SAP Maintenance & Support Costs: Managing Value and Controlling Spend

SAP Maintenance & Support Costs

SAP maintenance and support fees often represent a substantial long-term commitment for enterprises. The challenge for global IT procurement leaders is ensuring these costs deliver commensurate value while keeping spending under control.

This strategic article overviews SAP’s support offerings and cost structures, examines what value these services deliver, highlights common cost challenges, and outlines actionable strategies to contain costs.

A best practices checklist is included to guide procurement professionals in managing SAP support renewals effectively.

SAP’s Maintenance and Support Offerings

Standard Support vs. Enterprise Support: SAP provides two primary support tiers for on-premise software – Standard Support and Enterprise Support. Standard Support is the basic tier (historically around 19% of license value annually) that covers essential maintenance needs.

It includes access to SAP’s knowledge base (SAP Notes and knowledge articles), corrective patches and updates, and problem resolution through SAP’s support portal. Standard Support also entitles customers to certain remote services (like EarlyWatch Alert reports and basic Going-Live checks for new implementations or upgrades) and the use of tools such as SAP Solution Manager for system monitoring.

However, Standard Support is largely reactive. While customers can report issues 24/7, SAP provides no guaranteed response times or service-level agreements (SLAs) for issue resolution in this tier. It’s a “break/fix” support level focused on technical problem-solving and delivering updates, with fewer proactive or personalized services.

Enterprise Support is SAP’s enhanced support offering (about 22% of license cost per year) and is the more common choice among large enterprises. Enterprise Support includes everything from standard support to additional services and proactive assistance. Customers receive SLAs for critical issues (for example, defined initial response times for high-priority incidents), ensuring faster reaction and an actionable plan by SAP for severe problems.

Enterprise Support also provides continuous improvement tools and guidance: customers get access to the SAP Enterprise Support Academy (training and best-practice content), value maps (guided journeys for adopting innovations), and a richer set of remote services called Continuous Quality Checks.

These quality check services, delivered by SAP experts to help optimize the SAP environment, cover areas like business process performance optimization, security optimization, data volume management, integration validation, and more. Enterprise Support users are entitled to up to several days of SAP expert engagement yearly (remote consulting on system architecture or performance topics) and enjoy a “support advisory center” for guidance.

In short, Enterprise Support is designed to be more proactive, helping prevent issues and optimize systems rather than just fix them. It’s the default for most SAP customers today, especially those undertaking continuous upgrades or complex projects.

Product Support for Large Enterprises (PSLE): SAP offers PSLE for its largest customers in addition to the above tiers. PSLE carries a lower annual fee (around 17% of the license base) but has fewer deliverables than Enterprise Support.

For instance, PSLE customers may not receive certain enhanced services, such as guaranteed initial response SLA or some advanced quality checks and advisory engagements. This option requires a significant SAP spend commitment (often a minimum threshold of annual fees) to qualify.

Some large organizations consider PSLE to save on fees, but they must weigh the trade-offs in service scope and ensure they can commit to the required spending level with SAP long-term. In practice, most enterprises stick with full Enterprise Support unless cost pressures are extreme due to the value of the additional services and flexibility it provides.

Support in the Cloud Era (RISE with SAP and SAP Cloud ALM): As SAP transitions customers to cloud-based solutions, the support model evolves but remains critical. RISE with SAP – SAP’s flagship cloud offering that bundles S/4HANA software, cloud infrastructure, and managed services in a subscription – includes SAP Enterprise Support, cloud edition as part of the package.

This means RISE customers receive a support experience similar to on-premise Enterprise Support (with proactive services and SLAs) tailored for the cloud. The subscription fee for RISE covers the software usage, hosting, and support together rather than a separate maintenance percentage.

Notably, RISE subscriptions entitle customers to use SAP Cloud ALM (Application Lifecycle Management), a cloud-based tool for monitoring and managing SAP applications. SAP Cloud ALM is provided at no extra license cost for RISE customers or those with SAP Enterprise Support in cloud environments. It offers incident management, deployment tracking, and operations analytics capabilities in cloud or hybrid landscapes, effectively serving as a next-generation Solution Manager for cloud-centric customers.

Beyond RISE, SAP’s pure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products (such as SuccessFactors, Ariba, etc.) also have embedded support in their subscription fees. Typically, the standard subscription includes baseline support (analogous to Enterprise Support) to handle incidents and updates.

For cloud customers desiring even more personalized attention, SAP offers premium success plans (for example, SAP Preferred Success) at an added cost – these provide named Customer Success managers, enhanced response commitments, and tailored success planning. However, whether on-premise or cloud, the foundational elements of support – keeping the software updated and running smoothly – remain similar.

