Model the 5 year cost of RISE with SAP against GROW with SAP and a self managed S/4HANA alternative on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. Built by buyer side advisors with twenty plus years of SAP contract experience and used inside more than sixty RISE evaluations since the program launched.
RISE with SAP was launched in 2021 as the package SAP wanted every ECC and S/4HANA customer to land on by 2027. Five years in, the program has become a moving target. The original promise of one contract for software, infrastructure, and a single SAP support model has been complicated by the introduction of GROW with SAP for the midmarket, the bundling of Business Technology Platform credits inside RISE Premium Plus, the pressure of the 2027 ECC end of mainstream maintenance deadline, and the pricing changes SAP introduced in 2024 and again in 2025. Most enterprises that began modeling RISE in 2022 are now looking at a different commercial structure, a different reference architecture, and a different list price than the one they last evaluated. The TCO question has become harder, not easier.
The SAP RISE TCO Calculator on this page reproduces the 5 year cost model that our advisors run in the first half of every SAP RISE evaluation. It accepts your S/4HANA system size, your peripheral SAP estate, your hyperscaler preference, and a small set of contractual and operational questions. It returns three numbers. The first is the modeled 5 year cost of RISE with SAP under the Premium or Premium Plus tier. The second is the modeled 5 year cost of running the same workload as a self managed S/4HANA estate on the hyperscaler of your choice, with your own infrastructure, application managed services, and SAP enterprise support. The third is the relative position of the two numbers, expressed as a delta and a risk band that accounts for the contractual constraints embedded in the RISE agreement.
The calculator is designed for CIOs, CFOs, IT directors, SAP heads, software asset managers, and procurement leaders at any organization with an existing ECC or S/4HANA footprint that is being asked to commit to a RISE or GROW path. It is also relevant for organizations that have already signed a RISE contract and want to validate that their renewal in year 4 or year 5 will land on a defensible cost. It is not designed for greenfield S/4HANA Public Cloud deployments where GROW with SAP is the only realistic path. For those scenarios, the calculator returns a simplified GROW estimate and points to the relevant guidance.
When RISE with SAP launched, the headline pitch was a single subscription that combined the S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition software entitlement, the underlying hyperscaler infrastructure, the basis and operations services from SAP Enterprise Cloud Services, and the SAP standard support. The price was expressed in Full User Equivalents, or FUEs, with each FUE representing a band of named user types weighted by complexity. The original promise of one number, one contract, and one accountable party was attractive to enterprises tired of stitching together S/4HANA from a software contract with SAP, an infrastructure contract with a hyperscaler, an application managed services contract with a system integrator, and a basis support contract with a separate boutique. The simplification was real.
The simplification has been steadily eroded. The first complication is that RISE no longer covers the full SAP estate. Customers running SAP Ariba, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP IBP, SAP Datasphere, and the wider Business Technology Platform still hold separate cloud subscriptions outside the RISE wrapper. The second complication is that BTP credits inside RISE Premium Plus expire annually and create a separate budget conversation. The third complication is that the SAP support included in RISE is the standard package. Customers who want preferred response times or premium engagement support pay separately for SAP Preferred Care or SAP MaxAttention. The fourth complication is that the hyperscaler choice inside RISE constrains your ability to negotiate independently with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud on the underlying infrastructure. The fifth complication is that the RISE contract limits your ability to deploy parallel workloads, run non production environments at scale, or move workloads off the SAP managed footprint without a contract amendment.
The 2024 and 2025 pricing changes have widened the gap between RISE list price and what enterprises with strong negotiation positions are actually paying. SAP introduced new credit mechanisms, restructured the Premium Plus tier, and adjusted the FUE weighting. The headline list price of a typical 1,000 FUE RISE Premium subscription is now in the range of 4 to 7 million dollars per year before discount, with the actual price after a buyer side negotiation typically landing 25 to 45 percent below list. The self managed alternative has also shifted. Hyperscaler infrastructure costs for SAP HANA workloads have come down between 8 and 15 percent over the last two years as the hyperscalers have introduced SAP optimized instance families. Application managed services pricing has consolidated as the system integrator market has matured. The result is that the relative position of RISE versus self managed has narrowed in some scenarios and widened in others. The calculator captures the scenarios where each path makes sense.
Read the SAP RISE licensing guide for a full breakdown of the FUE model, the bundle composition across Premium and Premium Plus, and the BTP credit mechanics. Review the SAP S/4HANA migration guide for the technical pathway considerations that influence the TCO inputs. If you are already in active commercial discussion with SAP, the SAP RISE negotiation playbook walks through the levers that move the price.
The calculator is a triage tool. It is not a substitute for a sized SAP HANA workload assessment, a system integrator pricing exercise, a hyperscaler enterprise discount program negotiation, or a fully modeled multi year SAP commercial proposal. The RISE pricing logic uses SAP published reference rates as of the 2026 calendar year and applies a discount band derived from outcomes we have seen across more than sixty RISE engagements. The self managed alternative uses hyperscaler reference rates for SAP optimized instance families, a typical application managed services rate per FUE equivalent, and SAP Enterprise Support at the published 22 percent annual rate on a benchmarked S/4HANA license footprint. Numbers in the result panel are estimates expressed in US dollars and are intended to support a budget conversation, not to settle one.
If your organization has already received a RISE proposal from SAP, do not negotiate it without a buyer side advisor in the room. The structure of the FUE allocation, the choice between Premium and Premium Plus, the BTP credit allocation, the hyperscaler region selection, the protected commitment cap, and the expansion clauses are each individually material to the 5 year cost. Our SAP RISE negotiation service exists for exactly that scenario. If you have not yet received a proposal but are inside the 12 to 18 month window before your ECC end of maintenance commitment, this is the moment to model both paths in parallel.
