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SAP Business ByDesign

SAP’s older two-tier cloud suite for subsidiaries and smaller companies. SAP has stopped selling it to new customers, so the live question for existing users is where to migrate.

57 facts on record4 sourcesverified September 202614 modules

Compare with abas ERP

01Profile

Categories
ERP, Accountingverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Company size fit
20–1,000 employeesverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Cost band
Mid-marketverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Deployment
Cloudverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Headquarters
Walldorf, Germanyverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Regions served
North America, EMEA, APACverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Founded
2007verified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Owner
SAP SEverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction
Website
sap.comverified 2026-09-07Suggest a correction

02Pricing and editions

Pricing model
Quote onlyverified 2026-09-07
Published list price
None published. Stackmark records a cost band, not a modelled figure.

03Functional depth

How deeply each module is covered, as recorded against the sources below. Core and moderate are native; partner means a certified add-on carries it; none is a recorded absence.

Coverage Map · ERP and finance systems · 2026-Q3COVERAGE MAP · ERP AND FINANCE SYSTEMS · 2026-Q3AI featuresAsset managementBusiness intelligenceCRMEcommerceField serviceFinancial managementHR and payrollInventory managementLocalizationsManufacturing managementProcurementProject managementQuality managementSupply chain managementWarehouse managementSAP Business ByDesign 1SAP Business ByDesign · AI features: Unverified. Unverified — not yet checked against a source. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Asset management: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Business intelligence: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · CRM: Core. Core — native, documented as a primary module. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Ecommerce: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Field service: Partner. Partner — delivered through a certified add-on or partner product. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Financial management: Core. Core — native, documented as a primary module. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · HR and payroll: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Inventory management: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Localizations: Unverified. Unverified — not yet checked against a source. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Manufacturing management: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Procurement: Core. Core — native, documented as a primary module. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Project management: Core. Core — native, documented as a primary module. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Quality management: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Supply chain management: Core. Core — native, documented as a primary module. Footnote 1.SAP Business ByDesign · Warehouse management: Moderate. Moderate — native, documented as secondary or lighter scope. Footnote 1.CoreModeratePartnerNoneUnverifiedRows alphabetical · no totals · reuse with attribution, uncropped

Coverage Map · ERP and finance systems · 2026-Q3

  1. 1SAP Business ByDesign — depth stated from 4 sources, verified 2026-09-07; unverified: AI features, Localizations

Unverified: AI features, Localizations. Not checked yet; not a statement either way.

04Vertical focus

Industries the vendor names in its own positioning. Absence from this list is not a statement that the system is unsuitable, only that the vendor does not lead with it.

  • Professional services
  • Wholesale
  • Manufacturing

Evaluated for

  • Project-based servicesFirms that sell time and deliverables, where revenue, cost and utilisation are tracked by project and billed against milestones or hours.
  • Multi-entity consolidationA group of legal entities, often in several currencies, that needs intercompany eliminations and a consolidated close from one ledger.
  • Wholesale distributionHigh-volume buying and reselling of finished goods, where margin lives in purchasing, pricing, warehouse throughput and order fulfilment.
  • Process manufacturingFormula- or recipe-based production in batches, with lot traceability, yield variance and regulatory documentation as first-order requirements.

05Strengths and watch-outs

Strengths

  • Multi-tenant SaaS hosted by SAP; quarterly upgrades with new functionality, fixes and compliance updates are pushed automatically, with no infrastructure to run.[1]
  • Multiple companies, countries, currencies and sets of books run in one system; localisations cover more than 130 countries and 41 languages.[1]
  • Project planning, resource allocation, time recording, milestone billing and profitability tracking are among its deepest areas, suited to professional services firms.[1]
  • Finance, CRM, HR, supply chain, procurement and projects ship as one suite with prebuilt processes, so fewer separate applications need integrating.[4]
  • Runs on SAP HANA and exposes open APIs; HTML5 interface works across browsers, with iOS and Android apps for approvals and expenses.[1]
  • Batch traceability and serialisation support pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturers and distributors with recall management.[1]

