Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Epicor ERP vs SAP Business ByDesign comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Epicor ERP
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
ERP (15th)
SAP Business ByDesign
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud ERP (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Resource Planning solutions, they serve different purposes. Epicor ERP is designed for ERP and holds a mindshare of 3.8%, up 2.6% compared to last year.
SAP Business ByDesign, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud ERP, holds 8.3% mindshare, down 9.1% since last year.
ERP
Cloud ERP
 

Featured Reviews

Khalid Jalal - PeerSpot reviewer
Requires extensive customization and fails to meet manufacturing needs
My overall experience with Epicor ERP is extremely bad. I just finished a call with the team, and the experience is really unsatisfactory. I will not recommend it to anyone. There's extensive customization required for Epicor ERP, and the standard process is not suitable. Though it is meant for manufacturing, it is not performing the manufacturing job effectively. Regarding the installation process, the implementation is not the problem as the installation is fine. The issue lies with configuration. Although it's supposed to be configurable, it requires customization for everything we need to do. When comparing to JD Edwards and in-house applications, a process that takes one minute in those systems takes ten minutes in Epicor ERP because users have to navigate through different screens constantly. If a user forgets to switch to one screen, the process remains incomplete, making end-user training extremely difficult. There's no automation and workflow feature that can be used without customization. Everything requires changes, making it similar to developing a new platform from scratch. Initially, we anticipated some benefits from using Epicor ERP, but based on the current outcome, it has been completely unsuccessful. The main issue is that everything requires customization rather than configuration. Unless they change their whole approach from customization to configuration, this product should not be used anywhere.
Majid-Mustafa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides custom versions of reports personalized for users
For AI initiatives, you need to purchase a separate AI license to integrate with SAP Business ByDesign. I'd recommend SAP Business ByDesign for large companies that want to check data graphically, especially for monthly income, expenses, and taxes in the millions or trillions. Overall, for large-scale companies, I'd rate it ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"For the past two years, my focus has been fully on Epicor ERP, and there are many new features which we did not deploy in our platform."
"Epicor ERP paid for itself in the first year and a half, and continued to make the company lean and more profitable by providing tools to manage business operations better, such as production scheduling, finance, and estimating products."
"I find the job management features of Epicor ERP most useful, especially for material planning. The ERP gives a perfect overview of many aspects. The scheduling is also helpful. It lets us see what we're planning and try different scenarios. For real-time analytics, I use it mostly for planning and "what if" scenarios."
"The product enables users to customize their dashboards and reports."
"The product is stable with a rating of ten."
"With Epicor, we can call a pitch between Epicor and the PLM database, which is a significant advantage."
"There's good flexibility within the inbuilt tools such as alerts, business process management, dashboards, and screen customization."
"The most valuable features of Epicor ERP are ease of use, powerful API, and comprehensive integration. It is a one-vendor solution, where other vendors need other software systems from multiple vendors."
"I find the tool’s every feature valuable."
"When comparing SAP Business ByDesign to much larger ERP solutions, such as SAP ECC 6.0 or SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business ByDesign is more user-friendly and easier to implement."
"I have found the consolidation of the business and group reports very useful. There is plenty of features and the manufacturing and finance aspect of the solution are strong."
"It has a quick implementation and onboarding of users. It is flexible with reports and powerful."
"The most helpful feature is the integrations. Integrating the tool with SAP S/4HANA Cloud is easy, facilitating implementation and deployment. The runtime analysis checks for real-time analytics to see if the software works properly. This is a powerful feature."
"The most valuable features of Business ByDesign are the integration of its modules, analytics, and dashboards."
"The standard system is stable."
"The most valuable features of SAP Business ByDesign are customer invoicing and cost and revenue, from which I get the data for my project reports."
 

