The RISE with SAP program underwent a fundamental restructuring in 2025. The brand disappeared. The tiers collapsed. The pricing shifted. And if you're still negotiating your migration path, you need to understand exactly what changed—because the negotiation landscape has moved substantially in SAP's favor. This guide breaks down the mechanics, exposes the compliance risks, and shows you how to reclaim negotiation leverage in 2026.
In 2025, SAP made a strategic decision that will affect every enterprise migration negotiation through 2027 and beyond. The company phased out the "RISE with SAP" brand entirely and replaced it with a single consolidated offering: SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition.
On the surface, this looks like a minor rebranding exercise. The reality is more complex. What SAP actually did was collapse three separate tier structures—Base, Premium, and Premium Plus—into a single offering, while simultaneously restructuring what's bundled into the core license and what now sits outside as add-on costs.
Under the old RISE model (pre-2025), customers could choose from:
These tiers allowed differentiation based on enterprise maturity, migration complexity, and operational requirements. Pricing scaled accordingly. Enterprises could right-size their investment based on actual need.
That's gone. SAP's new model is structurally simpler but commercially harder to negotiate: one product, one baseline pricing, and everything else becomes explicit add-on cost or doesn't exist in the bundle anymore.
In response to customer pressure—and growing realization that not all SAP customers would be ready for S/4HANA migration by 2027—SAP introduced a new tool in early 2025: the SAP ERP Private Edition Transition Option.
This option is available only to select large enterprises that sign new licensing agreements in 2026. It extends ECC (SAP's legacy system) mainstream support through December 31, 2033, instead of the hard deadline of December 31, 2027.
The catch: if you select this transition option in 2026, and then migrate to S/4HANA in 2031, you'll face a 20% pricing uplift on your first renewal. This is SAP's protection against enterprises that defer migration decisions indefinitely.
For most large enterprises, this transition option is attractive but dangerous if not negotiated carefully. We'll address this in the negotiation section.
The financial impact of the 2025 restructuring is the clearest way to understand what changed. SAP didn't just rename RISE; the company repositioned its pricing architecture in ways that compound over time.
RISE annual support increases have been consistent since 2021: approximately 5% per renewal cycle. This means a customer signing a RISE agreement in 2021 with $1M in annual support costs faced roughly $1.28M by 2026 (compounded at ~5% annually).
With the 2025 consolidation, SAP has maintained that 5% escalation pattern, but the baseline for that escalation is now higher. The new SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition per-FUE pricing is materially above the old RISE Premium, even when you factor in the 2x bundled SKUs advantage.
What this means: if you signed RISE Premium in 2023, you're paying less per FUE than a customer signing SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition in 2026—even before applying the 2025 SKU value calculation.
This is where compliance teams must focus their energy. SAP removed four critical capabilities from the standard bundle:
For enterprises that were relying on these capabilities as part of RISE Premium, the 2026 negotiation must explicitly address whether these are required and, if so, how they're priced. Hidden in the fine print of the new terms, you'll find that Joule base capabilities are capped, and exceeding that cap triggers AI Unit consumption.
SAP's fiscal year ends September 30. This creates a natural rhythm in negotiation authority. During Q4 (July–September), SAP account teams have the highest discount authority because they're closing deals against annual targets.
If you're negotiating in Q1 or Q2 2026, you have less leverage than you would in July–September 2026. This is a structural advantage you can use. Deliberately timing contract discussions or RFP releases for Q4 will result in 15–25% higher discount authority compared to earlier quarters.
The consolidation created four specific compliance risks that SAP won't volunteer information about during negotiations. These are structural features of the new model that affect your post-implementation compliance posture.
SAP's "Clean Core" strategy has been gaining momentum. The 2025 RISE consolidation makes it explicit: customizations in the SAP system itself now need to migrate to Business Technology Platform (BTP) for maintenance and support.
This sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, it means every custom extension, every third-party integration, and every business process automation now carries a separate BTP licensing cost that scales independently. A customer with 50 custom enhancements could easily face $100K–$300K in additional annual BTP costs that weren't part of the original RISE negotiation.
Compliance risk: if your ECC system has substantial customization debt, your SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition implementation budget and ongoing cost will be 20–35% higher than SAP's baseline projections. This creates a gap between approved capital budgets and actual spending.
This is non-negotiable, but many compliance teams don't fully understand it. ECC Extended Highly Supported (EHP) versions 6 through 8 have mainstream support ending on December 31, 2027. That is a firm date with no extensions.
After 2027, enterprises can still run ECC, but only under extended maintenance contracts. Extended maintenance costs approximately 2% additional per year (on top of standard support), representing roughly 24% of your annual license value versus the standard 22%.
More importantly, extended maintenance is only available through 2030. After 2030, ECC reaches end-of-life. Full stop. Migrations must be completed by then, or you're running completely unsupported infrastructure.
Compliance reality: if you're signing a RISE deal today and planning to use the extended transition option through 2033, you'll face a forced migration between 2027–2030. The extended support window is shorter than most enterprises expect.
