Sage has come under fire from AccountingWEB members for increasing the price of its hosted application by 56%.
Sage 50 Accounts Hosted does what it says on the tin. In contrast to the much simpler Sage One, Sage 50 Accounts Hosted is based on the current version of the developer’s flagship desktop accounting application and is marketed through the Sage Accountants’ Club and the company’s usual business partners.
However a recent Any Answers post from Logika highlighted disquiet about a recent increase from £75 a month to £117 (plus VAT). Unfortunately for the AccountingWEB member, the rise was not shown immediately on Sage’s website and the firm had quoted the lower £75 pricing to a client. Sage agreed to honour the lower price months, but said it would go up to £117 (plus any further 2013 increases) in 12 months.
“Unsurprisingly our client has decided not to proceed,” commented Logika. “How can accountants confidently sign up clients to Sage Online if they know that they will be putting their clients at the mercy of Sage’s pricing policy…. 56% in one year can never be fair or reasonable even with a major upgrade.”
Mark Duncan, product manager for Sage 50 Accounts Hosted, came on to the site to answer Logika’s complaints.
The wrong web price has been fixed and Duncan explained that the increase was designed to set a similar cost of ownership for Sage 50 Hosted as for the Sage 50 Accounts Professional edition with full SageCover. The cost of ownership had been calculated over a three year period of use, and during the first year the hosted approach would work out cheaper, Duncan said later.