EBP Software in 2026: Product Line, Pricing & Tested Alternatives

EBP in 2026: product line, real pricing, e-invoicing compliance, and alternatives. The guide to know if this French suite is right for you.

TL;DR

EBP is a French business management software publisher founded in 1984 and acquired by Cegid in July 2024. The product line covers accounting, invoicing, business management, payroll, and industry-specific versions (construction, point of sale), available as installed licenses or cloud subscriptions. The right fit: a French micro-business or SMB running operations in-house and preferring one suite over six stacked subscriptions. The wrong fit: a sole trader piloting everything with their accountant—you'll pay less elsewhere. Full offer details on the EBP profile.

What exactly is EBP and who's behind it?

EBP publishes business management software for French micro-businesses and SMBs since 1984 and has belonged to the Cegid group since July 2024.

The company is based in the Yvelines department, in Gazeran near Rambouillet. It built its reputation on a specific niche: tradespeople, shop owners, and small SMBs wanting desktop software compliant with French law and no internal IT team.

The Cegid acquisition was announced in April 2024 and finalized on July 17 that year. The brand survived the deal and now markets itself as "EBP, A Cegid Company." In practice, the two product lines remain distinct: EBP targets the entry market and specialized trades, Cegid moves toward structured SMBs and accounting firms.

This matters more than it seems when comparing quotes. You're not buying an independent publisher—you're buying the entry tier of a listed group. Upside: legal compliance follows and real R&D budget backs it. Downside: a group's pricing policy shifts faster than a family-run SMB's.

What does the EBP product line cover, module by module?

The line breaks into four families: accounting, business management and invoicing, payroll, and industry solutions.

Accounting. Data entry, reconciliation, bank matching, VAT declarations, balance sheets. This is the historical module, the most mature, and the one accounting firms know best.

Quotes and invoicing. Quotes, invoices, payment reminders, payment tracking. PRO versions add full business management: inventory, purchasing, customer pricing, sales analytics.

Payroll. Pay slips, DSN filings, absence tracking, collective agreements. This is the module most exposed to regulatory changes—the French anchoring is heaviest here in the balance.

Industry solutions. Construction (estimates, work progress tracking), point of sale, automotive, nonprofits. These aren't marketing reskins: they carry business objects you won't find in generic invoicing software.

Each module exists in multiple tiers, from single-user to multi-user network versions. It's coherent once you know the house; it's unreadable when discovering the catalog. Book a real sales call to scope, or you'll buy two tiers above your actual need.

One useful landmark to avoid getting lost in offer names: look first at simultaneous users, then at the number of folders you must maintain, and only then at the feature list. These first two criteria decide the product tier in nearly all cases and make the quote swing from basic to triple the cost.

How much does EBP cost, in licenses and subscriptions?

Entry-level accounting offers start around twelve euros ex-VAT per month, and the tier above hovers around fifty euros ex-VAT monthly, promotional discounts aside.

Beyond that, it's a custom quote. PRO tiers, business management, payroll, and industry versions are almost always priced case-by-case based on number of seats, employee count, and selected modules. I checked pricing pages in September 2026: some grids no longer display public prices, and what you read on third-party comparison sites is often a year out of date.

The real entry cost isn't on the subscription line. It's on three other lines:

• the maintenance or support contract, which isn't always included depending on the plan;
• data migration if you're moving from another software with multiple years of history;
• training, a minimum of half a day for payroll and business management.

License or cloud: installed licenses stay defensible if you already have a server, an IT provider, and a need to run offline. In every other case, I go with subscriptions. Legal updates arrive without intervention and backup isn't your problem anymore. For the full comparison between the two models, I detailed the pitfalls in the complete invoicing software guide.

E-invoicing: where does EBP stand as I write this?

Since September 1, 2026, all French VAT-registered companies must be able to receive electronic invoices, regardless of size.

It's the first step of the reform, and it's already crossed. The second arrives September 1, 2027 for sending invoices by micro-businesses, SMBs, and sole traders. Large companies and mid-market companies have had to send since September 2026. The official schedule and practical guide are published on impots.gouv.fr.