In summary, procurement leaders should understand which support tier they are paying for. Standard Support may suffice for organizations with very stable systems and minimal need for SAP’s proactive services.

In contrast, Enterprise Support (or its cloud equivalents) is geared toward those wanting maximum support engagement and preventive services. Cloud subscription models hide the support fee within the subscription, but it’s important to know what level of support is included and what options exist to scale it up or down.

Cost Structures: On-Premise vs. Cloud Support

Understanding how SAP prices its maintenance/support is key to managing spending. For on-premise SAP licenses, support fees are calculated as a percentage of the license’s Net Maintenance Base—essentially, the total price of licenses owned under support.

Standard Support is typically priced at about 19% of your license base per year, while Enterprise Support is about 22% of license value per year (and PSLE comes in lower, around 17%, for those who qualify). If you purchased $1 million in SAP software, an Enterprise Support contract would cost roughly $220,000 annually to maintain those licenses.

Notably, these percentages apply to the net license cost after any discounts you receive on the license; SAP calculates maintenance based on the discounted price paid. The maintenance base can increase with new license purchases (any net new spend gets added to the base) but generally does not decrease if you stop using certain licenses—a critical point discussed below.

These on-prem support fees are charged yearly and typically renewed automatically unless canceled. Contracts often include clauses allowing SAP to adjust fees annually (so-called automatic uplifts). It’s common to see a clause for an increase tied to inflation or a fixed uplift (e.g., 3% per year) at renewal.

Historically, SAP has also raised maintenance rates to push customers from Standard to Enterprise Support (for example, gradually phasing Standard Support from 18% to 19%). Enterprise Support has largely been the norm at 22%, and SAP protects this revenue stream.

For legacy products nearing end-of-life, SAP sometimes introduces extended maintenance programs at even higher fees (for instance, keeping SAP ECC 6.0 core support beyond 2027 costs 24% or more of license value annually during extended support years). In short, on-premise support costs are significant–roughly one-fifth of the initial license investment yearly–and tend to ratchet upward over time.

The cost structure is different for cloud subscriptions and RISE with SAP. Instead of a separate maintenance fee on a license, you pay a unified subscription fee (typically per user or capacity metric) that entitles you to use the software and includes ongoing updates and support. The subscription model effectively rolls software license, maintenance, and infrastructure (for hosted services) into one price.

For example, RISE with SAP’s pricing includes the S/4HANA software license, hosting on a cloud provider, and SAP Enterprise Support services. Customers don’t see a separate line item for “22% maintenance”—it’s baked into the subscription. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean savings: SAP’s cloud contracts often have multi-year commitments (3 to 5 years is common) and may include annual price increases of 3-5% built into the term.

So, while you avoid a large upfront license purchase, you trade it for a steady (and sometimes rising) operational expenditure. Over several years, the total cost of a subscription can equal or exceed the traditional license-plus-maintenance model, depending on negotiated terms.

One challenge in the cloud model is the lack of transparency. Because everything is bundled, procurement teams can find it hard to determine how much the fee is for software usage versus support.

This can complicate efforts to benchmark or ensure you’re not overpaying for support relative to value. It also means that reducing usage (e.g., cutting users) should proportionately increase subscription costs. Still, this is only at the next renewal or adjustment point—and if you’re locked into a contract term, you might not have flexibility until that term ends.

In summary, on-premise support costs are explicit and somewhat inflexible (a fixed percent of a historically accumulated license base). In contrast, cloud support costs are implicit within a subscription and tied to active usage (with some ability to scale down, but often constrained by contract terms).

Both models present a recurring cost that must be watched. Procurement leaders should model the 5-10 year total cost of ownership for each approach: sometimes staying on on-premise licenses with 22% maintenance can be cheaper in the short run, but moving to the cloud shifts to a different cost curve that could grow after initial incentives expire. Being aware of these structures allows you to plan and negotiate accordingly.

What Value Does SAP Support Provide?

When paying hefty support fees, it’s crucial to understand what services and benefits your organization receives in return. SAP’s maintenance and support ensure customers can successfully run and continually improve their SAP systems.

