (FTD.com, From You Flowers) |
The biggest distinction isn’t the feature checklist. It’s that FTD is a membership wire network that also sells flowers directly to consumers under its own brands, routing those orders to florists. On a wire order, you are fulfilling someone else’s catalog product at a price you did not set, and the customer stays with the network. On your own storefront, it is your design, your price, and your customer to keep. BloomNation doesn’t run a competing consumer brand; our marketplace exists to send customers to your shop and let you keep them. And because BloomNation’s website and POS are one native platform rather than a shop system paired with a separate website product, there’s less to stitch together.
BloomNation is highly rated by florists on review sites like G2 and Capterra, and the reviews include florists who considered or switched from FTD Mercury before choosing BloomNation. One of them, explaining what keeps them with BloomNation, put it this way:
“It allows you to be authentic with your shop, and the freedom to set prices and add your own designs is what has kept me loyal to BloomNation rather than switching to another wire service.”Verified florist review, Capterra
If a large share of your business comes from sending and receiving wire/relay orders across a national network, FTD’s membership and Mercury Network are built for exactly that, and it’s a long-established option. If you’d rather own your storefront, products, pricing, and customers in one native system and pick up extra orders from a marketplace that hands the customer to you, that’s what BloomNation is for.
Yes. FTD is a floral wire service that runs the Mercury Network connecting member florists, and it also provides florist software (Mercury HQ) and a website product (Mercury Online).
Yes. Mercury HQ is FTD’s cloud POS and shop-management system, and Mercury Online is its website product that pairs with it.
BloomNation is a standalone all-in-one platform (website and POS native in one system) with an optional marketplace where the customer becomes yours. It doesn’t require wire-network membership and doesn’t run competing consumer flower brands.
BloomNation has a marketplace that connects florists with more customers and can send additional orders, but those run through the florist’s own storefront and POS and the buyer becomes the florist’s customer, rather than a network order owned by a consumer brand.
Yes. BloomNation doesn’t require exclusivity, so you can run your shop on BloomNation and still belong to a wire service if you choose.
By Gregg Weisstein, co-founder of BloomNation. Published October 1, 2026. Updated October 2, 2026. Comparison based on each company’s own published materials.
