SAP BTP Consumption and Cost Optimization Strategies
SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) offers powerful cloud services for integration, extension, analytics, and more – but with that power comes a complex licensing and cost model. Unlike traditional on-premise licenses, BTP is largely sold as a cloud consumption service, meaning costs can scale up unexpectedly if not managed.
This article provides SAP licensing professionals and Software Asset Management (SAM) managers with a detailed guide to how SAP BTP is licensed (across all industries, for both RISE with SAP customers and standalone BTP consumers) and strategies to optimize consumption and costs.
We maintain an independent, customer-centric tone, focusing on managing risk and cost predictability, and cautioning against blindly accepting vendor-favorable terms. The goal is to help you fully leverage BTP’s benefits without any unpleasant billing surprises.
BTP Licensing Models: Credits, Pay-As-You-Go, and Subscription Tiers
SAP BTP can be consumed under three main commercial models: a credit-based enterprise agreement, a pay-as-you-go plan, or subscription (tiered) plans for specific services.
It’s critical to understand these options and choose the one that fits your organization’s usage patterns:
- Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement (CPEA) / BTP Enterprise Agreement (BTPEA) – Prepaid Credits: This is a commit-to-consume model where you purchase a pool of “cloud credits” upfront (typically with a minimum entry, ~$10K per year) for a contract period. These credits act as a flexible currency to activate any eligible BTP services as needed, across multiple projects. Each service’s usage (memory hours, transactions, etc.) is deducted from the credit balance monthly. This model is ideal for organizations that plan to use BTP significantly and want the flexibility to turn services on or off as needed, without being tied to a single service. In exchange for the upfront commitment, SAP offers volume-based discounts on the services. Larger credit purchases can lower the effective unit costs. However, any usage beyond your purchased credits (i.e., overage) is charged at full list price every month, which can be very expensive. You can top up credits mid-year to avoid overage charges, but it requires proactive monitoring. Notably, these cloud credits are typically tied to contract periods. If you don’t use them within the period, they may expire unused (use-it-or-lose-it), so sizing your commitment correctly is essential. CPEA/BTPEA provides access to a broad catalog of current and future SAP BTP services under a single agreement, simplifying procurement with no separate licenses required per service. Think of it as loading a prepaid card for SAP services – flexible, but requiring careful spend management.
- Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) – Pure Consumption with No Commitment: The PAYG model is a zero-commitment option where you enable BTP services and are billed monthly in arrears for what you use. There is no upfront cost, no minimum usage requirement, and the contract auto-renews (often quarterly) with rolling monthly billing. This model offers maximum flexibility – you only pay for actual consumption, making it a good fit for experimentation, unpredictable workloads, or initial pilots. All the same services available under CPEA are accessible under PAYG. However, the pay-as-you-go rates are at list price, and you don’t get the volume discounts that come with an enterprise agreement. In effect, you trade discounts for the ability to walk away at any time. Cost risk: If usage ramps up, PAYG can become pricey because every unit is charged at on-demand rates. It’s common to start with PAYG for a new BTP initiative and then convert to a CPEA or BTPEA contract once usage patterns and needs are clearer, to take advantage of better pricing. One important note – only consumption-based licenses (CPEA or PAYG) can access SAP’s free tier service plans, which offer limited free quotas for certain services. This can significantly cut costs for dev/test environments. Even if you have a subscription for production, you might use a PAYG subaccount for free-tier usage in non-production to save credits.
- Subscription (Tiered) Model – Fixed Quotas for Specific Services: In the subscription model, you subscribe to a particular BTP service or bundle at a fixed price (typically annual or multi-year), which provides a defined capacity or quota for that service. For example, you might subscribe to SAP Integration Suite with a package that includes 50,000 messages per month, or to SAP HANA Cloud with a specific amount of memory or storage allocated. You pay the fixed fee regardless of actual consumption, up to the quota. If you need more, you have to either upgrade to a larger tier or purchase add-ons (sometimes called a “tiered” or “block” model). Subscription metrics vary – some services are licensed by a number of users, others by resource size or transactions. This model provides cost predictability for that service, since you know the bill won’t exceed the subscription fee (unless you intentionally upgrade). It can be ideal if you have one or two BTP services you will use heavily and steadily – you lock in pricing for those rather than drawing down credits. However, it lacks the flexibility of switching services; you’re committed to that specific service’s use. Many SAP cloud deals, such as SuccessFactors or Ariba, may bundle some BTP subscriptions or entitlements for integration or extension, but be aware that these are limited in scope. If you exceed your subscribed quota, you must manually adjust your subscription, or the service may be capped. In summary, a subscription is a predictable cost for known needs, whereas CPEA/PAYG is a flexible cost for evolving needs.
Comparison of Models:
To decide among these models, consider your organization’s usage predictability and scale. A small-scale or unpredictable usage scenario might start with PAYG for flexibility.
A large, multi-project BTP footprint likely benefits from an enterprise agreement to secure discounts and a single pooled budget. If a particular service (e.g., integration messaging or a database) dominates your usage, check if a subscription for it would lower the cost versus consuming it via credits.
Many enterprises use a hybrid approach: for example, they keep a core BTP credit pool for most services but also maintain a subscription for a high-volume service to cap its costs. The key is to run the numbers for your scenarios using SAP’s pricing tools and make an informed choice.
How the SAP BTP Credit System Works
Under the CPEA/BTPEA model, cloud credits are the currency for all consumption. SAP will allocate a certain number of credits to your account once you sign the agreement (e.g., if you commit $100,000, you might get 100,000 credits, assuming roughly one credit = $1 value – SAP will specify the conversion). As you activate and use BTP services, each service has a rate (in credits) for the resources you consume.
At the end of each month, SAP tallies up your usage of each service, multiplies it by the rate, and deducts that amount from your credit balance. You also receive a monthly balance statement that breaks down the cost per service, which helps with transparency.
For example, you might see that in July, you consumed 800 credits on Integration Suite, 500 on SAP HANA Cloud, and 200 on various other services, totaling 1,500 credits deducted from your prepaid pool.
Some key aspects of the credit system to understand:
- One Pool for All Services: Credits are not tied to a specific service; they are a shared pool. This means that if you use fewer credits than expected on one service, you can allocate them to another. It provides agility – you’re not locked into spending a fixed amount on, say, only integration or only analytics. SAP designed the credit model so that “one pot of credits” covers any BTP service you need. This is a big advantage over traditional per-product licensing, but it requires active management (otherwise, you can unknowingly use up the entire pool on just one service).
- Credit Consumption Rates: Each BTP service has a defined consumption metric and rate, which are often published in the SAP Discovery Center service catalog. For example, a service might charge per hour of usage, per 1,000 transactions, per GB of data, and so on, with a corresponding credit cost. SAP often aligns one credit roughly with 1 USD worth of consumption at list price, though actual pricing and discounting can vary by region and contract. Volume Discounts: If you commit to a large amount of credits, SAP effectively gives you a better rate (e.g., 1 credit might buy slightly more service usage than under PAYG rates). Additionally, some services have built-in tiered pricing – the more you consume, the lower the unit cost. (We’ll see an example with Integration Suite below.) This means that high volumes can deplete credits a bit more slowly on average than low volumes, but the flip side is that if you underutilize them, you’ve prepaid more than you used (wasted credits).