SAP provides migration credits to offset some implementation costs of moving from ECC to S/4HANA. These credits are generous—but they depreciate at roughly 10% annually.
A customer signing in 2026 receives more migration credit than a customer signing in 2027, who receives more than someone signing in 2028. This creates an implicit penalty for delay.
Compliance impact: if your migration plan extends beyond 2–3 years, your actual net implementation cost increases because migration credits shrink. A 2-year delay in migration from 2026 to 2028 could represent a $200K–$500K reduction in available credits, depending on contract value.
SAP Joule base capabilities are included in SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition. But the cap is modest. Once you exceed it—which happens naturally as users adopt more AI-assisted workflows—you consume from an AI Unit budget pool.
AI Units are priced separately and scale with usage. Unlike traditional licensing where you can forecast annual cost, AI Unit consumption is a semi-variable cost that depends on adoption patterns you may not fully control.
Compliance risk: budget forecasting becomes harder because AI Unit spend is partially usage-driven. Compliance teams must establish policy controls around Joule usage to prevent budget overruns. This isn't documented in standard RISE contracts.
The ECC end-of-mainstream-support deadline on December 31, 2027 remains the single most powerful piece of leverage in any S/4HANA migration negotiation. Nothing else comes close.
Here's why: the deadline is firm. There are no exceptions. After 2027, your ECC system moves into extended maintenance at higher cost, and your compliance posture weakens. Large auditors (PwC, Deloitte, EY) increasingly flag unsupported ECC infrastructure as a material control risk.
This deadline applies whether you negotiate in 2024, 2025, 2026, or 2027. And for most large enterprises, it's the non-negotiable forcing function that drives budget allocation and executive approval.
If you're negotiating in 2026, you have 18 months until the deadline takes effect. This is short enough that SAP recognizes you'll need aggressive timelines and cost support. It's long enough that you still have options.
If you defer your negotiation into 2027, the leverage equation inverts. By then, the 2027 deadline is imminent rather than foreseeable. Here's what changes:
The math is brutal: deferring a $10M S/4HANA implementation from 2026 to 2027 could add $500K–$1.2M in total cost due to reduced migration credits, implementation capacity constraints, and higher post-deadline extended support costs.
With the consolidation complete and the 2027 deadline approaching, the negotiation environment in 2026 has shifted, but not in the way many compliance teams expect. Here's the playbook that delivers results.
SAP's publicly listed pricing means almost nothing in enterprise negotiations. Real deals are built on discount structures. For 2026, here are the benchmarks:
If your opening offer from SAP is less than these benchmarks, your negotiation leverage is weak, or SAP doesn't see enough strategic value in the deal. Either way, you need to strengthen your position.
RISE support costs escalate at roughly 5% annually. Over a 5-year contract, uncapped escalation results in a 25–35% cumulative cost increase. With escalation caps, you protect yourself against compound increases.
Best practice: negotiate an escalation cap of 2.5–3% annually. This protects against inflation while giving SAP some upside. The cap should apply to support costs, not to AI Unit or BTP consumption (which are newer cost categories that SAP will resist capping).
Impact: an escalation cap protects 15–28% of your total 5-year cost compared to an uncapped contract. On a $5M SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition deal, this difference is $750K–$1.4M over the contract term.
The new SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition includes approximately 2x more bundled SKUs than the old RISE Premium. But SAP's pricing already reflects that value increase. Don't accept the pitch that you're getting "more for less."
Instead, negotiate the SKU list explicitly. For each bundled module (Financial Management, Supply Chain, Human Experience Management, etc.), require SAP to commit to a specific usage tier and support level. This prevents surprise upgrade requirements later.
Clean Core customizations will generate BTP costs. AI Unit consumption will create ongoing variable costs. These need to be modeled as separate line items with consumption guarantees or caps.
Do not let SAP estimate these as "approximately 5–10% of RISE cost." Require detailed modeling:
Without this detail, you'll face surprise budget requests in years 2–3 of implementation.
SAP typically offers migration credits as a percentage of contract value. Negotiate absolute dollar amounts instead. Here's why:
If your contract value is $10M and SAP offers "10% migration credits," that's technically $1M. But if scope changes cause the contract to expand to $12M, SAP will claim the 10% now applies to $12M, giving them $1.2M in additional credits to offset.
Require: "Redress Compliance and Customer agree that migration credits are fixed at $[X] regardless of final contract value adjustments." This protects your implementation budget.
If you're considering the extended ECC maintenance option through 2033, negotiate the 2031 uplift penalty explicitly. Don't accept vague language about "potential adjustments."
Lock in: if you exercise the transition option and later migrate in 2031, the uplift will be exactly 20% of your then-current renewal price, with a cap. This prevents SAP from claiming 20% uplift plus additional increases in 2031.
We've compiled detailed negotiation templates, discount benchmarks by region and industry, and clause-by-clause analysis of SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition contracts. Download the complete guide used by Redress Compliance clients.
