Short answer. Abakion B2B Ecommerce and Sana Commerce Cloud both let Business Central calculate every price at the moment it is needed, so neither carries a separate price database that can drift from the ERP. Where they differ is architecture and reach. With Abakion B2B Ecommerce, the basket is literally a sales quote inside Business Central, and the shop sells to known customers only. With Sana Commerce Cloud, a separate storefront and admin module ask Business Central live for each price and stock figure, and the platform can also run open selling, real content and Business Central on-premises. If you sell only to known customers, run Business Central online, and want the cheapest and fastest way to a working B2B portal, Abakion B2B Ecommerce is the fit. If you need open selling alongside accounts, real content and SEO, several web shops, or Business Central on-premises, Sana Commerce Cloud is the broader and more expensive fit.
*Verified September 2026.*
What is the actual difference between Abakion B2B Ecommerce and Sana Commerce Cloud?
Both solutions push pricing logic into Business Central rather than duplicating it, and in our catalogue they carry the same logic label for that reason. What separates them is where the storefront itself lives.
Abakion B2B Ecommerce runs as an app installed directly in Business Central, together with a product information module, and the whole thing is hosted on Microsoft Azure as part of the subscription. There is no integration in the ordinary sense, because there is no second database of items, customers or prices to keep in step. When a customer adds an item to the basket, a sales quote is created in Business Central there and then, and the basket is that quote rather than a copy of it.
Sana Commerce Cloud is four parts sold by one vendor: a webstore, an admin module, Sana's own framework, and an add-on that installs inside Business Central and answers the storefront's questions while the customer is on the page. Sana keeps no separate commerce database either, so prices, stock and assortment are fetched over web services each time a page renders. The difference from Abakion is that the storefront and the ERP stay two systems asking each other questions, rather than one system doing the writing directly.
That difference carries into deployment. Abakion B2B Ecommerce only supports Business Central online. Sana's add-on is documented against both Business Central online and on-premises, with a separate installation guide for each, though Sana also obliges the customer to upgrade the ERP connector at least every two years.
How do the two solutions compare on the points that decide it?
| Abakion B2B Ecommerce | Sana Commerce Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the shop runs | App inside Business Central | Separate platform with an add-on inside Business Central |
| How prices reach the shop | Basket is the sales quote in Business Central | Live web service call to Business Central on every page |
| Sales model | Login-based selling only | Login-based portal, open selling also possible |
| Business Central deployment | Online only | Online and on-premises |
| Content, SEO and design | Not included, no CMS | Included, part of the platform |
| Product information | PIM module included | Maintained in the web shop, not in Business Central |
| Who configures the setup | Abakion, standard setup | You, per-customer field mappings, ERP connector upgraded every two years |
| Payment collected | At shipment | At checkout |
| Failed order handling | No documented retry, but the basket cannot desync from Business Central by design | Queue with retry for transient failures |
| Pricing | Public, three tiers | Not published by the vendor, third-party estimates only |
| Best fit | Known customers, Business Central online, fastest and cheapest start | Complex Business Central pricing, open and account selling together, or Business Central on-premises |
How are customer-specific prices and discounts handled?
Both solutions hand the calculation to Business Central rather than to the storefront, and in both cases that also means there is no independent campaign layer in the shop. A campaign is created as a price or discount in Business Central, not composed in the storefront.
Abakion B2B Ecommerce gets there because the quote already sits in Business Central. Customer-specific prices, agreed prices, volume discounts, discount groups, customer-specific assortment and credit limit are read and calculated by the ERP, because the sales document is the ERP document. Bundles rest on Business Central's own bills of material.
Sana Commerce Cloud gets there through a live lookup. Create a discount agreement in Business Central on Monday morning, and it applies in the store on Monday morning, without anyone touching the storefront. Bundles rest on Business Central's own bill-of-material and assembly tools too, so it is worth asking either vendor to demonstrate a bundle whose price depends on the combination in the basket, rather than describe it.
Can both solutions run an open web shop with real content?
No, and this is the sharpest difference between the two. Abakion B2B Ecommerce is login-based selling only, with no content management system, because the whole pricing mechanism assumes the customer is known in Business Central. It is a design focus, not a missing feature.
Sana Commerce Cloud supports an open catalogue section alongside the login-based portal, with guest checkout and card payment, and it includes SEO, design control and support for several web shops in the same platform. Sana states itself that it works towards WCAG 2.1 level AA for the default storefront but does not certify it, because the storefront can be configured freely, so responsibility for an accessible shop sits with you either way.
What happens to the order in Business Central?
With Abakion B2B Ecommerce, the document is always a sales quote, which leaves a natural point for a salesperson or an approver to review the order before it becomes one. With Sana Commerce Cloud, the document type, sales order or sales quote, is a setting rather than a fixed choice.
Because the Abakion basket writes directly into Business Central, there is no state where the order exists in the shop but not in the accounts, so there is nothing to fail in transfer. Sana's add-on still bridges two systems, and it keeps a retry queue for orders that fail on a transient error, but an order that fails on a data problem stays in that queue until someone looks at it. Agree up front who that person is.