- Contract Period and Expiration: BTP credit contracts typically have an annual commitment; even in multi-year deals, you may have an annual allocation of credits. Unused credits usually do not roll over indefinitely – if by the end of the year (or contract term) you haven’t used them, they expire and you lose that value. (There are exceptions or custom terms, but the standard is to use within the period or forfeit.) For instance, if you bought 100,000 credits for the year and only consumed 80,000, the remaining 20,000 would expire according to the contract rules – this represents a wasted budget. SAP reportedly indicated that as much as $600 million of BTP credits went unused by customers (like “unused gym memberships”) in recent years, underscoring how common overcommitting can be. Action point: Structure your deal and internal plans such that you can fully utilize the credits you pay for – otherwise, you’re paying for shelfware in the cloud.
- Overage and True-Up: If you exceed your purchased credits during the period, SAP will bill you for the excess consumption. By default, overage is charged at list price rates (with no discount), and typically invoiced monthly in arrears. This can be a nasty surprise: going, say, 10% over your credit allotment might cost significantly more than the same 10% would have if covered by your committed discount. Some customers negotiate a “true-up” mechanism – for example, the right to purchase additional credits at the contracted discounted rate once they see they’re going to exceed, or the ability to incorporate the overage into an expanded contract later at better terms. If not negotiated, expect that any overage is pure pay-as-you-go (expensive). Best practice: Monitor credit burn rate and top up proactively or renegotiate if needed, rather than running out blindly. It’s safer to slightly over-purchase credits (and then find extra ways to utilize them productively) than to under-purchase and incur overages at full price – but either extreme has downsides, so aim for an accurate forecast.
- Measurement and Billing Intervals: Most services meter usage by the hour or minute, accumulating a total each month. Your credit balance is reduced monthly, not in real-time, though the BTP cockpit provides near-real-time estimates. Pay-as-you-go customers get a monthly bill for the prior month’s usage. Enterprise Agreement customers often pay the annual upfront amount (for the committed amount) and then true up annually or pay overages monthly if they occur. Understand your contract’s mechanics: e.g., if you run out of credits in month 10, can you buy more immediately (yes, usually) or do services stop? (Generally, SAP won’t shut off critical services for enterprise customers; they’ll bill you and expect a contract adjustment.) RISE with SAP note: RISE customers have BTP entitlements included (details later) and might not have a separate “credit balance” visible unless they extend beyond entitlements via a CPEA. RISE customers need to coordinate with SAP if they plan to use more than what’s bundled.
In short, the credit system offers flexibility and simplicity by having a single agreement for all services. Still, it places the onus on the customer to manage that pool wisely, balancing full utilization (to maximize value) against avoiding overrun. Next, we’ll examine which BTP services are the biggest “credit hogs” so you know where to focus your cost planning.
Services That Consume High Amounts of Credits
Not all BTP services are equal in how quickly they burn through credits. Some services are relatively lightweight in consumption (e.g., a small mobile services app with few users might barely dent your credits). In contrast, others can consume large chunks of credits due to heavy compute, data, or transaction volumes.
It’s crucial to identify these big-ticket services upfront, as they will drive your costs the most.
Below are some of the notorious high-consumption BTP services and how their charging works:
- SAP Integration Suite: This suite, which includes Cloud Integration, API management, etc., often becomes a major cost center because it is typically metered by message throughput or API calls. Integration scenarios that process thousands or millions of messages between systems can rapidly accumulate charges. SAP usually prices the Integration Suite in blocks of messages. For example, one pricing tier shows that messages are measured in blocks of 10,000 transactions, costing roughly €6.08 per block for the first 50 blocks, and dropping to €2.75 per block at very high volumes (1000+ blocks). This tiered pricing means that your first 500,000 messages might cost around €304 (50 × €6.08), but sending up to 10 million messages might cost approximately €2,750 (at €2.75 per 10,000 messages). In terms of credits, if one credit ≈ is 1€, that’s ~304 credits vs 2,750 credits respectively. Key point: High integration volumes can quickly deplete credits, especially if you haven’t negotiated volume discounts. Be aware that not all messages are chargeable – SAP often excludes certain SAP-to-SAP internal messages, only counting external or non-SAP integrations, but this depends on your license. To optimize, estimate your message volumes carefully. If you are doing, say, B2B transactions or IoT data ingestion through Integration Suite, consider a subscription if it offers a better bulk deal for your expected volume, or ensure your credit pool is sufficient for peak loads. Also, monitor the message count – sometimes an integration flow can inadvertently spike (e.g. a retry loop), causing unforeseen costs.
- SAP HANA Cloud: This is SAP’s flagship in-memory database service on BTP, and it can be a heavy consumer of credits due to its in-memory compute costs. HANA Cloud is measured in Capacity Units (CU) – a metric that SAP uses to combine memory, storage, and throughput into a single unit. Each HANA Cloud instance configuration (X GB of memory, Y TB of disk, Z throughput) equates to a certain number of capacity units, which in turn consume credits. For example, a small HANA Cloud instance (e.g., 30 GB of memory) might be only a few capacity units. Still, a large 256 GB in-memory instance could require dozens of capacity units. And crucially, these instances run 24/7 unless you explicitly stop them, meaning a large database will continuously draw down credits around the clock. A rough illustration: if 1 Capacity Unit ~ costs N credits per month (price is contract-specific), and your landscape requires 10 capacity units for production and additional for dev/test, you could be consuming thousands of credits per month on HANA alone. HANA’s power is immense, but don’t oversize your HANA Cloud instance beyond what you truly need – every extra GB of allocated memory costs money. If your workload is variable, consider scaling the instance size up or down (if supported) or shutting down non-production HANA instances during off-hours to save credits. HANA Cloud also includes a relational data lake and disk storage that are cheaper per TB than in-memory storage. So, architect your solution to use cheaper storage tiers for cold data – this can greatly reduce credit consumption. In summary, treat HANA Cloud like you would AWS or Azure VMs: size it right, and turn it off when not in use, to avoid a runaway bill.
- SAP Build (Apps and Process Automation): SAP Build is a low-code/no-code offering (covering Build Apps for application development, Build Process Automation for workflows/RPA, and Build Work Zone for portals). While Build simplifies development, it’s important to know its consumption metrics. Many Build services are packaged by user or execution volumes. For instance, SAP Build Process Automation might include a certain number of workflow transactions or hours of bot execution in a base subscription, and any additional usage is billed per execution. SAP Build Apps might be licensed per authenticated user or app. Heavy usage – such as deploying an app to thousands of employees or automating hundreds of processes per day – can push you into higher subscription tiers or consume lots of credits. One challenge is that because Build is relatively new, organizations may not accurately predict how widely it will be adopted by the business (e.g., if citizen development takes off, many apps might get built). This can lead to unexpectedly high consumption. Strategy: If ‘Build’ is included as part of your BTP credits, monitor how many users or apps are being created. SAP does offer a free tier for Build (for example, a small number of free app or process objects) – use those for prototypes. When moving to production, ensure you understand the unit charges, such as what one additional automation execution costs in credits. To optimize, you might set limits on who can deploy Build apps to production or require approval when going beyond the included allotment. For RISE customers, check if you have pre-entitled Build users as part of your contract. Some RISE bundles include a limited number of Build Work Zone or Build Process Automation users.
