A UK Sage alternative that does the bookkeeping for you.

The short answer

Sage says it has helped UK businesses with payroll since 1981, and Sage Accounting is its cloud product for small businesses. It does a lot for the money. Every plan, from Start at £20 a month, calculates and submits VAT returns to HMRC, manages and submits CIS, and includes payroll for at least one employee, with RTI submitted for you. Every plan has telephone support and Sage’s Copilot AI assistant.

Sage uses AI too. It says it categorises and reconciles payments automatically, and Copilot drafts payment reminders, flags likely mistakes and nudges you before deadlines. But Sage Accounting is still a conventional accounting package, with a chart of accounts, bank reconciliation and reports that you or your bookkeeper operate.

Ledgers starts from the other end. Its agents categorise and reconcile your bank transactions every night, choosing the account and the VAT treatment, and you approve only the ones they are unsure about. What Ledgers doesn’t do yet is file: VAT returns are prepared for your sign-off, and payroll RTI, the CT600 and your accounts are filed by you or your accountant. If filing from one product matters most, Sage is the simpler choice. If you are weighing up other tools too, all our comparisons follow the same format.

When Sage is the better choice

We would rather you picked the right tool than this one. Stay on Sage, or choose it, if any of these is true.

• You want to file VAT from your accounting software today. Sage submits VAT returns on every plan, including Start at £20. Ledgers prepares the return for your sign-off from Starter, but doesn’t submit it to HMRC yet; for now it is filed from MTD-compatible software that takes your records digitally, usually your accountant’s.
• You run payroll and want RTI filed for you. Payroll is included on every Sage plan: 1 employee on Start and Standard, 5 on Plus, then £1.85 per employee a month, with RTI submissions and pension auto-enrolment. Ledgers works out PAYE and National Insurance and prepares payslips and RTI figures, but you or your accountant file them.
• You file CIS returns. Sage lists managing and submitting CIS on every plan. Ledgers prepares the CIS300 for your sign-off from its Growth plan, at £79.
• You want to pick up the phone. Telephone support comes with every Sage plan. Ledgers offers live chat from Solo and priority live support from Growth.
• You hold stock. Sage Plus includes stock and inventory management.
• You want a native mobile app. Sage has iOS and Android apps. Ledgers runs in your phone’s browser, with no app-store app.
• Your bookkeeper or accountant already works in Sage. Sage is a long-standing name in UK accounting, and every Sage plan lets you work with your accountant. Moving a setup that works rarely pays.

Who should switch to Ledgers

Ledgers is for the founder or owner-manager who is the finance team, is not an accountant, and wants the books handled without becoming one. The Ledgers features page has the full list; here is when it is the better fit. If you run a limited company, our page on accounting software for UK limited companies covers Corporation Tax, dividends and Companies House in more detail.

• You are behind on the books. Ledgers categorises the backlog for you, choosing the account and the VAT treatment, and posts what it is confident about. The rest waits in a short review queue, written in plain English. Make the same call three times and it becomes a rule.
• You pay a bookkeeper mainly to categorise and reconcile. That is the work Ledgers’ agents do every night. Many companies keep an accountant for year-end and advice, and Ledgers gives them their own Accountant mode and a co-sign portal on every plan.
• You trade in more than one currency. On Sage, multi-currency is only on Plus, at £59. On Ledgers it starts at Starter, at £29, with FX revaluation.
• You want a forecast without paying for it. Sage’s cash flow forecast starts at Standard. Ledgers’ Plan, with twelve months of cash you can spend after VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax, and your runway, is on every plan, including Free.
• You snap a lot of receipts. Sage Start has no receipt capture, and Standard includes 30 captures a month before charging £0.20 each. Ledgers includes 50 documents a month on Solo and 250 on Starter.
• More than three people need the books. Sage allows 1 user on Start and 3 on Standard; unlimited users means Plus. Ledgers is priced by the transactions it processes, not by the people who log in.
• You want proof the books are right. Every AI decision is logged with a reason. A live Confidence Score from 0 to 100 shows the health of the books, and a monthly Trust Receipt is cryptographically signed so your bank, investors or next accountant can check it themselves.

Pricing: Ledgers vs Sage (as at October 2026)

Sage prices by features and by how many people log in, and includes payroll in the price. Ledgers prices by the number of bank transactions it processes each month, and the full ledger, the trust layer and accountant access come on every plan. Both sets of prices below exclude VAT.

Sage Accounting UK plans

Sage leads with 90% off for the first 6 months for new subscribers: Start £2, Standard £4.30 and Plus £5.90 a month, then the prices above. You can skip the offer and take a month free instead. Sage’s promotion terms say a discount applies to the base price only, not add-ons. Extra payroll employees are £1.85 each a month, and extra receipt captures £0.20 each.

Ledgers plans

Paying annually gives two months free (Solo is £3.99 a month billed annually). On paid plans, extra transactions are charged per transaction rather than cutting you off. Full detail is on the Ledgers pricing page.

What it might cost you: three illustrations

Worked examples, not quotes. Your costs depend on your volume, your team and what you need filed.

• A one-person VAT-registered limited company, about 80 transactions a month, with the director on payroll. Sage Start at £20 covers VAT submission and payroll for one employee, but has no supplier invoices or receipt capture; with those it is Standard at £43. Ledgers Starter at £29 includes bills and receipts and prepares the VAT return, but the return and the RTI submissions are filed elsewhere, usually by your accountant. If filing it yourself is the point, Sage Start is the cheaper buy.
• A company paying suppliers in euros, about 300 transactions a month, with four people who need access. Sage needs Plus at £59 for multi-currency, which also covers payroll for 5 employees. Ledgers Growth is £79 for up to 400 transactions, with its agents doing the categorising and reconciling. On software alone, Sage is cheaper here.
• A company that is months behind on its books. Either product needs the backlog categorised. On Sage that is you or a bookkeeper working through it. On Ledgers the agents work through it and leave you a review queue of the transactions they are unsure about.

The honest summary: Sage is good value, especially if you want VAT, CIS and payroll filed from one subscription. Ledgers makes financial sense when it replaces bookkeeping time, yours or someone else’s. For how other tools compare on price, see our Xero vs FreeAgent vs Ledgers pricing guide.

Sage prices, offer and plan inclusions checked on Sage’s UK Sage Accounting page on 13 October 2026. Sage’s page says its prices exclude VAT, as ours do. Prices change, so check before you buy.

How to move from Sage to Ledgers

Migration is free on every Ledgers plan, including Free. You can import the files yourself, or book the white-glove move and we do it for you: map your Sage chart of accounts to a clean UK one, bring your balances across, and reconcile the opening position to your bank before you go live.

1. Export your trial balance at your last month-end from Sage, with your chart of accounts and your last 12 months of transactions.
2. Ledgers’ Migration Agent posts opening balances, maps your accounts and locks the periods before cutover, so history cannot shift.
3. You review a one-page summary of what came across and what did not match, and correct anything wrong.
4. Ledgers catches up from your cutover date to today using your bank feed.
5. Run both side by side until you are satisfied, then cancel Sage.

What comes across: your opening trial balance, chart of accounts, bank balances at cutover, open invoices and bills, VAT position, and customers and suppliers. What does not, yet: full line-by-line history (it is summarised), app connections and custom report templates, so export the Sage reports and payslips you need to keep before you cancel.

If you run payroll in Sage, plan where RTI will be filed from before you move, because Ledgers prepares the figures but doesn’t submit them. The full process is on the switching page.

Ledgers vs Sage: common questions