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SAP Business ByDesign vs SAP S/4HANA Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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

SAP Business ByDesign
Ranking in Cloud ERP
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Ranking in Cloud ERP
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud ERP category, the mindshare of SAP Business ByDesign is 7.5%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is 15.2%, up from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud ERP Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP S/4HANA Cloud15.2%
SAP Business ByDesign7.5%
Other77.3%
Cloud ERP
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ramesh Pampana - PeerSpot reviewer
Extensive real-time analytics and superior support enhance decision making but continued product evolution impacts existing investments
Improvement is needed, and they need to slow down. When I say slow down, they need to do more validation. Things are going rapidly and changing fast. For example, they moved from SAP SRM product to SAP CLM. They bought IBM CLM and marketed it as SAP CLM. Shortly after, they bought SAP Ariba and discontinued the SAP CLM product. Now they state that SAP SRM is outdated and has reached sunset. The challenge is that if a customer has already deployed the entire solution on-premises, it becomes difficult to immediately convert to the new product and manage new license costs. From a consulting perspective, it appears that SAP's biggest competitor is itself, as they sometimes discontinue their own products to promote new ones.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The standard system is stable."
"SAP Business ByDesign is connected to our S/4 HANA system, and we have developed some APIs which help us integrate the system with S/4 HANA."
"ByDesign's best features are its speed, real-time data, and reporting."
"I find the tool’s every feature valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the feature called Financial Closing Cockpit. This feature allows us to monitor our accounting and processing closely."
"I like the tool’s customization."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business ByDesign is it has a streamlined design."
"I like its modern approach. It is very modern and new technology."
"The integration between SAP EWM and S4HANA Cloud is seamless."
"What I like the most about SAP S4HANA is how reliable and powerful it is."
"SAP S4HANA Cloud has improved the efficiency and visibility of business operations, leading to potential cost and time savings."
"The implementation time was approximately 155 to 160 days, which is faster than Oracle implementation."
"For supply chain management, we are using WMS. When you go to public cloud, you get a full-fledged EWM."
"The integration is very stable."
"The integration between SAP EWM and S4HANA Cloud is seamless."
"The tool selection is really robust and scalable for multiple scenarios."
 

Cons

"There might be some hurdles when integrating with SAP ECC, but integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud is smooth."
"SAP Business ByDesign is a very vast product, but it has to be a bit more centralized. All the models need to be more centralized for a better experience."
"The solution does not support customization for forms and reports. It's not flexible in case you need some enhancements in business processes."
"Scalability is difficult."
"One disadvantage was that we had the legacy system, SAP Business One, and we could not migrate our data to SAP Business ByDesign. They should have provided a migration path."
"ByDesign could be improved by making screen modifications easier."
"The payroll module of the solution could improve."
"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."
"Their revolving AI should should be better improved."
"Sales data processing was cumbersome with many mandatory inputs. We normalized this by pulling the data out, manipulating it, and sending it back. We also had unique requirements for controlling product availability, ATP checks, and prioritization for certain customers. These were areas specific to our business model that we handled outside the tool."
"I need more options for enhancing the system, especially compared to the features available in the on-premise version."
"Generally, there's not much noise or many issues, but we sometimes open tickets. These are mainly due to underestimating business needs at the beginning of deployment or sudden changes in the business. For example, when we suddenly open branches in other countries, add many users or the business grows fast, we might need more memory or disk space. We sometimes underestimate our needs from the cloud. This isn't a problem with the cloud or the vendor but more about our estimation. We raise tickets for things like increasing memory, dealing with one-time errors, or issues with space utilization. We might need to increase resources or improve performance."
"When users enter data, the screen is not stable at that particular level. If users click in different areas, the screen jumps around, causing frustration during data capture."
"It's a huge software, and they need to make it look less complex and more user friendly. They need to work on user stories and user experiences."
"The system is very heavy and requires a lot of resources and a dedicated team."
"I would like to see enhancements in certain features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 price of the solution could be better. They have to come up with a new strategy."
"I rate the price of SAP Business ByDesign a seven out of ten."
"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 tool’s pricing is expensive."
"Everything is included in the licensing cost of the solution. However, they use a per-user model for additional charges."
"The cost starts anywhere between fifty thousand dollars and up depending on the number of licenses."
"We have to pay yearly."
"The licensing process for SAP S/4HANA Cloud has worked well."
"The solution's costs have significantly increased, and we have not seen any anticipated cost savings."
"I don't remember the specifics about the licensing, but it's scaled and modular. You pay for what you use. It's not a one-size-fits-all license. You have a license for every single module. It's similar to Oracle."
"SAP S/4 Hana isn't cheap, but its value depends on how much you can leverage from it. It's not just about the system but how well your people are trained to use it and adapt to derive benefits."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"It's very expensive."
"Pricing wise, SAP S4HANA Cloud is very expensive. The licensing cost can be 100,000 euros per year, depending on the number of users in your company."
"The pricing of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is on the higher side."
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Answers from the Community

RB
Jun 30, 2021
Jun 30, 2021
The main difference is RISE is associated with S/4 Product Range on Cloud while By Design is modeled after SAP Business One also on Cloud. So both are SaaS but the difference is in enterprise size and also application complexities. Also, RISE offers a bundle of pre-configured modules while By Design is similar to B1 with a lot more flexibility and high scalability. License wise both are per us...
See 2 answers
EB
Jun 28, 2021
Hello @Terry Jones ​, @Sanath Premachandra ​, @Ben Melchionno ​and @ASalman. Can you please assist in answering this question?
PB
Jun 30, 2021
The main difference is RISE is associated with S/4 Product Range on Cloud while By Design is modeled after SAP Business One also on Cloud.  So both are SaaS but the difference is in enterprise size and also application complexities. Also, RISE offers a bundle of pre-configured modules while By Design is similar to B1 with a lot more flexibility and high scalability. License wise both are per user on the cloud.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
The manufacturing area is a good feature.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
SAP S/4HANA Cloud is very expensive, both to purchase and maintain. It's important to evaluate the costs of recruiting and maintaining trained personnel as it's not just a one-time payment yet requ...
What needs improvement with SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
While SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers numerous functional benefits and powerful integration capabilities, there remain certain usability and operational challenges—particularly within the Fiori applicatio...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP S4HANA Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
La Trobe University, Carrefour Comércio e Indústria Ltda, Delaware Consulting and Corning Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Business ByDesign vs. SAP S/4HANA Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.