- SAP AI Core / Generative AI Services: AI and machine learning services can be resource-intensive, and SAP’s AI offerings on BTP (like AI Core, AI Launchpad, or any Generative AI services SAP provides such as AI Business Services or the new generative AI APIs) will consume credits in proportion to the compute power used. AI Core is typically billed by the hour, either for GPU or CPU usage, and for storage used for training models. Generative AI services (if using SAP’s native ones or partner models via BTP) might be charged per API call or character token, depending on how SAP commercializes them. These workloads are new and can be unpredictable – for example, a single large model training job could burn a significant amount of credits if run on a multi-GPU cluster for days. Similarly, embedding a generative AI into an app that suddenly becomes popular could result in many API calls, each incurring a fee. Tip: Treat AI services like you would heavy AWS or Azure ML workloads – set budgets and alerts. In BTP, ensure any AI job has an explicit time or cost limit. For generative AI APIs, monitor usage by each application team; you may even need to impose throttling to control costs. It may be worth experimenting with a PAYG account first to gauge the cost, and then incorporating that into your credit planning. As a strategy, some companies run experimental AI workloads in external clouds (where they have better cost familiarity) and only bring the refined model to BTP if needed for integration, depending on pricing. But if you leverage SAP’s AI services for integration simplicity, just be mindful that they can consume credits rapidly during intensive processing. Always estimate the cost of an AI experiment beforehand using the service’s pricing info.
- CAP-Based Extensions (Custom Applications on BTP): The Cloud Application Programming model (CAP) lets you build custom extensions (Node.js/Java services) on BTP, usually running on Cloud Foundry or Kyma (Kubernetes) runtimes. These custom apps are essentially running on SAP’s managed platform (similar to running apps on AWS Elastic Beanstalk or Heroku), and the cost is driven by the resources your app instances consume (memory, CPU, storage, runtime hours) as well as any backing services (databases, messaging) you provision for them. A simple CAP application with a few small instances might be cheap, but as you deploy more apps or scale them for more users, the resource usage can multiply. Every 1 GB of RAM allocated to a Cloud Foundry app instance, for example, has a rate per hour in credits. If you deploy 10 apps each with a 1GB instance running constantly, that could be 10 GB-hours per hour – over a month (~720 hours) that’s 7,200 GB-hours. If the rate was, say, 0.1 credits per GB-hour (hypothetical), that’s ~720 credits consumed just for runtime. Add to that any Cloud Foundry app router, XSUAA (authorization service), or other services the app uses – all consume from your credits. Also, setting up each dev/test space with duplicate instances adds cost. Optimization strategies: Rightsize your app instances (don’t allocate 4GB if 1GB is enough). Use auto-scaling judiciously – it’s great for performance, but watch the ceiling so it doesn’t scale out too much during a load spike and incur excessive costs. Clean up unused dev/test subaccounts regularly; idle apps still incur at least a minimal cost. Utilize serverless options or scheduled stop/start if your extensions don’t need to run 24/7 (e.g., shut down dev at night). Essentially, adopt good cloud FinOps practices for your custom apps: measure their usage, attribute it to business value, and turn off what isn’t delivering value. CAP apps are wonderful for extending SAP, but from a cost perspective, they transform previously fixed license costs into variable cloud costs, requiring monitoring. You may even consider alternative hosting for some custom apps (e.g., if an extension could run on a cheaper cloud platform, weigh that vs the benefit of having it on BTP for connectivity – sometimes BTP’s integration benefits win, but you should do the cost comparison).
Other services worth mentioning include SAP Datasphere (Data Warehouse Cloud), which can consume a lot of storage and compute credits if you’re doing heavy analytics, and SAP Analytics Cloud (if purchased as a BTP service), which might be licensed by user but also has capacity aspects. The ones above, however, are among the most common credit-hungry services that can significantly impact your BTP bill.
In all cases, understanding how each service meters usage is half the battle – SAP provides metric definitions for each (for example, whether it’s per 1000 API calls or per GB-hour, etc.).
A good practice is to list out each BTP service you plan to use and attach a unit cost to it from the price catalog; that makes it easier to model different scenarios (like “what if we double the users or double the data?”).
Estimating Consumption Needs and Right-Sizing Your Subscription
One of the most important steps in cost optimization is estimating your BTP consumption as accurately as possible in advance. This is challenging, especially for new projects or when migrating to BTP for the first time, but there are strategies and tools to help:
- Use SAP’s Estimation Tools: SAP provides a pricing estimator in the Discovery Center. You can select the services you plan to use, input quantities (e.g., X GB of HANA memory, Y number of integration messages, Z users for Build, etc.), and the tool will output an estimated cost either in credits or PAYG charges. This is a great starting point to get ballpark figures and to understand which services dominate your costs. The estimator also allows you to toggle between commercial models (CPEA, PAYG, and subscription) for comparison. While these estimates are “at list price,” you can then apply any expected discount (if you plan a large CPEA commitment, for instance) to project your actual spending. Tip: Always run the estimator for a high-case scenario (e.g., what if usage is 50% higher than expected) to see how costs scale – this will highlight which services have nonlinear pricing (due to tiering) and which could become a problem.
- Review Current Usage (if applicable): If you are already using SAP systems or other integration platforms, leverage that data. For example, if you’re moving interfaces to Integration Suite, analyze your current middleware to determine message counts per day. If implementing SAP Build Process Automation, check how many manual processes you aim to automate and how frequently they occur. For extensions, gather user counts and usage frequency from existing custom apps or enhancements. This historical baseline can inform your BTP sizing. Also, during implementation, use BTP’s trial or free tier to conduct a proof of concept and observe actual resource usage in a sandbox. This real data is invaluable for refining estimates before you commit financially.
- Engage SAP or Partners for Sizing: Don’t hesitate to ask your SAP account team for help in sizing. They have tools and experience (and a desire to make sure you buy enough!). While you should take vendor estimates with a grain of salt (ensure they’re not inflating needs to sell more), you can request a detailed sizing exercise. SAP’s “Capacity Unit Estimator” for HANA Cloud, for instance, can calculate how many capacity units your dataset requires. Similarly, SAP has guidelines for sizing the Integration Suite based on the number of connections and message size. Cross-verify these recommendations with independent analysis or benchmarks if possible. Implementation partners who have done BTP projects in your industry can also share typical usage levels.
