What RISE with SAP Actually Is
RISE with SAP launched in January 2021 as SAP's answer to a commercial problem: how to accelerate the migration of its enormous ECC customer base to S/4HANA in the cloud. The on-premise SAP estate represents billions in existing licence value that SAP needed to convert to recurring subscription revenue. RISE was the vehicle for that conversion — a single subscription offering that replaced the disparate commercial relationships customers maintained for software licences, infrastructure, and support.
At its core, RISE with SAP bundles four things: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition software (the ERP system), hyperscaler infrastructure (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud — SAP manages this relationship on the customer's behalf), SAP Cloud Managed Services (covering basis operations, patching, monitoring, and availability), and a collection of additional SAP tools that have changed significantly since launch. What RISE sells as simplification is genuinely valuable — one vendor relationship, one contract, one subscription invoice — but the commercial mechanics beneath that simplification are complex and often disadvantageous for unprepared buyers.
What the Bundle Includes in 2025 and 2026
The RISE bundle composition has changed significantly since 2021. SAP restructured its cloud ERP packaging in 2025, and buyers who understood the 2022 or 2023 bundle need to review what is and is not included in current commercial proposals.
Current RISE subscriptions include SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition software licences, cloud managed services, hyperscaler infrastructure within defined SLAs, SAP Signavio (business process analysis and redesign), SAP LeanIX (enterprise architecture management), SAP Master Data Governance, and a BTP starter credit allocation. These are the standard inclusions in current RISE packages as of 2025.
What is no longer included, or has been moved to add-on status, is equally important. SAP discontinued the Premium Plus tier in mid-2025 — it is no longer sold to new customers. Certain AI capabilities previously bundled in Premium Plus tiers, including some Joule AI assistant functionality and specific SAP Analytics Cloud entitlements, are now sold as separate add-ons. SAP Datasphere, which was previously included in some premium configurations, is now typically purchased separately. The practical effect of the 2025 restructuring was that the base RISE price increased (as Cloud ERP Private replaced the old RISE Premium tier) while the included components were narrowed.
The Shelfware Problem
The RISE bundle consistently includes tools that a significant proportion of customers never deploy. SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX have genuine utility for organisations with the internal capability and bandwidth to adopt enterprise architecture and process management platforms. For organisations in the middle of a complex S/4HANA migration, deploying a separate process management tool is typically a lower priority than the migration itself.
When an included tool goes undeployed, it becomes shelfware — a component of the bundle price that delivers no return. From SAP's perspective, this is commercially rational; from a buyer's perspective, it inflates the effective cost per unit of delivered value. Before signing a RISE contract, assess realistically which bundled tools you will deploy within the first two years. If Signavio and LeanIX are unlikely to be used, that assessment creates grounds for negotiating a lower bundle price or substituting other value.
The FUE Pricing Mechanism
RISE with SAP is priced using the Full Use Equivalent (FUE) metric — a normalisation framework that allows SAP to price different user types on a comparable basis. The FUE weights are: Advanced user (full S/4HANA access) = 1.0 FUE; Core user (limited module-specific access) = 0.2 FUE; Self-Service user (basic self-service functions like employee self-service, manager self-service) = 0.05 FUE.
The total subscription cost is total FUE count multiplied by the per-FUE subscription rate. For a large enterprise with 3,000 named users, the FUE composition might range from 1,200 FUE (if most users are Core) to 2,500 FUE (if SAP's account team successfully classifies most users as Advanced). That variation — 1,300 FUE — at a negotiated per-FUE rate of $100 per month represents $1.56 million per year in annual subscription cost difference.
SAP account teams routinely over-classify users as Advanced because it maximises deal value. The counter-strategy is to conduct an independent role analysis before SAP presents its FUE proposal: map each user population to their actual transaction patterns, identify the correct S/4HANA user tier for each, and present your validated FUE composition as the basis for commercial discussion. The FUE analysis is the single most valuable pre-contract activity in terms of dollars per hour invested.
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We have validated FUE compositions across 80+ RISE engagements.Indirect Access and the DDLC Metric
Indirect access is one of the most commercially consequential aspects of any SAP relationship, and RISE does not resolve it — it restructures it. In the on-premise world, indirect access refers to the use of SAP data by third-party systems without direct user authentication. SAP has historically claimed that this usage requires additional licence fees, leading to high-profile disputes with customers including a landmark case involving Diageo that brought the issue to widespread attention.
SAP introduced the Document-Driven Licensing Concept (DDLC) in 2018 as a standardised framework for measuring indirect access. Under DDLC, the unit of measurement is the document: each time a non-SAP system creates, reads, updates, or deletes a qualifying document in SAP — a purchase order, a sales order, a goods movement, an invoice, a production order — the interaction is counted and priced. The price per document varies by document type, and the total Digital Access charge accumulates based on annual document volumes.
In a RISE contract, indirect access is addressed through the Digital Access subscription — a contractual line that defines the scope of third-party interactions included within the RISE subscription at no additional charge. The commercial risk is in what is not defined. If your RISE contract contains a Digital Access subscription with undefined or vaguely defined scope, SAP's account team will conduct a consumption review post-go-live — typically 12 to 18 months after go-live — and raise supplemental charges for any digital access activity not explicitly covered.