Key point, and widely misunderstood: your management software isn't enough. You must go through an approved platform, the old name "partner digitization platform." EBP is not registered as an approved platform. The publisher chose native integration with the approved platform Shine and documents the signup path from its own software on its dedicated page.

Practical translation: if you buy EBP today, you're buying two things—the software and the connection to a platform. Ask about the cost of the second item on the first quote. It's the line sales reps forget most often, across all publishers.

Three questions to ask, in this order, to any publisher right now:

• Are you registered as an approved platform, or do you pass through a partner? If a partner, which one and at what cost?
• Is the connection included in my current subscription, or billed separately from 2027 onward?
• What happens if I switch software: does the connection follow, or do I start over?

No honest publisher answers these poorly. But few answer them unprompted, and the budget difference between two answers can exceed the software price itself over three years.

EBP or a recent SaaS tool: the criteria that really decide

The question isn't "which software has the prettiest features," but "who enters data, who controls it, and who gets it back when you leave."

Who does the accounting. If your accountant does it all, buy the tool they use. Pennylane was built exactly there: the firm works in the same database as you, and you stop entering transactions. If you keep accounting in-house with a dedicated person, the argument flips and EBP gains ground.

Your trade. On construction, the comparison isn't accounting—it's estimating and work progress. Obat and Tolteck were born for that and are faster to adopt than a general suite's construction module. I compared both in my Obat review.

Your status. A sole trader buying a management suite is looking in the wrong place. Indy, Abby, or Tiime cover the real need, filings included, for a fraction of the price. The free accounting software comparison shows exactly where the free limit sits.

Payroll. This is where I least recommend mixing. PayFit for office profiles, Combo for field teams with scheduling. A payroll module integrated into a suite makes sense mostly if you already have accounting and business management in the same house.

Exit. Ask before signing how you export your data, in what format, and at what cost. An installed suite leaves you your files, which is a real advantage. A SaaS depends on export quality. Both models have painful exits when nobody asked at entry.

Here's how I sum the trade-off for someone hesitating:

This table isn't universal; it reflects a priority order: the desk of whoever enters data comes before feature richness.

When EBP is the right choice and when it isn't

EBP suits French firms with 3 to 50 employees running administration in-house and wanting one contact.

Take EBP if you check at least three of these: you have someone dedicated to management, you need an industry module (construction, retail, nonprofit), you value a French publisher with phone support, you have existing EBP data to migrate, you want accounting and payroll from the same vendor.

Skip it if you're solo, your accountant wants to lead, or you reject the quote principle. The profile lists this as a drawback: many offers with no public price—a real friction when you want to decide in an hour.

For pure invoicing, Sellsy and Axonaut show their prices, deploy in days, and cover 80% of a small commercial SMB's needs. Henrri fits quotes and invoices with no management ambitions. And if you mainly need a business account with invoicing built in, check Qonto before buying a suite.

My method to decide in one week

I never pick management software on a sales demo—I pick it on real data.

Here's the sequence I apply, copy-paste ready:

1. List your five most frequent operations per month (typical invoice, reminder, reconciliation, pay slip, filing).
2. Ask for a demo where you hold the mouse on those five operations, not the sales rep.
3. Quote the full scope: license or subscription, seats, maintenance, approved platform, training, data migration.
4. Ask in writing for your data export procedure if you cancel.
5. Have your accountant validate the top two finalists before signing, not after.

The most common mistake I see: signing a full suite for a need that fits two modules. You pay three years for a scope you'll never open. For the direct comparison with the most-cited tool against EBP, I detailed pricing and limits in my Pennylane review.

Key takeaways

• EBP is a 1984 French publisher now under Cegid as of July 2024, with a complete line of accounting, invoicing, payroll, and industry software.
• Public pricing stops fast: beyond entry-level accounting, nearly everything requires a custom quote.
• Since September 1, 2026, receiving electronic invoices is mandatory. EBP isn't an approved platform and relies on Shine.
• The deciding criterion isn't features—it's who enters data: in-house, EBP wins. Through an accountant, Pennylane wins.
• A solo founder doesn't need a management suite: Indy or Abby suffice and cost far less.