- Iterative Forecasting: Recognize that estimating cloud consumption is a continuous process, not a one-time task. You should revisit and adjust your forecast regularly, such as quarterly, as you learn more about actual usage patterns. In the beginning, be conservative – perhaps start with a lower commitment if unsure, and have a plan to scale up. Or conversely, if you know year 1 will be small but year 2 will ramp up, consider negotiating a ramping contract (e.g., fewer credits first year, more second year at a locked discount). Some SAP agreements allow this kind of ramp-up to match deployment phases.
- Select the Right Subscription Level: If you opt for a subscription (tiered plan), carefully choose the tier that fits your expected usage with a bit of extra capacity. For example, if SAP Integration Suite offers a standard package of 50k messages/month and your estimates show ~40k messages, that package makes sense; but if you expect 60k, you might need the next tier or to pay overage for the extra 10k. Often, buying the slightly higher tier (if it’s not dramatically more costly) is safer to avoid overage fees (which may be charged at higher marginal rates). On the other hand, don’t overbuy a huge tier “just in case” – remember those unused messages or capacity are money spent for no return. It’s a balance. Consider flexibilities: Ask SAP if you can upgrade mid-term if you outgrow a tier, or downgrade at renewal if you overestimated – locking in a wrong tier for 3 years can be costly, so clarity on upgrade/downgrade options is important.
- Include All Environments in Planning: A common oversight is to estimate only production usage. Don’t forget dev, test, QA, sandbox environments – they also consume BTP resources (though you might use smaller sizes or free service plans there). Multiply your estimates accordingly, or design a strategy that uses minimal resources in non-production. For example, you might only spin up a big HANA instance in QA when needed for performance testing rather than running it constantly.
By investing time in solid estimation and avoiding guesswork, you set yourself up to purchase the right amount of BTP capacity, ensuring you’re not significantly over or under your needs.
This directly translates to cost optimization: you’ll negotiate a contract that fits like a suit tailored to your organization, rather than off-the-rack sizes that might be too large (costly) or too tight (leading to overage).
Next, we address specific strategies for different types of customers – RISE with SAP customers vs. those licensing BTP independently – as their approaches to cost management will differ slightly.
Cost Management for RISE with SAP Customers (Bundled BTP Entitlements)
RISE with SAP is a bundled offering where SAP provides S/4HANA (often hosted in the cloud) and various cloud services under a single contract. Importantly, RISE deals often include SAP BTP entitlements as part of the package, which means, as a RISE customer, you likely have some BTP usage already paid for within your RISE subscription.
This can be a double-edged sword: on one hand, you have “free” BTP capacity to use (since it’s bundled); on the other hand, it’s fixed in amount, and using beyond it might require additional contracts or incur extra costs.
Here’s how RISE customers should approach BTP consumption and cost optimization:
- Understand Your Entitlements: First, get a clear inventory of what BTP services and how much usage are included in your RISE contract. SAP typically specifies this in your contract documents or Order Form. For example, RISE might include a certain number of CPEA credits (cloud credits) or specific service quotas (like Integration Suite messages or Build users). According to SAP licensing experts, many RISE (and GROW) contracts come with a voucher of BTP credits (ranging from ~2k up to 16k credits) or set subscription bundles, intended to jumpstart your use of BTP. These are essentially pre-paid and yours to consume. Also, some “free” services might be entitlements – for example, certain SAP BTP services are included at no charge for RISE S/4HANA Cloud customers (SAP has noted that a few services come as part of the S/4 subscription). For instance, this might include some limited SAP Workflow service usage for extending S/4. Make a list of these included items, because anything beyond that list will likely incur an extra cost. Don’t assume every BTP service is covered under RISE; typically, it’s a subset.
- Stay Within the Bundled Limits: Once you know what’s bundled (say X credits/year), treat that as your “budget.” You will want to utilize it fully (since you paid for it in the RISE price) but avoid exceeding it unexpectedly. SAP will not typically auto-charge you for overages in a RISE contract the way they do in a standalone CPEA; instead, if you hit the limits, you might need to purchase additional credits or upgrade your RISE package. This could take the form of an add-on CPEA agreement or moving to a higher RISE tier that includes more BTP. For instance, SAP offers RISE S/4HANA in editions (Base, Premium, etc.), and higher editions explicitly include more BTP consumption credits. If you are on a base package and suddenly need significant BTP beyond the basics, you could either negotiate an amendment for more credits or consider that upgrade – both have cost implications. Monitoring is crucial: keep an eye on usage so that you get early warning if you’re trending towards the cap. The BTP Cockpit (or SAP for Me portal) should show your credit consumption; if you only have entitlements without a visible credit pool, work with your SAP rep to understand how to track it (they might provide a report).
- Leverage What You’ve Paid For: Many RISE customers ironically underutilize the BTP entitlements they’ve paid for. It has been observed that many of those “free” credits go unused because the customer was not ready to execute BTP projects. That’s a missed opportunity: you essentially left money on the table and didn’t realize the business value that could have been gained (since the cost was already sunk in the RISE deal). To avoid this, identify use cases where those credits can be put to work in the life of your RISE contract. Perhaps start a pilot for extending S/4 with a small CAP application, or try out the SAP Integration Suite for one of your interfaces, or build a quick win with SAP Build (e.g., a simple workflow to automate an S/4 process). By using the entitlements, you not only get ROI from RISE, but you also get a clearer idea of how future usage might look, which is valuable if you later need to buy more. Bottom line: Don’t let included BTP credits go unused – treat them as “use them or lose them” capital for innovation.
- Monitoring Tools for RISE BTP Usage: Use the SAP BTP Cockpit’s cost and usage analytics to track consumption of your global account. Even in a RISE scenario, you will have a BTP global account (likely provisioned as part of your RISE environment) where you can see services enabled and usage. The cockpit’s “Costs and Usage” section displays a dashboard showing your credit balance and consumption trend. Ensure your team checks this regularly (e.g., at least monthly). Also, ensure that whoever is listed as the commercial contact in SAP’s systems receives the monthly usage statements (often sent via email from SAP) – these should not be ignored. In addition, SAP provides APIs and a downloadable Excel file of usage data from the cockpit, allowing you to integrate this data into your reporting. If you have multiple subaccounts (like dev, test, prod), consider setting quotas on them (the BTP cockpit allows administrators to set quotas on entitlements per subaccount). For example, if you want to ensure a dev team doesn’t accidentally use too many resources, give the dev subaccount a smaller slice of the pie. Quota management is a simple but effective cost control: it will prevent creating services beyond the quota, thus enforcing the limit.
- Avoiding Extra Charges: If you’re close to exhausting the RISE-included BTP capacity, take action proactively. You generally have a few options: (1) Optimize usage – e.g., postpone or throttle less critical developments until next period, clean up unused services – to stretch the existing credits; (2) Purchase additional credits – talk to SAP about a CPEA add-on. Often, RISE customers can sign a CPEA specifically for extra BTP usage beyond RISE, which would result in a separate bill. Negotiate this carefully; since you’re already paying for RISE, you want any extra credits at a good rate, possibly one that is co-terminous with your RISE contract. (3) Upgrade your RISE package – if moving from a base to premium RISE edition would give you a bundle of other things plus more BTP, compare the cost vs buying credits standalone. The main point is not to unknowingly blast past your entitlement and then be surprised later. SAP will notice (likely when an internal usage threshold is crossed) and will require a commercial discussion; it’s better if you initiate that with a plan in hand.