The buyers who avoid this outcome complete a comprehensive integration mapping exercise before contract signature: identify every system that interacts with SAP, document the specific document types each system creates or accesses, estimate annual volumes, and propose a Digital Access schedule that explicitly covers the mapped scope. Agree in the contract that this schedule is exhaustive and that no supplemental charges will be raised for activity within the defined scope. This single contractual protection can prevent seven-figure post-go-live surprises.
BTP Credits: The Hidden Consumption Risk
SAP Business Technology Platform is SAP's integration, extension, and development platform. RISE subscriptions include a starter BTP credit allocation — enough for basic integration scenarios and limited extension development. This included allocation is intentionally modest; SAP monetises BTP consumption above the included threshold through additional credit purchases.
The commercial trap is predictable. Organisations sign RISE contracts understanding that BTP credits are included. They proceed with their digital transformation roadmaps — building integrations, developing extensions, deploying analytics. BTP consumption grows. The included credits are exhausted. Additional credits must be purchased at full price (or at whatever discount SAP agrees to in a standalone negotiation, which is typically lower than the deal-level discount achieved at contract origination).
The strategic response is to model BTP consumption requirements before signing the RISE contract and negotiate the full credit volume needed for the first two years of operation as part of the initial deal. Credits included in the initial deal benefit from deal-level discounting. Credits purchased standalone, after SAP knows you depend on the platform, are purchased at higher effective cost. Additionally, negotiate roll-forward provisions for unused credits — standard credit terms often include use-it-or-lose-it provisions that create artificial pressure to consume BTP services to avoid forfeiture.
Annual Support: From 22% to Subscription
In the on-premise SAP world, annual support (Enterprise Support) is charged at approximately 22 percent of net licence value per year. This fee covers patches, upgrades, legal change packages, and access to SAP's support organisation. For large enterprises with significant on-premise licence bases, annual support represents a substantial recurring cost — often millions of dollars per year.
RISE replaces this model with a subscription that bundles software, infrastructure, managed services, and support into a single monthly or annual fee. The comparison between on-premise TCO (including support) and RISE subscription cost is the core of SAP's ROI narrative for RISE. The comparison is directionally valid but requires careful modelling: the on-premise annual support figure used as the baseline must reflect your actual negotiated support rate (many enterprises have negotiated discounts from the standard 22 percent), and the RISE subscription must be compared at the correctly modelled FUE count, not the SAP-proposed FUE count.
What Changes When You Move to S/4HANA: The Licence Baseline Reset
The migration to S/4HANA through RISE resets the licence baseline. On-premise licence categories — Professional User, Limited User, Employee, and various module-specific licences — do not carry forward into the RISE subscription. Instead, the new subscription is built from scratch using the S/4HANA user tier definitions (Advanced, Core, Self-Service) and the FUE metric.
This baseline reset is one of the most commercially significant aspects of RISE that organisations fail to anticipate. The on-premise licence estate that you have built and paid for over years is not converted at face value into equivalent RISE subscription entitlement. It is used as a starting reference point for SAP's migration credit calculations (which may or may not fully credit the value of your existing estate), and the new subscription is sized on the basis of S/4HANA user requirements, not on the basis of existing named user counts.
Understanding how your existing on-premise licence estate maps to RISE subscription entitlement — and ensuring that any migration credits offered by SAP are properly valued and applied — requires independent analysis. SAP's migration credit calculations are not always transparent, and the methodology for converting on-premise value to cloud subscription credit can be negotiated.
The Infrastructure Component: Opacity and Opportunity
RISE includes hyperscaler infrastructure — cloud computing, storage, and networking hosted on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. SAP negotiates the hyperscaler relationship centrally and resells the infrastructure as part of the RISE bundle. This creates opacity: buyers cannot directly compare the infrastructure cost within RISE against independently procured hyperscaler pricing.
SAP does not typically disclose the infrastructure cost within the RISE bundle. The implication is that buyers cannot validate whether the infrastructure component is priced at a reasonable market rate. In practice, the infrastructure within RISE is often priced at a premium relative to direct hyperscaler procurement — a premium that SAP justifies through the managed service layer and the simplification of the vendor relationship. Whether that premium is commercially justified depends on the value the organisation places on managed services and procurement simplification.
Buyers who want to understand the infrastructure component of their RISE deal should request a bill of materials (BOM) from SAP showing the individual components and their pricing. SAP is often resistant to providing full BOM transparency, but the request itself signals commercial sophistication and creates a negotiating dynamic that can produce better overall terms.
What to Do Before Signing
The deep dive into RISE mechanics points to a clear set of pre-contract actions. Complete an independent FUE composition analysis before SAP presents its proposal. Map all indirect access integrations and propose an explicit Digital Access scope at contract signature. Model BTP credit requirements for the first two years and negotiate the full volume upfront. Validate SAP's migration credit calculations against your actual on-premise licence estate value. Request a bill of materials to understand the infrastructure component pricing. Negotiate annual uplift caps to protect against cost escalation over the contract term.
Each of these actions requires time and analytical resource. The organisations that invest that resource consistently achieve materially better commercial outcomes than those that treat the RISE negotiation as a straightforward procurement exercise. For independent support on any of these activities, Redress Compliance's SAP advisory team has supported over 80 RISE engagements on the buyer side. See also our complete RISE Negotiations Guide and our RISE Migration Readiness Checklist.