Watch-outs

  • SAP delisted ByDesign for new customers on 20 April 2026, announced September 2025; no new licences are sold after that date.[1]
  • SAP has stated no end date for maintenance, and existing customers keep support and compliance updates, but longer-term roadmap investment is uncertain.[1]
  • SAP's own product pages now point ByDesign customers to migrate to SAP Cloud ERP and steer new prospects to SAP GROW.[2]
  • Sold and implemented almost exclusively through SAP resellers, with a smaller partner ecosystem than Business One or S/4HANA.[1]
  • Field service is not a native module and comes via SAP Store extensions; HR includes only basic payroll, with interfaces to third-party payroll providers.[1]
  • Cloud only, with no on-premise or perpetual licence option, and limited customisation compared with on-premise SAP products.[1]

06Consider when

  • Consider staying on SAP Business ByDesign when you are an existing customer: maintenance, compliance and support continue with no announced end date.[1]

  • Consider it only as an existing customer planning a migration; new buyers cannot licence it after 20 April 2026 and are directed to S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition or Business One.[1]

07Implementation

Typical time to go-live
4–8 months[1]verified 2026-09-07

08Evaluated alongside

Systems with a comparable size fit and cost band, which is why they appear on the same shortlists. Each link opens a head-to-head built from both records. They are the pairings a buyer is likely to shortlist, not a limit on what can be compared: any two systems in the dataset can be laid side by side, including combinations we never pair.

Those are the systems commonly evaluated alongside SAP Business ByDesign, not a limit on what can be compared. Choose any system to compare with SAP Business ByDesign.

09Module notes

One note per module the system offers: the recorded depth, what to ask in a demonstration, and which other tracked systems carry the module natively.

10Questions buyers ask

Is SAP Business ByDesign end of life?
Not in the strict sense. SAP removed it from the price list for new customers on 20 April 2026 but has stated there is no planned end date for maintenance; existing customers see no change to support or compliance updates.[1]
Can a new company still buy it?
No. After 20 April 2026 SAP stopped selling new ByDesign licences. SAP's product page directs new prospects to SAP GROW and existing customers to a migration path to SAP Cloud ERP.[2]
How is it deployed?
Cloud only, as multi-tenant SaaS hosted by SAP with quarterly automatic upgrades. There is no on-premise or perpetual licence option.[1]
How is it priced?
By quote. SAP does not publish list pricing; subscriptions were quoted per customer through the partner network, with implementation and support priced by the partner.[1]
What company size does it fit?
ERP Research reports customers from about 20 employees to several thousand, most commonly 51 to 1,000 employees, and states it is used by almost 10,000 companies.[1]
Which industries use it?
Professional services, manufacturing and wholesale distribution are the industries SAP's feature page addresses; ERP Research also notes pharmaceutical and chemical companies using its batch traceability.[4]
Where do existing customers migrate?
SAP points to S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. ERP Research also lists Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Acumatica as commonly evaluated alternatives, and suggests starting evaluation 12 to 18 months before contract end.[1]
Who owns it and when was it released?
SAP SE. The product launched in 2007 as SAP's first cloud-native ERP and has been sold mainly through SAP value-added resellers.[1]

11Sources

Every fact in this profile was taken from the pages below, on the date shown. Footnote markers on the page point here. The positioning statement is Stackmark’s own.

  1. [1]SAP Business ByDesign: Delisting & Migration | ERP Researchhttps://www.erpresearch.com/en-us/sap-business-bydesign-overview · retrieved 2026-09-07
  2. [2]SAP Business ByDesign | Overviewhttps://www.sap.com/products/erp/business-bydesign.html · retrieved 2026-09-07
  3. [3]SAP Help Portal | SAP Online Helphttps://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_BUSINESS_BYDESIGN · retrieved 2026-09-07
  4. [4]SAP Business ByDesign | Featureshttps://www.sap.com/products/erp/business-bydesign/features.html · retrieved 2026-09-07