- Be Wary of Scope Creep: RISE contracts, by design, are meant to cover certain standard scenarios (especially related to S/4HANA and its ecosystem). If your organization starts using BTP for entirely new projects not initially envisaged in the RISE scope (for example, building a large data lake on BTP, or a customer-facing app), that could consume far more credits than the RISE bundle was meant to cover. It might make sense to handle such projects with a separate BTP agreement rather than funneling it through the limited RISE entitlements. Keep the RISE-included BTP mainly for extensions and integrations tightly related to your RISE S/4HANA system, which is what SAP intended it for. For anything beyond that, do a cost-benefit analysis: possibly negotiate a standalone BTP contract where you have more flexibility (and leave the RISE credits for the core needs).
In summary, RISE customers should treat BTP entitlements as a finite resource that requires oversight, much like a budget. Maximize the value from it (use every bit productively), but implement safeguards to not overspend beyond it without planning.
The good news is you essentially have a head start with BTP at no incremental cost – use that advantage to demonstrate value. Then you’ll be in a stronger position if you need to justify additional BTP investment later on.
Strategies for Non-RISE Customers (Independent BTP Consumers)
If you are consuming SAP BTP outside of a RISE bundle – i.e., you have a direct CPEA/BTPEA or you’re using pay-as-you-go, possibly alongside some subscriptions – you have a more straightforward (though not necessarily simpler) commercial landscape.
The focus here is on negotiating the best deal and managing it actively:
- Negotiate a Favorable CPEA Agreement: If you anticipate substantial BTP use, the enterprise agreement (CPEA/BTPEA) is likely your best value, but only if negotiated well. Aim for volume discounts that reflect your spend – SAP’s pricing has built-in tiers, so the more you commit, the bigger the discount per credit. Work with your procurement and SAP account teams to understand the discount brackets. (SAP may not publish these openly, but they exist.) For example, committing $ 200,000 per year might yield better rates than committing $ 50,000 per year. That said, avoid overcommitting to get a slightly higher discount – a common vendor tactic is to upsell a bigger contract with attractive discount percentages. Still, if you can’t utilize those extra credits, you wasted real money for a notional discount. It’s better to negotiate, perhaps with a smaller initial commitment that includes the contractual right to true up or expand at the same discount rate. Specifically, try to include a clause that if you purchase additional credits mid-term, they will be at the same unit price as the initial credits (not list price). Also, ensure the agreement allows you to carry over any excess usage as a true-up at the end of the year, rather than penalizing it. For instance, you might negotiate that if you go 10% over one year, you will purchase 10% more credits at your contracted rate and add them to the contract – this avoids the punitive list price bill.
- Flexible Terms and “Out” Clauses: Traditional SAP licensing was inflexible (you bought perpetual licenses), but in cloud deals, you can try to embed some flexibility. One approach is to align the contract term with milestones, such as a 1-year initial term with the option to extend for two more years at the same price. This way, if BTP isn’t delivering value, you’re not locked for too long. Conversely, if you know you will ramp up usage over time, negotiate price locks for future growth – e.g., “if we increase our credit consumption by X% next year, the discount will improve by Y%” or at least remain the same. Another aspect is currency and region – if you operate globally, see if the credits can be used in any region (they usually can) and ensure pricing is in a stable currency to avoid exchange rate surprises. Also, clarify support costs: sometimes cloud subscriptions include support, but check if SAP will charge additional support fees on the credit value. It might be embedded, but it’s good to confirm.
- Pay-As-You-Go to Start, then Convert: If you’re new to BTP or unsure of usage, a prudent strategy is to start on PAYG (no commit) for a few months to gather real usage data, then approach SAP to convert to a CPEA. SAP is usually amenable to this since they’d rather get you on a committed contract in the end. When converting, use the data you collected to negotiate: “We used $X of services in 3 months; annualized, that’s $4X. We’ll commit to $4X minus some efficiency factor, so maybe $3X as a yearly commitment, but we want a healthy discount because we have demonstrated usage.” By showing actual adoption, you strengthen your case for better pricing than a customer going in blind. One caution: ensure you don’t stay on PAYG for too long if your usage is high, as you’ll be paying premium rates. Also, watch out for any conversion incentives SAP offers – sometimes they give bonus credits if you move from PAYG to CPEA (for example, “sign a 3-year BTPEA and get $10k extra credits free” – these promotions come and go).
- Mixing Subscription and Consumption: You are not forced to choose one model exclusively. Some savvy customers keep a hybrid licensing approach. For example, if you have SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) users, it might be cheaper to have a subscription for SAC (since it’s user-based) outside of BTP credits, while using BTP credits for other things. Similarly, suppose you have a large constant integration workload. In that case, an Integration Suite subscription package might be more cost-effective or at least serve as a baseline, and then you can use credits for any excess usage above that. Why do this? Because certain services, when bought as a subscription, can sometimes be cheaper at steady state than when metered via credits (credits give flexibility but at a cost). However, manage the administrative overhead – you’ll have to track two licensing constructs. Also, be careful not to double-pay: e.g., don’t buy a subscription for something that you also accidentally pay for via credits. In the SAP BTP cockpit, you can have either a service as a subscription or as a consumption in a given subaccount, but not both for the same service. So, plan which services will be subscription-based vs. consumption, and possibly separate them into different subaccounts if needed for clarity.
- Watch for “All You Can Eat” Deals Carefully: SAP may sometimes offer an attractive-sounding proposal, such as “unlimited BTP use for XYZ” or a very large credit pool for a fixed price, especially if it’s trying to upsell during a big renewal. Treat such offers with skepticism unless you truly foresee needing that scale. Cost predictability is good, but not if you grossly overestimate. Always tie the purchase to concrete projects: list out what you will do on BTP in the next 1-3 years, estimate their consumption (with buffer), and let that drive the number of credits you buy. Don’t let anecdotal ideas (“maybe we’ll build 20 new apps!”) inflate your order if those initiatives aren’t approved or resourced yet. It might be better to sign a smaller deal and expand later, even if it means slightly higher unit cost, than to be stuck with a mega-deal that your CFO later questions because half the credits are sitting unused.
- Negotiate True-Down or Rollover (if possible): One of the risks of cloud commitments is overbuying and underusing. While SAP’s standard cloud agreement doesn’t usually allow refunds or reductions of committed spend, large customers can sometimes negotiate a “use it or credit it” clause – for instance, if at end of year you have unused credits, SAP might let you roll them into the next year or apply them to another SAP cloud service. This is not common, but it’s worth asking, especially if you’re making a multi-year, multi-million commitment. The more leverage you have (e.g., a strategic SAP customer or bundling BTP with a bigger S/4 deal outside RISE), the more you can push for such flexibility. Another angle is negotiating reallocation: for example, if you decide not to pursue one BTP project, can you use the credits toward an SAP SaaS subscription, such as SuccessFactors? SAP has been making its cloud contracts a bit more interchangeable, but it’s best to get it in writing.
