Since its launch in January 2021, RISE with SAP has become SAP's primary commercial vehicle for moving ECC customers to S/4HANA Cloud. By 2025, SAP reported that over 60% of its new S/4HANA commercial agreements included a RISE component, and the company has made RISE the centre of its go-to-market motion for ECC migration. For enterprise buyers, the appeal is genuine: a single contract, single invoice, and a clear migration pathway to the cloud removes procurement complexity and provides cost predictability. The challenge is that the simplicity of RISE bundling obscures substantial commercial variability — and SAP's RISE pricing proposals contain significant negotiable headroom that organisations without advisory support typically leave unrealised.
What RISE with SAP Actually Includes
RISE with SAP Private Cloud Edition (PCE) — the version most commonly deployed for large enterprise migrations from ECC — is a bundle comprising seven core components. Understanding each component's commercial structure is essential before beginning any RISE negotiation.
1. SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition
The core ERP system: a single-tenant, cloud-hosted instance of S/4HANA running on either AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or SAP's own data centres. Private Edition uses a dedicated server environment rather than the multi-tenant public cloud model, providing the customisation and data residency control that large enterprises typically require. The S/4HANA PE licence is included in the RISE subscription price and covers core ERP functionality aligned to the user types contracted.
2. SAP Business Technology Platform Credits
BTP is included in RISE as a credit package used to consume integration, extension, and analytics services. The BTP credit allocation in standard RISE proposals is typically sized at a level that covers basic integration use cases — connecting S/4HANA to a handful of third-party systems. Organisations with complex integration landscapes frequently exhaust the included BTP credits within 12–18 months and must purchase additional credits at rates that are significantly higher than the unit cost embedded in the original RISE subscription. The BTP credit allocation is one of the most important — and most under-scrutinised — commercial elements of RISE negotiations.
3. SAP Business Network Starter Pack
Access to SAP's procurement and supplier network at a starter tier. For most enterprises, the starter pack is insufficient for operational use and must be upgraded separately. SAP includes the starter pack to make the RISE bundle appear more comprehensive while leaving the actual procurement network cost as an upsell item.
4. Infrastructure Hosting
The infrastructure layer — servers, storage, networking, and database hosting for the S/4HANA instance — is included in the RISE subscription. SAP contracts infrastructure from hyperscaler partners (AWS, Azure, GCP) and manages it on the customer's behalf. The embedded infrastructure cost within RISE pricing is typically 20–35% more expensive than the equivalent hyperscaler infrastructure purchased directly, reflecting SAP's margin and management overhead. For organisations that are heavy hyperscaler consumers and have existing committed spend agreements with AWS, Azure, or GCP, the ability to host S/4HANA directly on their preferred hyperscaler infrastructure (outside RISE) may generate material cost savings.
5. SAP Enterprise Support
The 22% annual maintenance (in perpetual terms) is replaced by SAP Enterprise Support, which is embedded in the RISE subscription. The support tier included is standard Enterprise Support — not the enhanced Premium Engagement tier. Organisations requiring dedicated technical account management, solution architects, or enhanced SLA response times must negotiate these as additional components or move to a Premium Engagement contract at additional cost.
6. RISE Migration Tools and Methodology
SAP includes access to its RISE migration methodology, tools, and accelerators — primarily the SAP Migration Cockpit and access to SAP's Readiness Check tool. These tools support the technical migration process but do not include implementation services. The implementation of S/4HANA under RISE is delivered by a SAP SI partner (Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, etc.) at additional cost that is entirely separate from the RISE subscription.
7. Cloud ALM
SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management is the cloud-based solution management platform included with RISE. It replaces SAP Solution Manager for operations, monitoring, and change management in cloud deployments.
What RISE Does NOT Include: RISE does not include SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP IBP, or any other SAP cloud application outside S/4HANA. Organisations that currently use these applications on separate licences will continue to pay for them separately. SAP's account teams sometimes present RISE as a "full SAP cloud suite" — it is not. The cost of the ancillary cloud applications, SI implementation fees, custom development, data migration, training, and change management are all additional costs that typically add 150–300% to the RISE subscription cost over a five-year period. These must be modelled in any honest RISE total cost of ownership analysis.
RISE Pricing Benchmarks
RISE pricing is quoted on a per-user-per-month basis, with the rate dependent on user type, contract duration, committed volume, and the leverage generated during negotiations. Published SAP RISE pricing is not publicly available, but benchmark data from advisory engagements provides the following reference ranges:
| User Type | SAP Initial Proposal | Achievable Negotiated Rate | Saving Potential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced User (S/4HANA PE) | $145–$175/user/month | $90–$120/user/month | 30–38% |
| Core User (S/4HANA PE) | $85–$110/user/month | $55–$75/user/month | 28–35% |
| Self-Service User | $35–$55/user/month | $22–$38/user/month | 25–35% |
| BTP Credit (add-on) | $0.28–$0.45/credit | $0.14–$0.22/credit | 40–50% |
The variance between initial and achievable rates reflects the negotiation leverage available in RISE commercial discussions. Organisations that receive RISE proposals and respond with detailed commercial counter-analysis — particularly demonstrating awareness of SAP's margin structure and presenting credible alternatives — consistently achieve outcomes in the lower range of benchmarks. Organisations that accept initial proposals or engage in minimal negotiation consistently pay rates in the upper range.
