ERP ROI: honest bands, not inflated vendor TEIs.
P10 / P50 / P90 sensitivity bands using Forrester's own 50% productivity-recapture rule. Implementation cost basis pulled live from erpimplementationcost.com. The honesty floor: Acumatica's 66% TEI. The inflated ceiling we're NOT recommending: Sage Intacct's 441%.
What each vendor's TEI claims, and whether to trust it
Every cited ROI here comes from a vendor-commissioned Forrester study. Honesty signals are our reading of the methodology behind each number. The Acumatica 66% TEI is the most credible floor anchor; Sage Intacct's 441% rests on a thin cost stack and is flagged.
| Vendor | Positioning | Cited 3-yr ROI | Payback | NPV | TEI date | Honesty signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acumatica Acumatica | mid market | 66% | 16mo | $1.4M | 2020-04 | Anchor floor |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP (enterprise) Microsoft | enterprise | 106% | 17mo | $8.1M | 2024-03 | Anchor mid |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Microsoft | mid market | 209% | 6mo | $0.5M | 2026-03 | Marketing-tier |
| Infor CloudSuite Infor | enterprise | 114% | 20mo | $10.5M | 2025-06 | Anchor mid |
| SAP S/4HANA SAP | enterprise | 134% | 13mo | $21.9M | 2019-09 | Stale (>4y) |
| Sage Intacct Sage | mid market | 441% | — | $1.7M | 2023-06 | Inflated ⚠ |
| Workday Financial Management Workday | enterprise | — | — | $29.3M PV | 2025-02 | PDF gated |
| NetSuite Oracle | mid market | — | — | $1.9M | 2017-12 | Stale (>4y) |
| Odoo Odoo SA | small | — | — | — | — | No TEI |
Verified 2026-06-02. 5 primary-verified · 2 stale · 0 PDF-gated · 1 benefits-PV only · 1 no TEI.
Realised customer outcomes are 35-60% below TEI projections
Forrester's own research found realised customer outcomes 35-60% below TEI projections in Year 1. ERP-specific data: of 8 ERP TEIs verified, the credible band is 66% (Acumatica, Apr 2020) to 134% (SAP, Sep 2019). TEIs claiming 200%+ rest on implausibly thin cost stacks.
Every ERP ROI calculator on Google is on a vendor's site
SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Workday, Sage, Acumatica, Infor — each publishes its own ERP ROI calculator using its own cost basis and its own implicit 100% productivity-recapture assumption. The result is single-number ROIs ranging from 100% to 500%+ depending on how aggressive the cost stack is. The buyer can't game the denominator.
erproicalculator.com does the opposite. The cost basis is pulled from the Panorama 2026 Annual ERP Report range surfaced on the sister site, erpimplementationcost.com. The sensitivity model applies Forrester's own 50% productivity-recapture rule. The headline ROI is three bands, not one number.
Plan for P50. Budget against P10. Stretch-target P90. Methodology.
The Sage Intacct 441% headline is methodology-fragile
The 2023 Forrester TEI for Sage Intacct reports 441% three-year ROI. The headline rests on a $387K total 3-year cost stack against $1.7M NPV — implausibly thin even for cloud financial management. Either the cost assumptions were unusually aggressive or customer deployments genuinely land at that cost basis (which is not what Panorama data shows for mid-market financial implementations).
Practical guidance:if your shortlist includes Sage Intacct, do your own cost basis composition against your actual implementation partner. Don't rely on Sage's headline number for the business case. Apply Forrester's 50% recapture rule and the realistic ceiling is ~220%, not 441%.