- Assess Alternative Solutions: As a SAM manager, always ask – do we need to use SAP BTP for this, or is there a cheaper alternative? SAP BTP’s value is in native integration with SAP apps and a unified platform. But for some use cases (like a simple web app or a small database), running on a generic cloud or using open-source solutions might be cheaper. If cost is a primary concern, weigh the pros/cons of building on BTP vs AWS/Azure. Sometimes SAP will even price-match to keep you on BTP if they know you’re considering jumping to another platform for extensions. Use that in negotiations. However, also consider the intangible costs saved by using BTP (developer productivity, integrated security, etc.). The goal isn’t to avoid BTP, but to use it where it provides unique value and not overspend on it for commodity services.
In summary, for non-RISE customers, optimizing BTP cost is about getting the right deal upfront and then actively managing it. Negotiate like you would for any large cloud commitment: get discounts, flexibility, and clarity on terms.
Then, continuously monitor usage vs. commit so you can adjust course (either by throttling usage, buying more, or shifting models) before it’s too late. Now, let’s focus on the actual monitoring and tools aspect – how to keep track of BTP usage and enforce cost controls in practice.
Monitoring and Controlling BTP Usage in Practice
Once you have the right licensing model in place, the ongoing task is to monitor your BTP consumption and continually optimize it. SAP provides tools to help, and there are techniques you can employ to avoid nasty surprises:
- SAP BTP Cockpit – Cost & Usage Dashboard: The primary tool for monitoring is the BTP Cockpit’s Cost and Usage section. This dashboard provides a real-time (or near real-time) view of your credit usage for the current contract period. It typically shows your total credits, how much you’ve used each month, and a breakdown by service of where the credits were used. You can filter by subaccount, by quarter, etc., to get different views. Make it a practice to check this dashboard at least monthly, if not weekly, during critical project go-lives. Some SAM teams integrate this into their routines or use the APIs that SAP provides to pull the data into their business intelligence (BI) tools. For example, you could create a small report that emails the top 5 services by cost each month, or flags any service whose cost has increased by more than 20% from last month. The BTP cockpit also allows you to download usage data in Excel , which you can pivot and analyze. This raw data can show, for instance, that one particular subaccount (such as a development team) started consuming a lot more in a month – a sign to investigate.
- SAP Consumption Analytics (SAP for Me): SAP has a customer portal called SAP for Me, where cloud customers can see their subscriptions and usage. Your monthly balance statements for CPEA are accessible there. Ensure that the SAP for Me (or older tools like Cloud Availability Center) is set up for your account and that you know how to navigate to consumption reports. There may also be an official’ Consumption Analytics’ tool or report pack that SAP can provide. Additionally, SAP’s support site can sometimes enable alerts – ask SAP if they can set threshold alerts on your credit consumption (e.g., an email when 80% of credits are used). If not available natively, you may need to implement your alert using a script and the API.
- Third-Party and Custom Monitoring: There are community tools and sample scripts (for instance, an open-source monitor on GitHub or blogs on “BTP FinOps”) that provide enhanced monitoring and even cost optimization suggestions. Some SAP partners or third-party cloud management tools have begun to support SAP BTP. Investigate if your enterprise cloud management platform (if you have one for AWS/Azure) can also ingest SAP BTP usage data – it might not be out-of-the-box, but if they have an API plugin, it can consolidate all cloud spend in one place.
- Tagging and Chargeback: Within BTP, you can tag resources or group by subaccount, which maps to projects or departments. Use a thoughtful structure, for example, by creating separate subaccounts for each major project or business unit. This way, the cost dashboard can be filtered to show, for example, Project A vs. Project B usage. You can then do internal chargeback, or at least show each project how much BTP cost they are driving. This transparency drives accountability – when teams know their usage is tracked and attributed, they are more likely to be mindful of resource usage, much like developers being aware of their AWS cloud costs. Suppose a particular project consistently exceeds its budget. In that case, you have data to decide if it’s justified (maybe it provides high business value, so okay) or if it’s inefficient to be reined in.
- Quotas and Guardrails: BTP allows setting entitlement quotas on subaccounts, which is especially relevant in a subscription model but also helps control who can provision what. For example, you might only entitle a dev subaccount to use a small service plan (like a smaller HANA instance), so they can’t spin up the biggest and most expensive instance. Similarly, you can restrict who in your team has the right to enable new services. A common governance model is: only the central IT/BTP admin can enable a new service in the global account (which would then start consuming credits), whereas developers in subaccounts can only use what’s been enabled. This prevents someone from, say, turning on an expensive service like AI or a large database without approval. Consider implementing an approval workflow, for example: any request to enable a service or increase a quota must go through a cost review. It’s analogous to governance in AWS, where you might restrict the creation of very large virtual machine (VM) instances. SAP’s Identity and Access Management for BTP can be configured such that normal users have limited rights around entitlements.
- Leverage Free Tier and Low-Cost Plans: SAP BTP offers free tier plans for many services. These are limited-capacity versions (for example, a small 256MB runtime or a small Cloud Integration tenant with low throughput) that cost zero credits. Ensure that your developers use these free plans for testing and trials, where possible. They exist specifically to avoid accidental cost in dev/test. Additionally, look at the “always free” services listed by SAP – some services, such as certain base services or trial features, may not incur any cost at all. If a free tier plan is available, use it until you need to scale to a paid plan. Just a caution: the free tier is only available if you are on a consumption model (PAYG or CPEA), not in a pure subscription account; yet another reason to have at least a small CPEA global account for your development purposes, even if production is fixed price.
- Optimize Performance vs Cost: Work with your solution architects to find cost efficiencies. For example, if an integration needs high throughput for 2 hours a day, maybe schedule it such that you can use a smaller integration node normally and scale it only for those 2 hours (if the tech allows). Or, if an extension app doesn’t need to run on Cloud Foundry (which may have higher memory overhead) and can be done in an SAP serverless function or an Automation job, that might be cheaper. Also, keep an eye on new service editions – SAP occasionally introduces more cost-effective service plans (for example, a “Standard” vs “Premium” tier). If you don’t need premium features, opt for the standard one. There is a continuous balancing act between performance, reliability, and cost – find the sweet spot where the service level is acceptable but not vastly over-provisioned.
- Regular Reviews and Accountability: Establish a governance forum, possibly monthly, to review BTP usage and costs. Include SAM, the BTP platform owner, and project/application owners. Show the trends, highlight any discrepancies between forecast and actual, and discuss upcoming changes, such as new projects starting. This keeps everyone aware that “cloud costs money,” which might sound obvious, but in the excitement of building new apps, teams sometimes forget to consider the ongoing cost. By bringing it to the table regularly, you instill a culture of cost awareness (FinOps culture). Moreover, this is the time to decide actions: e.g., “Project X is exceeding budget, they need to optimize their code or scale down,” or “We have 500 credits left for the year, let’s find a quick use case to use them beneficially rather than waste them” – perhaps by pulling in a backlog innovation and doing it now.