Download Negotiation GuideMigration credits are one of the most confusing parts of SAP deals because there's no standardized definition. What you can actually claim depends on your contract language, your implementation approach, and your negotiating position.
Migration credits are supposed to offset some portion of your implementation costs (SI labor, tools, training, etc.). SAP provides these credits as a pool of dollars that can be applied to invoices during your implementation period (typically 2–3 years).
The credits are provided upfront in your contract, but they're only claimed when you have eligible expenses to charge against them. Unused credits typically expire at contract end or after 5 years, whichever comes first.
What percentage of your actual implementation costs should be offset by migration credits? Here's what we see in practice:
Why the variance? Because "implementation cost" is slippery. If you're bundling SI labor, training, change management, and infrastructure into the same budget, the denominator is larger, and the credit percentage appears smaller.
This is critical: migration credits decrease approximately 10% annually. A customer signing in 2026 receives a larger credit pool than someone signing in 2027.
Concretely: if the 2026 credit pool for a mid-market company is $500K, the equivalent 2027 credit pool will be approximately $450K for a similar deal (before any other negotiation effects).
Over a 3-year implementation timeline:
The math looks identical, but the absolute dollar values are lower in 2027. On a 3-year implementation with $2M in implementation costs, this could represent a $100K–$200K swing.
Three levers work:
The most important is the dollar amount lock, because it prevents contract value inflation from eroding your actual credits.
Not every enterprise should choose SAP's standard support model. In 2026, with SAP Joule, AI Units, and BTP all becoming cost centers, many customers find that third-party support vendors offer better value, flexibility, and control.
Third-party support providers (like Rimini Street, Spinnaker, and others) typically charge 40–60% of SAP's standard support cost. But they don't include new features, accelerated patches, or premium support tiers. It's a trade-off.
For enterprises that:
Third-party support can reduce annual SAP costs by $200K–$800K depending on contract value.
Third-party support creates audit and compliance considerations. SAP support contracts don't forbid third-party support explicitly, but they do require disclosure and can affect your eligibility for certain advanced features.
Before committing to third-party support, confirm with your auditors (internal and external) that:
For more information on how to evaluate third-party support, see our detailed comparison of third-party support providers for 2026.
The 2027 deadline is real. Migration credit depreciation is real. Discount authority timing is real. Here's the calendar you need to follow if you want to capture maximum negotiation value in 2026.
The RISE rebranding in 2025 was more than cosmetic. SAP consolidated pricing, removed critical capabilities from the standard bundle, and created new cost centers (BTP, AI Units, Datasphere) that sit outside the traditional RISE cost model.
The result: enterprises face a more complex negotiation landscape, higher baseline costs than they expect, and tighter deadlines than they realize.
But the 2027 deadline remains your most powerful lever. If you negotiate in 2026—before the deadline becomes a crisis—you can still capture meaningful discounts, lock in escalation protections, and ensure your implementation budget covers the full cost of ownership.
Here's what separates successful negotiations from expensive surprises:
If you're responsible for SAP strategy in your organization, take these actions this week:
The 2027 ECC deadline is not a threat if you act now. It's your leverage. Use it before the window closes.
| Feature | RISE Base (Pre-2025) | RISE Premium (Pre-2025) | RISE Premium Plus (Pre-2025) | SAP Cloud ERP, Private Edition (2025+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core S/4HANA License | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Bundled Modules Count | ~8–10 | ~12–14 | ~14–16 | ~24–28 (2x Premium) |
| Cloud Infrastructure | Limited | Standard | Premium | Standard (separate BTP for premium) |
| Datasphere | Add-on cost | Add-on cost | Add-on cost | Removed from bundle (separate license) |
| AI Units / Premium Joule | Limited / Add-on | Limited / Add-on | Standard / Add-on | Joule Base included; premium features via AI Units |
| Sustainability Tools | Add-on cost | Add-on cost | Standard | Removed from bundle (separate license) |
| Base Per-FUE Pricing | Lower | Standard | Premium | ~5–10% higher than old Premium |
| Support Escalation | ~5% annually (uncapped) | ~5% annually (uncapped) | ~5% annually (uncapped) | ~5% annually (must negotiate cap) |
| Migration Credits | 12–18% of impl. cost | 15–25% of impl. cost | 20–30% of impl. cost | 12–25% of impl. cost (2026: 2027 = -10%) |
| Clean Core / BTP Modeling | Minimal | Included in cost | Included in cost | Separate BTP licensing (new cost center) |
| Transition Option Available | No | No | No | Yes (ECC to 2033 for select large enterprises) |
Note: Pricing and feature bundling vary by region, customer tier, and negotiation. This table reflects typical 2026 market pricing based on DSAG reports and Redress Compliance client data.
Redress Compliance specializes in SAP commercial strategy and contract negotiation. We help enterprises understand their true cost of ownership, identify negotiation leverage, and lock in financial protections.
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