We humans love to compare things — it’s a natural and important part of our decision-making process. While comparisons are helpful, comparing ERP applications can be difficult. It’s relatively easy to get a list of Sage Intacct features and read Sage Intacct reviews, for example, but it’s not easy to compare pricing and implementation costs between competitors. Here at BT Partners, though, we love a challenge…
What does Sage Intacct cost a typical business? What does Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central cost? How much does it cost to implement Sage Intacct and Business Central? What about support costs? What are the major differences between the two? You’re about to find out.
Comparing Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics cost
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding Sage Intacct pricing and Cloud ERP pricing in general. It’s never as simple as a flat price in exchange for the software. Nevertheless, a baseline price comparison can be made.
Sage Intacct pricing, in the form of subscription fees, can run from $15,000 a year for a smaller five-user company with basic requirements, to $75,000 or more for a SaaS or professional services organization with complex requirements such as subscription billing, contract management and revenue recognition. For nonprofit organizations we can often lower that range by a few ticks.
For Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, pricing get more complicated. Microsoft offers a low per-user subscription fee that’s currently $70/month, which brings the annual subscription fee to just $4,500 for five users. It may sound like a deal in comparison to Sage Intacct, but it doesn’t include all the functionality that even small companies need. For example, to get the same financial reporting capabilities Sage Intacct has, Business Central users will need to subscribe to Jet Reports at more than $200 a month. To bring in Sage budgeting capabilities, Business Central requires a separate “extension”. Extensions are add-on functionality developed by 3rd party software vendors or your Business Central implementation partner and available at an additional cost.
Love the visual displays of Sage Intacct’s native dashboards? That likely requires a subscription to Microsoft’s Power BI. If your organizational structure involves multiple entities, you’ll need to add in the cost of yet another extension.
When you equalize the cost of an extended Business Central subscription to that of an out-of-the box Sage Intacct subscription, the two are fairly comparable (see chart below). While Business Central may slip in slightly lower (@$11,700) in subscription fees, your cost to implement Business Central will be substantially higher than your cost to implement Sage Intacct. It’s reasonable to assume the cost to implement Business Central is 1.5 to 2 times the cost for Intacct.
Sage Intacct implementation, training and support costs versus Business Central
Whichever cloud-based ERP you select, implementation, training and support are integral and should be included in both your budget and your ROI calculations.
A fairly standard Sage Intacct implementation will range from $20,000 to $60,000. A fairly standard Business Central implementation will cost you nearly twice as much. There are many reasons for this difference in cost, including the cost of implementing each extension you need and the inherent complexity of the product. As we mention above, some of that expense may be offset by the initially lower subscription price but be certain to ask your implementation partner to clearly disclose all implementation fees, so you can factor these into the total cost of ownership.
Support costs also vary widely between the two ERP applications. The subscription price of Sage Intacct includes Essential Support. The subscription price for Business Central does not. A typical Business Central company should budget $9,000 – $10,000 per year for product support through their partner.
Call out:
Sage Intacct implementations average half the cost cost of Microsoft Dynamics Business Central implementations.
Sage Intacct features and functionality compared to Business Central
Looking broadly at Sage Intacct and Business Central you’ll find many similarities in their feature sets and some notable differences. We will be highlighting some of the significant differences in upcoming posts.
Sage Intacct customization versus Business Central
Both Sage and Microsoft publishers host an app store where users can purchase pre-integrated add-on solutions. And both are highly configurable applications allowing the users to accommodate their unique workflows. Both can be customized by a skilled developer when out-of-the-box is just not enough. We judge the customization capabilities of both Sage Intacct and Business Central a tie.
Comparisons aside – what really matters
Modern cloud-based ERP solutions like Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are worthy competitors, and we encourage you to perform your own due diligence when selecting and implementing the right ERP solution for your business. Ultimately, it may be that either could serve you well.
While the cloud ERP software you select certainly plays a part in your long-term success, the partner you select to help implement and support your ERP solution plays a larger role. Partners don’t just sell software — we are passionate about understanding your company’s processes and committed to your success long after the go-live date. Partners are assets to your organization as allies you can bring in to discuss best practices, growth strategies, workflow optimization and more. It’s worthwhile comparing partners in the same way we’ve compared products here. After speaking to a prospect and assessing their needs and goals, we have been known to refer them to partners representing other cloud ERP applications, including Business Central. Our goal is to help our clients succeed, and if Sage Intacct is not the avenue to that success, we’ll be the first to tell you.
We’d love to answer your questions and help you understand how we can help your organization make the best ERP decisions, call us at (847) 205-5015. And stay tuned, in our next post, we’ll put NetSuite under the same spotlight.
