Stay on NAV or move to Business Central: cost, value and risk over 5 years

The question is not which one costs less but which one makes you more and protects you better. Enter your figures: the calculator compares the direct cost of keeping NAV for five more years with Business Central online, adds the value you estimate for your company (hours, stock, collections, downtime) and leaves you a PDF for management. Everything is computed in your browser: no data is sent anywhere.

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Direct cost A: stay on NAV

Full users Team Members (read-mostly users) NAV Enhancement Plan ($/year) Server, SQL Server, backups and infrastructure licenses ($/year) Server administration hours, internal or external ($/year) NAV partner support ($/year) Windows Server 2016 ESU ($/year, if applicable)Only if your server is Windows Server 2016 and you plan to pay for Extended Security Updates. Reinstall on a new server (one-off, if applicable) Cyber insurance surcharge or other cost of risk ($/year)

Direct cost B: move to Business Central

Business Central edition Team Member ($/user/month) Migration to Business Central (one-off)Indicative: $25,000-45,000 for a small company with few customizations, more for heavy C/AL. Support and evolution with the partner ($/year) License discount for active Enhancement Plan (%, years 1 and 2)Microsoft offers a discount to NAV customers with an active Enhancement Plan (Bridge to Cloud); check current terms. Annual price increase (%)

Value you estimate with Business Central

No figures of ours here: these are yours. Enter what you believe you would gain from automated processes, AI agents, real-time Power BI and a system that does not stop. If you prefer a cost-only view, leave everything at zero.

Administrative hours saved per month (vendor invoices, reconciliation, reports, close)Editable estimate. Start with what is keyed by hand today: invoices, payments, Excel reports. Cost of that hour ($, fully loaded) Average inventory value ($) Stock reduction you expect from forecasting and real-time data (%) Cost of holding stock (% per year: capital, storage, insurance, obsolescence)Typically 20-30% of inventory value.

Annual revenue ($) Fewer days to collect with automatic reminders and blocks Your cost of capital (% per year) Cost of one day without the system ($: lost sales, idle hours)Leave at zero if you do not want to price the risk; the result stays honest. Downtime days avoided per year (server, failed updates, incidents)

5-year result

Direct cost: stay on NAV

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Direct cost: Business Central

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Estimated value with Business Central (5 years)

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Year	Direct cost: stay on NAV	Direct cost: Business Central	Estimated BC value	5-year net result (cumulative)

What has no price in the table and decides anyway

	Dynamics NAV on your server	Business Central online
Security	Your own server and SQL, manual patching, Windows Server 2016 and SQL 2016 already out of support or about to be	Platform operated by Microsoft: automatic patches, encryption, Microsoft Entra sign-in with MFA, backups and point-in-time restore, certified data centers
Artificial intelligence	None. What is not in the code does not exist	Copilot included in the license, agents that process invoices and orders, AI cash-flow and inventory forecasting, connection to your own assistant via MCP
Analysis and speed of decision	Custom reports, SQL extracts and Excel; the number arrives late	Four Power BI apps included, live data in Excel, Teams and Outlook; the close and the cash are visible every week, not at month end
Anticipating the market	You react when the report is ready	Forecasts, alerts and automatic approvals: you see the margin leaking and the customer about to stop paying before it happens
Growth	Every new entity, country or user is a project on the server	Multi-company, multi-currency and languages out of the box; users and countries added without infrastructure; API integrations instead of direct SQL
Updates	A project every 3-5 years, if at all; NAV 2018 out of support in January 2028	Two waves a year plus monthly fixes, automatic and tested first in your sandbox

How to read the result

Scenario A direct cost is pure cost: it does not include what you go without (AI, updates, managed security).
The value is yours: it comes from the hours, stock, collections and downtime you estimate. Change them and the result changes; the PDF records your assumptions.
Scenario B includes the full migration in year 1. If it is split into phases the outlay is spread but the total is similar.
Business Central licenses are indicative 2026 list prices. License and implementation detail.
If your server is Windows Server 2016 or SQL Server 2016, read what happens in January 2027 first.

Want your own numbers, not estimates?

Tell us your system and how many users you have. Free assessment: within a week you know your NAV version, your server, your risks and the real cost of each option. And if you migrate, each part is invoiced only after you accept it.