- Set Alerts for Anomalies: If possible, implement automated alerts for unusual usage. For example, you could use the BTP usage API to detect if this week’s consumption is, say, 2x the previous week’s (when there’s no known reason). This could catch a misconfiguration early, such as a runaway process or someone mistakenly deploying multiple large instances. Even a simple script that runs daily and checks the total credits consumed and emails if more than X credits were used in the last day can be a lifesaver. Some companies integrate this with their monitoring/alerting systems (e.g., send an alert to the operations team if costs spike, just as you’d alert on Ca PU spike).
By actively monitoring and controlling usage, you maintain cost visibility and can make course corrections in near real-time. This operational vigilance is what prevents scenarios like receiving a shocking invoice or discovering at year-end that you’ve exceeded your credits.
It is the equivalent of having a fuel gauge in a car – you want to know when you’re running near empty or if you’re guzzling faster than expected, not find out only when the car stops. With these tools and practices in place, let’s discuss some concrete risks of overconsumption and examples of billing surprises to learn from in real-life scenarios.
Risks of Overconsumption and Billing Surprises
Despite best efforts, there have been plenty of cases where companies faced unexpected BTP bills or compliance issues.
Understanding these risk scenarios will reinforce why the strategies discussed are so important:
- “Credit Burn” Scenario – Unchecked Usage: Imagine a scenario where a development team is under pressure to quickly deliver an integration. They built it and deployed it on SAP Integration Suite, and it worked – but they didn’t realize a debug switch had been left on, causing every transaction to log excessively or loop unnecessarily. Over a weekend, millions of unnecessary calls are made. By the time anyone notices, the monthly credit consumption for Integration Suite has tripled. In one real example (obfuscated for confidentiality), a customer saw an unplanned spike of tens of thousands of Euros in one month due to an integration error. Because it was beyond their planned usage, those extra messages were effectively billed at the high PAYG rate. This is a classic cloud cost overrun story – the agility of cloud can turn against you if governance is weak. The lesson: Implement alerts and code reviews that focus on cost-impacting settings (e.g., ensuring no infinite loops or overly frequent polling in integration flows).
- Overage at List Price: As noted earlier, if you exceed your prepaid credits, SAP will invoice you at the list price. The surprise comes when companies assume they had “some buffer” or thought they could true up later, only to find a bill has arrived. For instance, a company might have thought that since they’re under contract, any overage would simply be added to next year’s renewal, but SAP’s standard practice is to bill monthly for overages. There have been cases where clients received significant invoices for overages that had to be paid within the normal payment terms, causing budgetary scrambling. If your finance team isn’t expecting a cloud invoice because they thought everything was covered in the upfront payment, this can also create internal issues (such as budget line items, etc.). Always communicate internally that any overages will be billed as additional invoices. And practically, if you see usage tracking above 100% of your credits, engage SAP before the invoice – sometimes they can work with you to mitigate (like allowing a quick top-up purchase to cover it retroactively), but after billing, it’s tougher.
- RISE Customers Exceeding Entitlements: For RISE with SAP customers, a risk is assuming everything is unlimited. We’ve seen some clients go on a building spree – e.g., creating multiple CAP extensions, extensive Fiori apps, etc., because it feels “free” under RISE. Then, partway through the year, their SAP rep informs them that they’ve used, say, 120% of their included BTP credits, and they need to discuss an add-on license. This can be a shock if the costs were not separately budgeted, since RISE was perhaps seen as a fixed cost. One example: a RISE customer heavily used SAP Build and Integration Suite to integrate various third-party systems; they burned through the included 5k credits and were asked to buy an extra 5k credits mid-year. The cost wasn’t enormous, but it was unplanned and had to go through approvals, potentially delaying projects. Mitigation: treat RISE BTP usage as if you were paying for it – track it and forecast when you might run out, so you can seek funding approval for more promptly.
- Shelfware in the Cloud: On the flip side, a risk (especially for non-RISE customers) is overcommitting and underutilizing – essentially paying for shelfware in a cloud context. SAPinsider reported that around $600 million of BTP credits have gone unused, representing roughly 25% of purchased credits. That’s money just left on the table. The risk here is more about opportunity cost and wasted budget. For example, a company might have been sold on BTP as part of a larger deal (“here’s 50k credits, you’ll surely use them!”) and then a year later, they’ve used only 10k because projects were delayed or the team lacked BTP skills to start building. Those remaining 40k expired, delivering zero value yet costing real dollars. This often leads to uncomfortable conversations with leadership (“Why did we spend that money and not use it?”). The blame might fall on IT or SAM for not pushing enough utilization or on procurement for overbuying. To avoid this, if you do find yourself with a significant unused credit balance mid-term, take action: ramp up enablement, find quick-win use cases, perhaps engage a partner to help execute something that consumes those credits productively (better to get some business benefit than none). Another tactic: if you realize very early that you won’t use much, see if SAP can down-sell or repurpose some of the value (no guarantees, but sometimes they might allow converting part of the BTP commitment to another product if necessary).
- Lack of Visibility and Shadow IT: Sometimes, especially in large organizations, one team might start using BTP via PAYG on a credit card (since SAP allows signup via the SAP Store with just a corporate card). This shadow IT usage might go unnoticed by central SAM. The danger is that a department could rack up a significant bill without any oversight or alignment with contractual discounts that the enterprise could have taken advantage of. We’ve encountered a scenario where a line of business signed up for pay-as-you-go BTP to build an app, spending a few thousand dollars. At the same time, the central IT department had a CPEA with plenty of credits that could have covered it – essentially, they paid retail while a discounted pool sat unused. Internal communication and cloud governance should try to prevent such cases. Ensure everyone knows to go through the central BTP account for any work (you can create subaccounts for them) rather than making independent purchases.
- Compliance and Indirect Usage: Although BTP is a usage-based service, there may still be compliance considerations. For instance, if you use BTP to build an app that indirectly accesses SAP S/4HANA, you should consider if that triggers any SAP indirect access licensing (as of recent times, SAP’s position is that if S/4 is accessed through properly licensed SAP BTP services, you’re covered, but be cautious of any scenario where a custom app might pull data from SAP without proper licensing on the SAP side). Also, if you leverage services like SAP Document Management (by OpenText) through BTP, check if any separate entitlements are required. While not a “billing surprise” in the credit sense, these could lead to compliance findings later if misunderstood.
In essence, the risks revolve around two failure modes: using more than planned (cost overrun) or using far less than purchased (waste). Both can be mitigated by the practices we’ve outlined: diligent monitoring, governance, and flexible contracts. Cloud cost management is an ongoing discipline, not a set-and-forget activity.
