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Akeneo Community Edition has powered thousands of businesses through their early growth—but scale brings new challenges. If you’re managing more SKUs, adding new languages, expanding into new markets, or wrangling increasingly complex product data, you’ve probably started to feel the strain.
Now, you're being nudged toward Akeneo Enterprise. But is that truly the best move in 2025?
This guide helps you spot the signs that you’ve outgrown Akeneo Community Edition, understand what to expect from the shift to Enterprise, and explore smarter alternatives—like Bluestone PIM.
What Changes When You Upgrade From Akeneo Community to Enterprise
Akeneo Enterprise isn’t just a paid version of Community Edition - it’s a different platform entirely. You’re not unlocking new features; you’re re-platforming onto a more controlled environment with its own limits.
Here’s what typically changes:
- Architecture constraints: Enterprise runs on older-generation architecture with limited flexibility, especially compared to microservices-based systems.
- User and feature limitations: Enterprise plans often include caps on users, environments, and integrations unless you're paying for top-tier access.
- Opaque pricing: Costs scale with complexity—more users, more integrations, more channels—all come with added fees.
- Longer implementation timelines: The jump from Community to Enterprise can take months and often requires third-party services or Akeneo’s own consultants.
How to Know You’ve Outgrown Akeneo Community Edition
If you're unsure whether to stick with Akeneo, ask yourself the following:
- Are your teams relying on spreadsheets to fill the gaps?
- Does content enrichment take longer as your product catalogue grows?
- Are translations or localised content still managed manually?
- Do you struggle with syndicating data to e-commerce platforms, ERP systems, or marketplaces?
- Have you postponed integrating with your DAM or customer data because it’s too complex?
When your teams are building workarounds instead of momentum, it’s time to rethink your setup.
Why Akeneo Enterprise Isn’t Always the Right Next Step
Upgrading to Akeneo Enterprise might seem like the logical next move - especially if you're hitting limitations in the Community Edition. In reality, this “upgrade” can lock you deeper into an outdated model, compounding your existing challenges instead of solving them.
Here’s what many businesses encounter after making the switch to Akeneo Enterprise:
- A legacy architecture: Not composable. Not MACH-certified. Not future-proof.
Understanding the Concept of Composable PIM
A composable PIM is built from modular, API-connected components—so you can plug in only what you need, scale flexibly, and adapt fast.
Unlike monolithic systems, composable architecture lets you integrate tools, automate workflows, and evolve without replatforming.
It’s future-ready by design.
Here’s what else you might encounter when switching to Akeneo Enterprise.:
- Limited innovation: Basic AI features and rigid workflows. In 2025, this is a serious drawback.
E-commerce teams need AI that can reduce manual work at scale - automating routine tasks, improving accuracy, and speeding up go-to-market timelines.
- Platform lock-in: Scaling requires more licenses, more services, more spend.
- Technical debt: Every new workaround costs time and resources.
If your goal is to evolve - not just extend - a more modern, composable approach to Product Information Management is a step forward your business actually needs.
What a Modern, Future-Proof PIM Should Look Like
If you’re exploring alternatives, focus on Product Information Management systems built for the demands of digital commerce today.
Here’s what a modern PIM should provide:
- Composable architecture: API-first, cloud-native, and microservices-based.
- Out-of-the-box AI capabilities: Support for enrichment, translation, tagging, analytics.
- Scalability without penalties: Unlimited users and flexible integrations.
- Data modelling for complexity: Support for complex product relationships, region-specific data, bundles, and configurations.
- Seamless omnichannel syndication: Automate delivery to e-commerce platforms, marketplaces, and print.
- Predictable, transparent pricing: No user limits. No surprise charges. No lock-in.
Modern PIM systems should serve as the cornerstone of your Composable Commerce strategy - foundational, flexible, and built for change.
Why? Because your business won’t stay the same for long.
You might want to grow your product catalogue, launch in new markets, adjust prices due to new tariffs, or meet new regulations like the EU’s Digital Product Passport. To handle all of that, you need a system that can adapt without slowing you down.