RISE Contract Duration and Flexibility
SAP's standard RISE proposal is a five-year subscription commitment. The five-year term is not accidental: it locks in revenue for SAP, reduces the customer's ability to renegotiate, and aligns with SAP's migration delivery timeline expectations. Within the five-year term, user counts are typically committed as minimums — the organisation can add users (and be charged the contracted rate plus overuse pricing) but cannot reduce user counts below the committed minimum without penalty.
The contractual flexibility provisions within RISE are limited by default. Standard RISE contracts do not include exit rights, migration portability guarantees, or meaningful data ownership protections in the initial SAP template. Independent advisory firms including Redress Compliance and Atonement Licensing consistently negotiate the following protective clauses that are absent from SAP's standard RISE template: guaranteed data export rights within 30 days of contract termination; infrastructure portability provisions allowing migration to a different hyperscaler; price protection clauses limiting annual increases to a capped index; and step-down provisions that allow user count reduction on contract anniversary with defined notice periods.
The RISE vs Perpetual Licence Decision
The choice between RISE and a traditional perpetual S/4HANA licence should be evaluated on a total cost of ownership basis over five to ten years. The financial analysis is more complex than it initially appears, because RISE's all-in pricing must be compared not to S/4HANA perpetual licence costs alone, but to perpetual licence plus hyperscaler infrastructure plus enterprise support plus BTP credits plus Digital Access — the full cost stack of a self-managed S/4HANA deployment.
Our analysis across engagements consistently shows that RISE is commercially competitive for organisations with the following profile: fewer than 3,000 users; limited existing hyperscaler committed spend that could offset infrastructure costs; preference for operational simplicity over commercial optimisation; or planned deployment timelines under 18 months. For organisations outside this profile — particularly large enterprises with 5,000+ users, heavy hyperscaler footprints, or complex customisation requirements — perpetual or hybrid S/4HANA models typically generate better five-year economics by 15–35%.
The Seven RISE Negotiation Levers
Effective RISE negotiation requires deploying commercial leverage across multiple dimensions simultaneously. The seven most impactful levers, based on advisory engagement experience, are:
- Competitive cloud ERP evaluation: Running a documented parallel evaluation of Oracle Fusion Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, or Workday creates credible competitive pressure. SAP's RISE discounting authority escalates significantly when a genuine competitive process is visible.
- Hyperscaler committed spend offset: If your organisation has existing AWS, Azure, or GCP committed spend, demonstrating the ability to host S/4HANA on existing hyperscaler infrastructure at lower cost creates leverage for infrastructure cost reduction within RISE or hybrid deployment models.
- ECC conversion credit maximisation: The existing ECC perpetual licence value can be converted into RISE credit through SAP's conversion programme. The standard conversion credit is 15–25%; the achievable maximum is 40–55% through independent valuation of the ECC licence base and negotiated credit calculation methodology.
- BTP credit right-sizing: Independent modelling of actual BTP consumption requirements — rather than accepting SAP's conservative allocation — consistently reduces the BTP component cost by 40–60% through accurate sizing rather than excess credit purchasing.
- Contract duration negotiation: Three-year RISE agreements — available at slightly higher per-unit rates — provide significantly greater commercial flexibility. The total cost difference between a three-year and five-year commitment, accounting for market rate evolution and renegotiation opportunity, typically favours shorter terms for large enterprises.
- Quarter-end and fiscal year-end timing: SAP's fiscal year ends December 31, with significant quarterly sales targets driving discounting authority. RISE negotiations that are brought to commercial conclusion in the final two weeks of Q4 consistently generate additional discounts of 5–12% versus negotiations completed mid-quarter.
- Multi-system and multi-geography commitment: Organisations deploying S/4HANA across multiple regions or legal entities can negotiate enterprise-level RISE agreements that provide significantly lower per-user pricing in exchange for committed global volume.
RISE Negotiation Outcome: A global manufacturing organisation engaging Atonement Licensing for RISE negotiation advisory received an initial RISE proposal of $138/user/month for 8,200 Advanced Users — a five-year TCV of approximately $81M. Through competitive evaluation, ECC conversion credit maximisation, BTP right-sizing, and fiscal year-end completion, the final RISE agreement was concluded at $92/user/month with expanded contract protections — a five-year TCV of $54M. Total saving: $27M against the initial proposal. Our case studies document comparable outcomes across multiple sectors.
RISE Implementation: The Cost SAP Doesn't Discuss
The RISE subscription cost represents only 30–45% of the total cost of an S/4HANA cloud deployment. The implementation services — delivered by SAP's SI partner ecosystem — are almost always the largest single cost element of an S/4HANA programme and are entirely separate from the RISE commercial agreement. For a large enterprise deploying S/4HANA RISE with 6,000–10,000 users across multiple geographies, SI implementation costs typically range from $35M to $120M — three to six times the annual RISE subscription cost.
The SI partner market for S/4HANA implementations is itself competitive and highly negotiable. Rate card discounts of 20–35% from leading SIs are achievable for organisations that run competitive SI selection processes and negotiate engagement terms independently of the RISE commercial discussion. Bundling the SI selection with the RISE commercial negotiation — as some SAP account teams suggest — typically reduces the negotiating leverage available in both discussions.
For the comprehensive S/4HANA migration commercial strategy — covering both the RISE negotiation and the SI partner selection — see our SAP S/4HANA Negotiation guide. For the broader SAP licensing landscape, see the Complete SAP Licensing Guide. Our SAP Cloud Migration Commercial Guide white paper covers the full RISE versus perpetual financial modelling methodology.