Now that we’ve explored the ins and outs of SAP BTP consumption models, cost drivers, and management tactics, let’s distill these into clear recommendations that SAM and licensing leaders can act on.
Recommendations for Optimizing BTP Cost and Consumption
In conclusion, here are specific actions and best practices for SAM managers and SAP licensing leads to proactively manage and optimize SAP BTP costs:
- 1. Establish Ongoing Cost Monitoring and Alerts: Utilize the SAP BTP Cockpit and related tools to continuously track usage. Set up email alerts or dashboards for key metrics, such as credits consumed and the percentage of entitlement used, and review them regularly. Don’t wait for quarterly or annual true-ups – catch anomalies in real time. For example, if you’re a CPEA customer, set a threshold alert when 80% of your credits have been consumed to avoid entering overage territory. If you’re PAYG, have an alert for any month where spend exceeds a certain limit so you can investigate.
- 2. Leverage Free Entitlements and Free Tier First: Ensure you are fully utilizing any BTP credits or service quotas included in larger contracts, such as RISE with SAP. Those are essentially pre-paid – every unused credit is value lost. Similarly, use SAP’s free-tier service plans for development and testing to minimize chargeable consumption in non-production systems. For instance, use the free tier of SAP HANA Cloud or Integration Suite for dev work until you need to scale up. This approach can significantly reduce your paid consumption and extend your credit budget.
- 3. Right-Size Your Commitments (Avoid Over- or Under-Commit): When signing a BTP Enterprise Agreement, base your credit commitment on realistic estimates of need, with perhaps a 10-15% buffer. Avoid the temptation to vastly overcommit just for a higher discount – unused credits are wasted money and are currently a widespread issue (roughly 25% of BTP credits go unused). Conversely, don’t undercommit so much that you incur expensive overage bills at list price. It’s a fine balance: use forecasting tools, start small if unsure, and adjust at renewal. If possible, negotiate the ability to adjust the commitment annually if your needs change significantly.
- 4. Negotiate Flexibility and Discounts Upfront: Before signing any BTP deal, secure favorable terms in writing. Volume-based discounts should apply (get SAP to spell out the discount tier you achieved), and try to include a clause for adding more credits at the same discounted rate if needed (so you’re not penalized for success). If you have to agree to a multi-year contract, push for fixed pricing for additional consumption (no price hikes mid-term). If you’re a RISE customer expanding beyond entitlements, negotiate a flat rate or discount for those extra credits rather than pay one-off prices. Also, clarify any true-up or rollover terms: while SAP standard is no rollover, strong negotiation might allow some carryover – explore it. The goal is to eliminate surprises and have a clear cost model for at least the duration of your contract.
- 5. Use BTP Cost Tools for Transparency and Chargeback: Implement a tagging or subaccount strategy to attribute BTP costs to projects or departments. Then provide reports to those stakeholders – for example, a monthly cost report showing “Project X used Y credits = $Z cost.” This transparency creates accountability. Business units can then decide if the value justifies that cost, or if they need to curb usage. Consider setting up an internal chargeback model where departments “pay” from their budget for BTP consumption; this often incentivizes them to be mindful of usage (much like they would be with AWS/Azure services).
- 6. Educate Teams on the “Cost” of BTP Services: Often, developers or functional teams turn on a service without realizing its cost impact. Conduct awareness sessions or include cost info in architectural guidelines. For example, let integration developers know the approximate cost per 1000 messages, or let data scientists know the cost per hour of an AI GPU instance. When people know the meter is running, they are more likely to optimize their designs (e.g., batch messages, choose lower environments for testing, etc.). Incorporate cost estimation into the project planning phase – any design on BTP should include a section labeled “Estimated Monthly BTP Cost” so that it is considered alongside functional requirements.
- 7. Implement Governance for Resource Provisioning: Put checks and approvals in place to enable new services or increase capacities. For instance, don’t allow every developer to create a 64GB HANA instance on a whim – require a request that is evaluated for need and cost. Use the BTP entitlements/quotas system to technically enforce limits, such as only allowing small or medium service plans in development, or only allowing certain regions. An architecture review board should look at proposals for new BTP applications with an eye on cost efficiency: “Could we do this with a smaller footprint? Is there a cheaper service or plan we can use?” Sometimes, just asking these questions leads to significant savings.
- 8. Plan for Growth – and Communicate it: If you foresee an increase in BTP usage (due to new projects, user growth, etc.), update your forecasts and inform both SAP and your finance team in advance. For SAP, early communication can lead to proactive suggestions or offers (perhaps they’ll propose a larger agreement with better pricing if they know you need more – you can then compare that to staying PAYG). For Finance, it avoids surprise budget requests. Essentially, treat cloud expansion like capacity planning – do it ahead of time, not after you’ve hit the wall. This also includes keeping an eye on SAP’s roadmap: if SAP is releasing a compelling new BTP service (say, a new AI service) that your business will want to use, anticipate the cost of that and factor it in.
- 9. Review Bills and Contracts Diligently: It sounds basic, but be sure to carefully review SAP’s monthly statements and invoices. Ensure the rates charged match your contract, and verify that all usage is known to you. Mistakes can happen – for example, a service you thought was free might show up as charged if it’s misconfigured. If you see any anomalies, raise them with SAP immediately – they can sometimes provide credits or adjustments if there was a genuine error or miscommunication. Additionally, ahead of renewal time, analyze which credits were used and which weren’t; use that to right-size the renewal. Also, check if any used services could be covered by a cheaper license in the future (perhaps SAP introduced a new bundle or a special offer).
- 10. Consider FinOps Tools and Practices: Bring SAP BTP into your broader Cloud FinOps practices. Many organizations have teams and tools for managing AWS and Azure spend; BTP should be treated similarly. Even if BTP is a smaller portion of the spend, it deserves the same discipline: budgeting, forecasting, optimizing, and periodic business value checks (“We spent X on BTP this quarter, what did we get for it?”). If the value isn’t lining up, that might indicate underused services that should be shut down. Conversely, high value may justify further investment. If possible, use automation to enforce policies. For example, a policy that non-production systems must shut down at 8 PM can be scripted for BTP. The cultural aspect is key: make cost optimization an integral part of the BTP development and deployment process, not an afterthought.
By following these recommendations, SAP customers can gain control over their BTP usage and avoid common pitfalls such as unexpected costs or wasted spend. The overarching theme is proactive management and alignment of BTP usage with business value.
When you achieve that, BTP transforms from a cost center into a strategic enabler that justifies its cost through the innovations and efficiencies it delivers.
Conclusion: SAP BTP’s consumption-based model offers unprecedented flexibility and technological capability for extending and integrating SAP systems. However, it requires a new level of vigilance from those managing licenses and costs.
With careful planning, negotiation, monitoring, and optimization, you can harness the full power of BTP while keeping costs predictable and under control. Always advocate for your organization’s interests – ensure contracts have customer-friendly terms, and that internal usage is efficient.
In doing so, you’ll avoid unwelcome financial surprises and fully realize the value of your investment in SAP BTP.