Cons

"The UI is quite logical, but it needs time to train users because some functions are complex to understand. As for cons, some calculation logic is difficult to grasp and requires time to test and try out. Creating dashboards or reports needs some technical IT knowledge."
"There's a new version of the solution that has some bugginess. They're cleaning that up. The user interface is an area that needs improvement and they're improving."
"Epicor didn't care about user level and software applications. So, it's not so user-friendly for nontechnical people."
"A number of bugs in 9.05 were only fixed in 10."
"The main challenge with implementing Epicor ERP is finding the right partners, especially in Europe."
"Everything requires changes, making it similar to developing a new platform from scratch."
"There are some glitches in Epicor ERP."
"In the newer version of Epicor ERP, it's very difficult to find out that tracing."
"With SAP S/4HANA, you can design your release strategy and modify it to include as many people as possible, which is missing in SAP Business ByDesign."
"There might be some hurdles when integrating with SAP ECC, but integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud is smooth."
"The payroll module of the solution could improve."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting capability. To use it properly, you need intensive IT support. You cannot write your own reports."
"I would say budget controlling needs improvement. I mention this because it does not have all the functionalities that we need in terms of managing the budget."
"I would like the tool’s interface to be better. Currently, we use a client application to access the product. I want that to be replaced with a web version. I would like to improve the tool’s internet availability. I also want the product’s setup to be easier."
"The Arabic localization is neglected. It should have an Arabic interface. It lacks Arabic translation or support from right to left."
"The solution does not support customization for forms and reports. It's not flexible in case you need some enhancements in business processes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We bought an on-premise version of the solution. The cloud version is different. I've looked into it, but it's very competitive on the low end of the market."
"Epicor ERP is an expensive solution."
"The initial cost may be a bit high, but the maintenance cost is lower."
"When comparing Epicor ERP to the other related products, the pricing, additional enhancements, as well as implementation, are better."
"User support could be improved as well, as the consultant charges are very high."
"Pricing isn't a big problem for the solution - I haven't seen them lose deals because of it."
"The price of the solution could be better. They have to come up with a new strategy."
"Everything is included in the licensing cost of the solution. However, they use a per-user model for additional charges."
"We have to pay yearly."
"The cost starts anywhere between fifty thousand dollars and up depending on the number of licenses."
"The tool’s subscription is yearly. There is no flat pricing involved and everything has a range. Pricing depends on the functionality that you would use. You need to also pay for the additional hosting and maintenance costs."
"The price of SAP Business ByDesign is less expensive than SAP S/4HANA. However, the price is on par with other similar competitors, such as Microsoft."
"The tool’s pricing is expensive."
"The pricing depends on company size. It's cheaper for small companies and more expensive for large ones."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which ERP solutions are best for your needs.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Epicor ERP?
The licensing cost for Epicor ERP is a concern. The licensing becomes cheap, which leads people to opt for it, but then they encounter troubles similar to ours. The licensing was reasonable when we...
What needs improvement with Epicor ERP?
My overall experience with Epicor ERP is extremely bad. I just finished a call with the team, and the experience is really unsatisfactory. I will not recommend it to anyone. There's extensive custo...
What is your primary use case for Epicor ERP?
I have been using Epicor ERP, and it's still in implementation. We decided not to proceed because it is not workable for us. Anything we want to use requires complete customization. It's not a matt...
What do you like most about SAP Business ByDesign?
The most valuable features of SAP Business ByDesign are customer invoicing and cost and revenue, from which I get the data for my project reports.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business ByDesign?
The price is high, as every year SAP increases the price by 3.5%.
What needs improvement with SAP Business ByDesign?
We received a few complaints about the slowness in SAP Business ByDesign last year, so I think SAP can focus on improving performance, particularly when it becomes slow during data saving and handl...
 

Also Known As

Epicor SaaS ERP
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Standard Bank of South Africa, AOK Bundesverband, PT XL Axiata Tbk, Tvoy Dom, Schaidt Innovations GmbH & Co. KG, DeLaval International AB, EMC Corporation, Lenovo, Castle Importing Inc., Unilever, Rifle Paper Co., RAK Ceramics, Rough Country, B&G Manufacturing, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Microsoft, Infor and others in ERP. Updated: June 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.