Payment timing differs too. Abakion collects at shipment, the normal B2B pattern. Sana collects at checkout, and reconciling the payment provider's settlement against the general ledger is left to you and your partner to solve, not handled by the platform.
Both let Business Central calculate VAT. Abakion additionally supports Avalara AvaTax as an add-on without development.
Who configures and maintains the integration after go-live?
Abakion maintains Abakion B2B Ecommerce on a standard setup, and you maintain Sana's configuration. That single sentence is where a meaningful share of the total cost sits.
Field mappings and the add-on instance in Sana Commerce Cloud are built per customer, and you own them afterwards, on top of the recurring obligation to upgrade the ERP connector at least every two years. Abakion B2B Ecommerce ships as a finished app on a standard setup, so the vendor keeps it compatible with Business Central as it releases twice a year.
What does each solution cost?
Abakion B2B Ecommerce publishes its pricing, and Sana Commerce Cloud does not, which makes a fair comparison harder than it should be.
Abakion has three tiers: DKK 1,680 a month for under 100 active customers and 1,500 items, DKK 3,680 a month for under 1,000 customers and 5,000 items, and DKK 6,680 a month with no limits. The tier limits are guidelines the vendor states it does not enforce. The start-up project is a fixed price of DKK 45,000. Over three years, our estimate is DKK 120,000 to 400,000 for a small setup, rising to over DKK 400,000 for a large one, with lower confidence at the top end.
Sana does not publish prices. Third-party estimates put the annual licence from around EUR 5,000 to 20,000 for a smaller setup, rising above EUR 150,000 for a large one, on top of an implementation cost that can exceed the licence itself. Over three years our estimate, built on those third-party figures rather than a vendor quote, ranges from EUR 40,000 to 120,000 for a small setup to over EUR 400,000 for a large one. Treat these bands as a frame for the conversation, not a quote, and ask Sana for a written number before you budget.
Which solution should you choose?
Choose Abakion B2B Ecommerce if you:
- sell to known customers only
- run Business Central online
- want the fastest and cheapest way to a working B2B portal
- don't need a CMS, SEO or an open catalogue in the shop itself
Choose Sana Commerce Cloud if you:
- need open selling alongside account selling
- run Business Central on-premises, or want that option kept open
- want real content, SEO and design control in the storefront
- have complex Business Central pricing across many customers and can invest in a configured setup
Whichever way you lean, four things are worth asking of whoever is selling:
- a written, itemised price, since only one of the two publishes theirs
- how many concurrent users the setup has been tested with, as a number
- who owns the field mappings, and who upgrades the ERP connector every two years, with a name
- how payment settlement gets reconciled against the general ledger
Frequently asked questions
Does Abakion B2B Ecommerce support an open, anonymous web shop?
No. Abakion B2B Ecommerce is login-based selling only. The pricing mechanism assumes the customer already exists in Business Central, so there is no anonymous checkout to configure.
Does Sana Commerce Cloud support Business Central on-premises?
Yes. Sana's add-on is documented against both Business Central online and on-premises, each with its own installation guide. Abakion B2B Ecommerce supports Business Central online only.
Which solution is cheaper?
Abakion B2B Ecommerce is cheaper on the figures available, but the comparison isn't even. Abakion publishes fixed monthly pricing from DKK 800. Sana does not publish prices, and the figures used here come from third-party estimates, not a vendor quote.
Do both solutions calculate prices in Business Central?
Yes. Neither solution keeps its own price database. Abakion's basket is a Business Central sales quote directly, and Sana's storefront asks Business Central for the price on every page.
Which solution includes a product information module?
Abakion B2B Ecommerce includes one, because the standard item card in Business Central is thin and filling that gap otherwise becomes a project of its own. Sana Commerce Cloud maintains product content in the web shop itself, not through a bundled PIM.
Is Sana Commerce Cloud accessible under WCAG?
Sana states that it works towards WCAG 2.1 level AA for the default storefront, but it does not certify this, because the storefront can be configured freely. Responsibility for an accessible result sits with the customer.
How often does Sana's Business Central connector need to be upgraded?
At least every two years. It is not a large job on its own, but it is recurring, and it belongs in the operating agreement rather than being discovered later.
Can I take my storefront to another platform if I outgrow either solution?
No, not the frontend itself, in either case. The data underneath stays yours in Business Central, but neither vendor's storefront can be carried across to a different platform.
Is Sana Commerce Cloud the same kind of integration as Dynamicweb Commerce Suite?
No. Both connect to Business Central, but Dynamicweb Commerce Suite can also run with a scheduled batch integration and its own separate campaign engine, so pricing logic can end up split across two systems. Sana Commerce Cloud has no independent campaign layer at all, and every price still comes from a live call to Business Central.
Product links
Sources
- Sana architecture overview, Sana Commerce support
- Sana for Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sana Commerce support
- Sana ERP connector support policy, Sana Commerce support
- WCAG and the European Accessibility Act, Sana Commerce support
- Installing Sana for Business Central cloud, Sana Commerce help
- Sana Commerce pricing
- B2B Ecommerce for Business Central, Abakion
- Sana Commerce Cloud cost estimate, ITQlick (third-party, not vendor-confirmed). itqlick.com