Migrate, hybrid, or stay. The buyer side framework we use with Fortune 500 clients evaluating RISE with SAP versus on premise S/4HANA in the 2025 to 2027 transition window.
The guide opens with the only question that matters: should you migrate to RISE, build a hybrid path, or stay on premise. The remaining chapters give you the economics, the contractual mechanics, and the negotiation calendar to answer it with conviction.
RISE with SAP is sold as the modernisation path for every ERP customer. In practice, RISE is a contractual repackaging that bundles S/4HANA, infrastructure, and managed services into a single subscription. The bundle is sometimes the right answer, often is not, and almost never matches the way SAP account teams describe it. The decision that determines your next five to seven years of ERP cost is not whether to move to S/4HANA; it is on what commercial terms.
This guide is the document we use internally with clients in the eighteen months before an ECC contract expires or a S/4HANA migration is committed. It walks through the three real paths (RISE migration, on premise S/4HANA, hybrid), the FUE conversion math that reshapes user licensing, and the contract clauses that determine flexibility for the next term. It is written for the executives who own the decision but should not have to relearn SAP's commercial model from scratch.
The guide is updated annually. The current edition incorporates SAP's 2025 commercial framework changes, the 2027 ECC end of mainstream maintenance deadline that has reshaped negotiating leverage, and the digital access pricing models that have stabilised since 2023. Where examples are anonymized, they are drawn from our SAP engagement portfolio and twenty other RISE evaluations closed across 2023 to 2025.
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Talk to a buyer side advisor →Inside an SAP RISE evaluation and need to talk to a human first?
Schedule an SAP Advisory Call →RISE bundles the S/4HANA license, the cloud infrastructure, and a set of managed services into one subscription. The single number is the point, because it hides where the cost sits.
Buyers who accept the bundle as one line lose the ability to challenge any part of it. Unpacking the components is the first move.
Confirm the split between the S/4HANA subscription, the hyperscaler infrastructure, and the SAP managed services. Each is its own lever with its own margin.
An inflated FUE baseline, a missing uplift cap, and bundled services you will not use drive the quote. The list price is rarely the cause.
Where RISE cost concentrates
| Lever | Buyer risk | Buyer move |
|---|---|---|
| FUE baseline | Restated above real usage | Build the baseline from your data |
| Uplift cap | Year two and three reprice up | Cap annual uplift in writing |
| Bundled services | Paying for unused scope | Right size the services line |
Most estates carry 15 to 25 percent of users who could move to a lower FUE category or be removed. Cleaning that before the conversion resets the baseline.
Price the equivalent capacity directly with the hyperscaler first. That number is the floor the SAP managed infrastructure line has to justify, and it usually reveals a markup worth challenging.
The standard SAP pitch is that RISE simplifies everything, so accept the bundle and chase the discount on the total. We disagree.
In the deals Fredrik benchmarked, the bundle was where the margin hid, and the single number stopped buyers from challenging the infrastructure markup and the services scope. The buyer side move is to unpack every component, price each against a direct alternative, and rebuild the number from the parts you actually need.
The buyer side move is to treat RISE as three negotiations inside one wrapper and to hold each component to a benchmarked price.
RISE simplifies the invoice, not the negotiation, so unpack the bundle before you discuss the discount.
Read the bundle scope on the RISE with SAP page and confirm the licensing model on the SAP digital access page before you accept the FUE baseline.
Start twelve months out and lead with your own data. The data resets the baseline.
Bring help in by month nine when the FUE conversion and the multi year commitment are on the table together. That is where the largest concessions live.
Fredrik Filipsson benchmarked these SAP negotiations himself. He will walk your baseline and your three biggest levers in a 30 minute call. No pitch.
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