The RISE side of the calculator has four cost layers. Layer one is the FUE subscription. The calculator converts your stated S/4HANA user counts, batch processing intensity, and integration complexity into an FUE equivalent and applies the published reference rate per FUE for the chosen tier. Layer two is the BTP credit allocation that comes inside Premium Plus, sized against your stated integration and analytics requirements. Layer three is the SAP enterprise support and the optional Preferred Care or MaxAttention overlay if you have indicated that you require it. Layer four is the change order overhead, sized as a function of the operational complexity questions in the form. Each layer is then multiplied across the 5 year horizon, with an inflation overlay applied to years 2 through 5 to reflect SAP's typical annual price escalation clause.
The self managed side of the calculator also has four cost layers. Layer one is the SAP S/4HANA on premise license, sized against the same S/4HANA user counts and applied as a 22 percent annual SAP enterprise support fee. The calculator assumes the underlying license is already owned, which is typical for ECC migration scenarios. Layer two is the hyperscaler infrastructure for SAP HANA production, non production, and disaster recovery environments, calibrated against published SAP certified instance pricing on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Layer three is the application managed services rate, sized against your S/4HANA footprint and a typical ratio of FUE equivalent to managed services hours. Layer four is the basis and operations services rate, similarly sized. The 5 year horizon applies a hyperscaler discount overlay that reflects the typical enterprise discount program savings available to a mid size to large enterprise.
The risk score weights the contractual constraints embedded in RISE against the operational risk of self management. RISE adds risk in the form of FUE expansion clauses, BTP credit expiration, hyperscaler lock in, and renewal pricing exposure. Self management adds risk in the form of basis bench depth, hyperscaler enterprise discount program negotiation skill, and the operational maturity required to run SAP HANA in production. The calculator returns a single 0 to 100 number that bands into green, amber, or red and returns specific recommendations for each band.
The headline FUE rate is only one part of the RISE 5 year cost story. The contract that sits underneath the headline is where the real cost shape is set. Five clauses in the standard RISE master agreement merit close reading before any signature. The first is the FUE expansion clause. RISE contracts include a baseline FUE allocation and a defined process for adding FUEs during the term. SAP can move expansion FUEs to a higher rate than the base, and absent a protective clause the customer can find that adding 10 percent of seats inside the term costs significantly more than the original headline implied. The second is the protected commitment cap. Without a cap, an unforeseen workforce expansion or M&A event during the term can drive a material true up that lands at full reference rate.
The third clause is the BTP credit allocation and the rules around credit consumption. Credits expire annually and unconsumed credits are forfeit. Customers who size BTP optimistically end up with credits they cannot use, and customers who size conservatively end up with overage at premium rates. The fourth clause is the hyperscaler region selection. RISE contracts pin the workload to a region selected at signature. Moving the workload to a different region during the term, often required by a regulatory or sovereignty change, requires a contract amendment and the amendment has been used in past engagements as a price reset moment. The fifth clause is the renewal pricing exposure. The headline first term rate is rarely held at renewal. SAP's leverage at first renewal is structural, the customer is operationally embedded inside the SAP managed environment, and the practical alternative is a multi quarter exit project. Without a renewal cap clause negotiated at original signature, the renewal price can land 20 to 40 percent above the original term rate.
Each of these clauses is negotiable at original signature. None of them is negotiable on the day they bite. The calculator output should be used as the input to a contract drafting exercise that addresses each clause in turn, not as a final commercial number. The SAP RISE negotiation playbook walks through each clause with the recommended language and the typical SAP counter position.
CIOs use the calculator to test the case for committing to RISE before a board level decision. CFOs use it to validate the multi year capital and operational expense profile against the alternative. SAP heads use it to model the technical TCO with their preferred hyperscaler partner before an internal architecture review. IT procurement leaders use it to size their negotiation target before opening commercial discussions with SAP. Software asset managers use it to model the impact of an FUE conversion exercise on their existing license footprint. Finance partners use it to test the case for a multi year RISE prepay against a cash flow constrained alternative.
The calculator is most useful when paired with an internal sizing exercise. The S/4HANA user counts and the batch processing profile drive the FUE equivalent calculation, and the accuracy of the output is a function of the accuracy of the input. If you have access to your current SAP system licensing report, use the named user counts directly. If you are pre migration from ECC and do not yet have an S/4HANA sizing, use the workforce profile fallback questions in the form to derive a benchmark FUE equivalent. The calculator's output is a budget level estimate in either case, but the band on the estimate widens when the FUE input is benchmarked rather than measured.
For organizations preparing for the 2027 ECC end of mainstream maintenance deadline, the calculator is the starting point for a compressed evaluation timeline. The window to model both paths, run a hyperscaler negotiation, and complete a defensible commercial decision before the deadline is tight. Read the SAP 2027 deadline strategy guide for the timeline considerations, and review the S/4HANA migration guide for the technical sequencing options. The combination of these two documents and the calculator output should give a board ready position within four weeks of starting the exercise.
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Our 64 page guide walks through the eight commercial gates every enterprise faces when sizing a RISE with SAP commitment, the FUE allocation traps, the BTP credit mechanics, the protected commitment cap clause, and the renewal exposure inside year 4 and year 5. Used by procurement teams at more than 60 enterprises in 2025.
Download the guideBring your calculator output. We will pressure test your numbers, flag the FUE inflation traps SAP's account team will not surface, and outline a defensible path to a right sized RISE commitment or a self managed alternative. No sales pitch. No vendor in the room.
