Guardz + Keepit Bundle vs Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud (Australia 2026)

Every Australian MSP serving SMB customers eventually faces the question: do I sell security first, or backup first? The honest answer is both, because they protect against different failures. Active security catches the attack at the point of execution. Backup keeps the data recoverable when prevention misses or a user makes a recoverable mistake.

Acronis spotted this years ago and built Cyber Protect Cloud as the all-in-one answer — backup, DR, security and EDR all under one agent with one console. The pitch lands hard with MSPs tired of stitching multiple security and backup vendors per tenant. We credit it honestly.

The CRS counter-pitch is the Protect & Recover bundle — Guardz for active detection, identity, endpoint, email and 24/7 MDR, paired with Keepit for vendor-independent immutable SaaS backup. Same coverage scope, two best-in-class products instead of one all-in-one. CRS handles the commercial side of both vendors on one deal, so the customer-facing complexity is closer to one vendor than two.

Two real wins for Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud.

Operational simplicity on the endpoint. One agent on the host running backup, AV and EDR. One console for the MSP technician. One billing line per customer. For MSPs whose deciding criterion is reducing tool count and console switching, Acronis is genuinely simpler. The CRS bundle reduces the count to two vendors and CRS absorbs the commercial complexity, but it does not match the one-agent simplicity on the endpoint.

Mature backup with file-level endpoint restore. Acronis has long-established backup heritage. The endpoint and M365 backup story is competent and the file-level restore experience is well-developed. For a customer whose backup story is endpoint-heavy (laptop user data restoration is a regular MSP job), the Acronis endpoint backup capability is real value.

The trade-off the customer accepts: the security and detection content is competent rather than best-in-class, the backup infrastructure shares fate with the security vendor (one Acronis incident affects both layers), and the 24/7 human-led MDR is a separate tier on top of the base platform.

Three structural wins for the CRS Protect & Recover bundle.

Best-in-class per layer. Guardz is purpose-built for SMB MSP cybersecurity — 2025 MSP Today Product of the Year, 2025 Global Infosec Awards Trailblazing MDR, US$56M Series B in 2025. The detection content, ITDR depth and 24/7 cross-surface MDR are stronger than the Acronis security module. Keepit is purpose-built for SaaS backup with vendor-independent immutable cloud infrastructure and the deepest M365 plus Entra ID coverage on the market. Each layer is led by a vendor whose entire engineering focus is that layer.

Backup vendor independence. Every prudent compliance auditor wants the backup to be independent of the production estate. If your security vendor is also your backup vendor and both run on the same infrastructure, a single failed-vendor incident takes down both layers of defence. Keepit is structurally independent of Guardz — different vendors, different infrastructure, different incident-response chain. The compliance story is cleaner.

SaaS workload coverage depth. Keepit backs up 16 SaaS platforms — M365, Google Workspace, Entra ID (including Intune profiles and Conditional Access), Salesforce, Dynamics 365, Azure DevOps, Power Platform, Jira, GitHub, Monday.com, Okta and Zendesk, with new connectors shipping quarterly. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud covers M365 and Google primarily with lighter coverage on the longer tail. For customers running diverse SaaS estates, the bundle covers more workloads.

Two factors shape the AU pricing comparison:

Acronis pricing. Acronis sells per-seat or per-workload with the various security and backup modules priced as separate SKUs. Cyber Protect Cloud at the base tier is competitive; adding Acronis EDR, advanced email security and managed detection pushes the per-seat number up. Total stack cost depends heavily on which modules the customer needs.

CRS bundle pricing. Guardz Ultimate per-seat plus Keepit per-workload on a single CRS deal gets CRS-exclusive bundled pricing — negotiated per partner based on volume and term. The base bundle is competitive with Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud + Acronis EDR + Acronis MDR; at higher volumes the bundle typically lands materially lower per seat.

The honest call: pricing alone is rarely the deciding factor. The deciding factor is whether the customer wants one-vendor simplicity (Acronis) or best-in-class-per-layer with structural independence (CRS bundle). CRS will run an honest like-for-like cost comparison if pricing is the gate.

Choose the CRS Protect & Recover bundle when:

• Best-in-class per layer matters more than one-vendor simplicity.
• Backup vendor independence from the security vendor is required (compliance, resilience).
• The customer's SaaS estate is broad — M365, Google, Salesforce, Entra ID, Dynamics, Azure DevOps — and Keepit's 16+ SaaS workload coverage matters.
• 24/7 AI plus human-led MDR with cross-surface response (identity + endpoint + email) is part of the service.
• White-label MSP delivery across an SMB customer base is a requirement.
• CRS-distributed in AU, NZ, Fiji or PNG with bundled pricing on a single deal.

Choose Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud when:

• One agent on the endpoint with one console for backup, security and EDR is the deciding factor.
• The customer's backup story is heavily endpoint-focused (laptop user data restoration is a regular job).
• The MSP is comfortable accepting backup-and-security shared fate on one vendor's infrastructure.
• The customer's SaaS estate is narrow (M365 only or M365 plus Google) and broader workload coverage is not required.
• The MSP has an existing Acronis relationship and procurement inertia favours staying on it.