Sophos price

[Patrick]

I'm just starting the project/planning to remove Sophos for all my LCC schools. It seems a backward step even though EDS are adament the protection is just as good under Defender. Time will tell but I'll be exploring other options, in the meantime I'll be falling back to Defender until I can source an alternative.

Edited January 28 by Patrick

[browolf]

On 23/01/2026 at 08:34, Dan2025 said:

I managed to get Sophos through SWGFL via Phoenix in the end, I think they're less stubborn with new customers. It's also now on a yearly basis rather than 3.

 

https://swgfl.phoenixs.co.uk/SWGfL-Sophos/index.aspx

 

Turns out this one is only valid for the south west of england. I guess they have the same terms as LCC had,  for their region. 

[ITGuyNW]

18 hours ago, Patrick said:

I'm just starting the project/planning to remove Sophos for all my LCC schools. It seems a backward step even though EDS are adament the protection is just as good under Defender. Time will tell but I'll be exploring other options, in the meantime I'll be falling back to Defender until I can source an alternative.

 

The problem with defender is the management aspect. You're expecting it to "just work". To get it close to Sophos, it'll likely cost more and still doesn't have all the features.

[ITGuyNW]

9 hours ago, browolf said:

 

Turns out this one is only valid for the south west of england. I guess they have the same terms as LCC had,  for their region. 

 

Yeah its a bit ridiculous that wide berth in pricing is down to a postcode lottery.

Edited January 29 by ITGuyNW

[ITGuyNW]

Just now, ITGuyNW said:

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Edited January 29 by ITGuyNW

[Patrick]

1 hour ago, ITGuyNW said:

 

The problem with defender is the management aspect. You're expecting it to "just work". To get it close to Sophos, it'll likely cost more and still doesn't have all the features.

 

Yeah there's no real reporting or monitoring of the basic service. You just have to trust that it catches something and takes the appropriate action. The lack of monitoring concerns me, it makes it hard to evaluate if it's actually doing its job. 

[browolf]

Been looking at bitdefender which is similar but the price is per device and doesn't distinguish servers. I like the portal. 

[browolf]

so in the end. SWGFL said their discount price is only available for SW schools. I guess that is the same deal that Lancashire originally had. Also because we already had a quote from a different vendor, Phoenix could not give us a quote. However then it transpired because we are in an academy trust we can get an academy pricing quote which isn't quite as good as the Education Authority price but was still half the cost of the original quote. We have gone forward with that through Phoenix

[TechMonkey]

On 29/01/2026 at 10:29, Patrick said:

 

Yeah there's no real reporting or monitoring of the basic service. You just have to trust that it catches something and takes the appropriate action. The lack of monitoring concerns me, it makes it hard to evaluate if it's actually doing its job. 

Just to pick up on this, you do get reports of nasties and what remediation has been carried out from Defender.  We don;t have E5 or the Security module, we are on E3 though so maybe that is the difference.

[ITGuyNW]

Just an update on this. We spoke to Wave9, as an existing supplier, who as a Sophos partner have offered us a fantastic price compared to Sophos direct, so we have continued with them. They are sorting the migration now.

[crwardell]

On 17/11/2025 at 15:49, K_Renshaw said:

If anyone is interested, SEGfL are offering Sophos Intercept X at discounted rates, available nationwide.
3 year licence from Feb 2026 to April 2029
£7.90 per workstation (3 year price)
£15.50 per server (3 year price)
Email [email protected] if you want to buy into this enterprise licence

Sophos Flyer Nov 25.pdf 3.4 MB · 56 downloads

Thanks for sharing this. We have recently moved from LCC to this. It costs roughly the same as what we were paying LCC. The database move happened with no downtime. Thankfully we now don't have to spend thousands on a new defender setup and spend many hours training on how to use it. Sophos just works and requires minimal training. 

Thanks SEGfl and thank you R_Kenshaw for providing the information.

 

Note for others: -

This is still available if you still debating what to do....