Common Scenarios Where Bluestone PIM Is the Smarter Move
Consider switching to Bluestone PIM if any of the following apply:
- Managing 10,000+ SKUs with complex variants and custom attributes across multiple markets
- Scaling to multilingual and multi-regional storefronts without duplicating effort
- Avoiding custom plugins and costly development cycles every time your product model changes
- Needing real-time integrations with ERP, Digital Asset Management (DAM), and syndication platforms—not batch-based updates
- Looking to automate enrichment using built-in AI for product descriptions
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Bluestone PIM Features Overview 2025
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Final Thoughts: Upgrade With Purpose, Not Pressure
You don't have to stay in a system that's no longer serving you. And you don’t have to settle for a costly upgrade to an outdated architecture.
Instead, rethink what you need from your PIM - and choose the option that gives you flexibility, control, and room to grow.
Want to see how switching to Bluestone PIM could impact your bottom line?
Use our ROI Calculator to estimate potential savings and gains based on your unique setup.
Curious about pricing?
Request a quote to see how Bluestone PIM compares to Akeneo Enterprise.
Use our interactive ROI Calculator to input your values and instantly estimate your return.
Real insights in just a few clicks!
ROI Of PIM Summary Result
Number of Products
How many products or SKUs do you need to onboard and/or enrich?
Average Number of Attributes per Product
How many attributes do you need to input or edit per product or SKU?
Average Time Spent on Each Attribute (in seconds)
Average Hourly Net Labour Cost (for employees handling data work)
Languages
Number of languages in which your product data will be available.
Sales Channels
Number of sales channels you plan to sell on.
STEP 1 SUMMARY
Your Current Cost of Manual Data Handling
Number of attirbute fields you need to update manually
Time spent on manual work
Your cost of manual work
- 0%
- 25%
- 50%
- 75% 100%
- Underperforming or outdated PIM
- Multi-purpose, or generic centralization Systems like ERP / MDM are used with their limited connectivity and enrichment features
- Basic tools, partial data centralization Simple ecommerce catalog, very limited data exchange, many manual updates
- Manual process, scattered data
STEP 2 SUMMARY
(With an average of 20 working days a month and 8 hours a day, saving hours annually is equivalent to the work of full-time jobs over the course of a month.)
(The average monthly full-time salary in the EU is €3,166 gross, so a saving of $ is roughly equivalent to full-time jobs.)
You want to launch
How long to launch 23,772 products without Bluestone PIM?
What is your Average Revenue Per Unit (ARPU)?
How much money does your company expect to earn on average from selling a unit of a product?
What is your average Daily Unit Sales Per Product?
On average, how many units of a product do you sell each day?
STEP 3 SUMMARY
100 products x 5 sales each per day = 500 sales/daily.
500 sales for $
Summary of Step 1 + Step 2 + Step 3
Your Combined Savings and Revenue Increase with Bluestone PIM
$ cost savings + $ revenue increase
Do you want to maximise the ROI with Bluestone PIM even further?
Elevate your savings with Bluestone PIM's advanced AI features
See what you’re spending on copywriting — and how much you could save with AI in PIM
Calculate your translation costs and discover the savings with AI Linguist in PIM.
Number of Products Needing Descriptions
Average Word Count per Product Description
Number of Attributes per Product
Attributes Length Characters
Your Manual/Human Copywriting Cost per Word
Your Current Human Copywriting Cost
to create product attributes and descriptions for products
The AI calculates costs based on the number of input and output tokens, with each token representing approximately four characters. The cost per token varies depending on the model used.
Basic GPT Model: Less powerful, lower cost, produces simpler or less detailed responses, and might be faster due to smaller size or fewer computations.
Advanced AI Model: More powerful, higher cost, produces higher-quality and more detailed responses, but could be slower because of increased computational complexity.
Pricing for AI models often decreases with each new release, making advanced processing more cost-effective over time.
Your AI Enrich Cost Estimation
Number of Products Requiring Translation
Number of attributes per product
Attributes Length Characters
Average Word Count per Product Description
Number of Languages
Your Human Translator Cost per Word
Your Current Human Translator Cost
to translate product attributes and descriptions for products in languages
The AI calculates costs based on the number of input and output tokens, with each token representing approximately four characters. The cost per token varies depending on the model used.
Basic GPT Model: Less powerful, lower cost, produces simpler or less detailed responses, and might be faster due to smaller size or fewer computations.
Advanced AI Model: More powerful, higher cost, produces higher-quality and more detailed responses, but could be slower because of increased computational complexity.
Pricing for AI models often decreases with each new release, making advanced processing more cost-effective over time.
AI Linguist Cost Estimation (SUMMARY)
