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Anaplan vs SAP ERP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Anaplan users gain ROI from reduced costs, efficiencies, increased sales, improved decision-making, and enhanced planning accuracy.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP ERP optimizes inventory and efficiency, offering long-term savings despite unclear ROI, benefiting finance more than other departments.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Anaplan's customer service is highly rated for its fast, skilled support and effective resolutions with minimal unresolved issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
SAP ERP customer service is valued for knowledgeable support but criticized for response delays and high costs without priority plans.
The technical support from Anaplan is amazing, with a dedicated team to assist in case of any issues.
SAP technical support is very good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Anaplan offers excellent scalability and integration for enterprises, though initial design may impact storage costs despite recent improvements.
Sentiment score
7.9
SAP ERP is highly scalable, with adaptability and modularity praised, though smaller businesses may face complexity and cost challenges.
Anaplan had issues before, but the new Polaris engine solves them.
It is scalable when moving from one version to another or adding additional components like warehouse management.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Anaplan is praised for its stable, high-performance cloud computing, minimizing manual tasks, and quickly resolving any rare downtimes.
Sentiment score
8.2
SAP ERP is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and effective performance in various operational environments.
Stability-wise, SAP ERP is the best product among others.
 

Room For Improvement

Anaplan users seek improvements in model sizing, reporting, visualization, performance, integration, dashboards, and usability for non-technical users.
SAP ERP needs better user interface, easier integration, improved support, flexible reporting, affordable pricing, and enhanced user-friendliness.
Advanced planning with AI, machine learning, and related plugins would be great to see in the future.
SAP ERP could improve by integrating additional components such as digital signatures and barcoding.
 

Setup Cost

Anaplan's premium pricing involves high initial costs, scales with usage, and is justified by its leading market position.
SAP ERP is costly, favored by large enterprises for features, but may deter smaller businesses due to high expenses.
The pricing is slightly on the premium side, but I do not have detailed knowledge about the exact licensing structure.
The pricing for SAP ERP is medium but slightly on the higher side.
 

Valuable Features

Anaplan offers intuitive dashboards, real-time updates, user-friendly interface, scalable features, and seamless integration, enhancing business planning efficiency.
SAP ERP offers integration, customization, and scalability with strong finance modules, enhancing decision-making and user experience for enterprises.
Anaplan's connected planning feature is its most valuable aspect, allowing for seamless financial planning, HR planning, and updates.
The consistent integrations and real-time data analytics in SAP ERP significantly enhance the decision-making process by facilitating follow-ups and action points.
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (1st), Production Planning (4th), Predictive Analytics (3rd)
SAP ERP
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
ERP (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Anaplan and SAP ERP aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Anaplan is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 13.6%, down 15.3% compared to last year.
SAP ERP, on the other hand, focuses on ERP, holds 19.0% mindshare, down 22.8% since last year.
Business Performance Management
ERP
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 09, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data integration enhances operational efficiency and flexibility
As a client developer and solutions architect, I use Anaplan for building modules and deploying logic end-to-end. I work closely with the business in an agile manner to ensure the model aligns with business needs Anaplan offers flexibility in building different options within the platform. The…
Srinivasan Kuppuswamy - PeerSpot reviewer
The amazing, robust framework with unlimited scalability earns its #1 status
The solution is not ready for the current e-commerce environment. Its was built for large enterprises who need to predictably optimize their human, material, and financial resources. ERP has evolved and businesses are changing. There are not many large corporations. Most are small enterprises with the capabilities of large enterprises through networking and platform integration. Some companies promote products but get things done with other enterprises as a network. Companies do not want to create new capacity but want to leverage existing capacity with innovative products. They do not want to spend resources on duplicating capacity or facilities. I do not think any ERP product is ready to support this environment so ERPs as a whole might end up being used for back-office functions only. It is not easy to evolve an ERP product because its intent is to integrate functions and processes within an organization. Whereas, in the new business model, processes are not limited to one's own enterprise but cut across different enterprises. There is no enterprise solution as this point in time for the current e-commerce environment so companies must integrate with many solutions.
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 9, 2021
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also li...
See 2 answers
JM
Oct 13, 2021
SAP ERP and Anaplan serve different purposes and actually work well together.   Think of SAP ERP focused on the Actuals, while Anaplan models the future. The reason why I’ve seen clients use Anaplan for planning vs. SAP BPC is Anaplan is more flexible and can easily keep up with constant changes in business planning.  While BPC is more of a consolidation tool, with Anaplan you can also have your driver-based models in a system vs. running them offline and only putting the answer into a system.   Therefore, my recommendation is to use both.
Janet Staver - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2021
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time consolidating numbers into one space, employees can reshift their focus to deep-diving into the numbers, which is a huge advantage because it frees them up to do more value-added work instead. I also like that Analplan is a collaborative solution - it makes building out forecasts and modeling data much easier than just using Excel because it is in the cloud and is more structured. Anaplan is also very well connected. For example, data from one use case can be used in other models. Moreso, if a change is made to one model, it will be changed in all other models as well. Although Anaplan requires a slight learning curve and some training, initial setup is fairly easy. And for the times where you have technical questions, I have found that support is adequate. However, Anaplan is quite expensive. Nevertheless, I am very impressed with the stability of the solution and its performance. Not only that, but I am impressed by its ability to scale phenomenally. SAP ERP has been recognized as the best solution in the class of ERP products. In addition, it provides excellent visibility into the details of enterprise resource planning. Like Anaplan, it is very scalable. I think one of the best features SAP ERP has to offer is the claim management. One disadvantage is that you cannot easily create customizations. Also, outside of the SAP for RPA it is required for you to use an additional solution on a platform as a service if you want to extend the solutions. Another downside is that the initial setup is not straightforward and can be quite complex, so you have to be prepared to handle that. Conclusion: Overall, I would give Anaplan a 9 out of 10 rating. Anaplan has many more advantages for me than SAP ERP and since both options are very pricey, Anaplan takes the win because I like that it has so much more to offer.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
What do you like most about SAP ERP?
The solution has made the most significant impact on our human resources function, specifically in HR operations and HR analytics. One feature of SAP ERP that I found most valuable is its use of co...
What needs improvement with SAP ERP?
There is a need for improvement in the business analytics aspect in financial reporting and also in sales and marketing analytics.
What is your primary use case for SAP ERP?
I am currently working in a group of companies, and we have the SAP HCM module. It is not fully implemented due to cloud issues, but we plan to transition to it. We are also using SAP S4HANA and ha...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
B&G Manufacturing, Unilever, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town, Bhopal Municipal, Corporation (BMC), adidas Group, Butcher & Packer Supply Company, Franklin Valve L.P., Evoshield, Prime Meats, a Norsan Group company, EMC Corporation, Varian Medical Systems Inc., FC Bayern Mªnchen AG, AkzoNobel Chemicals B.V., T¾V Rheinland, Pacific Drilling S.A., Fire & Rescue New South Wales, University of Amsterdam, Pa_alon S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.