Key deliverables include:

• Continuous Software Updates: With a support contract, customers receive all patches, fixes, and updates for the SAP software they own. This ranges from bug fixes (SAP Notes and support packages) to major version upgrades. For example, if you have SAP ERP and move to S/4HANA (assuming you’ve licensed it), your maintenance status gives you the right to download and install the new versions without buying a new license. These updates also encompass legal and regulatory changes – SAP provides updates for things like tax, payroll, or trade compliance rules in different countries via support packs, which are vital for businesses to remain legally compliant.
• Access to SAP Support Experts (Issue Resolution): SAP support allows you to log issues (incidents) with SAP and get help diagnosing and resolving them. Customers can report errors and get assistance through the SAP support portal (now accessed via SAP for Me or the Support Launchpad). This includes access to SAP’s extensive knowledge of problem/solution articles and patches. For higher support tiers, SAP offers interactive support channels like expert chat and even on-call support 24/7 for critical incidents. Essentially, if something in the standard SAP software is broken or not working as documented, SAP support will work to provide a fix or workaround. They also handle what’s known as “how-to” support questions to an extent, guiding customers on usage issues. The value here is risk mitigation – when a production system issue arises, you have the vendor to turn to for resolution.
• Tools for System Health and Management: Support contracts include the rights to use SAP’s system management tools. For on-premise customers, this means SAP Solution Manager, a powerful application lifecycle management platform (for monitoring system performance, managing changes, and running End-to-End Root Cause Analysis). Solution Manager usage rights come with any SAP support contract. For cloud-focused customers and those on Enterprise Support, SAP provides SAP Cloud ALM, which, as mentioned, is a cloud-based, lightweight ALM tool. These tools help oversee the SAP landscape and are effectively provided at no additional license cost – their development is funded through maintenance fees. They are key for conducting proactive services (like EarlyWatch reports and other health checks).
• Proactive Guidance and Preventative Services: SAP offers an array of proactive services, particularly with Enterprise Support. SAP EarlyWatch Alert is one such service (available even in Standard Support): it’s an automated weekly analysis of your system that highlights potential issues in performance, configuration, or trends that could lead to problems. Enterprise Support expands on this with the Technical Quality Checks (TQCs) or continuous quality checks mentioned earlier – these are in-depth engagements that SAP can perform remotely, focusing on specific areas (security, data volume, performance, integration, etc.) and providing recommendations. Customers also get periodic webinars, meet-the-expert sessions, and access to a Customer Success Manager or support advisor for guidance (sometimes reserved for premium tiers or large customers). The aim is to help customers optimize their use of SAP, adopt new features, and avoid issues before they occur.
• Service-Level Commitments: With the higher support tiers, SAP provides SLAs for incident response. For example, with Enterprise Support, a Priority-1 (very high) issue might have an initial response commitment (within one hour, for instance) and a resolution or workaround target (e.g., within 4 hours to get a plan). These exact terms may depend on region and contract, but having an SLA means you can hold SAP accountable if their support response is sluggish during a major outage. In Standard Support, SAP’s support is on a best-effort basis without contracted response times. Hence, SLAs in Enterprise Support are a tangible added value for mission-critical operations.
• Upgrade Rights and Innovation Enablement: Because maintenance includes new releases, customers on support can plan system upgrades (such as moving from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA on-premise) without having to re-license the software. This is a major financial benefit if you intend to stay current with SAP’s technology; the upgrades are essentially prepaid via maintenance. Additionally, SAP often provides guided upgrade support services for customers under maintenance – e.g., an SAP GoingLive Upgrade Check service is available to review your system before and after an upgrade for potential issues. On the innovation side, support gives you access to SAP’s roadmap information and early knowledge transfer (for example, Enterprise Support customers can join SAP’s Enterprise Support Advisory Council to co-innovate and get early insights into new products).
• Continuous Compliance and Security: SAP support delivers critical fixes for software security vulnerabilities. In today’s environment of cybersecurity threats, having support ensures you get security patches promptly to protect your ERP and associated systems. Similarly, industry-specific compliance updates (e.g., changes in accounting standards or HR regulations) are delivered via support. Without a support contract, a company would be stuck on the last delivered patch and might have to figure out regulatory changes, a significant risk.

In essence, SAP support’s value can be summarized as ensuring system stability, legal compliance, performance optimization, and access to improvements. Companies should make sure they leverage these services—for instance, by scheduling quality check sessions or utilizing the learning offerings—to get a return on their maintenance spend.

If you’re paying for Enterprise Support but not using the proactive services or tools, that’s an area to address (either by better utilization or reconsidering the level of support).

Common Challenges in SAP Support Cost Management

Despite the clear benefits of SAP support, many organizations face challenges in managing and rationalizing the costs.

Some of the most common issues include:

• “Locked-In” Support Base and Shelfware: One major complaint is that SAP makes it difficult to reduce your support costs even if your usage of the software declines. Once you purchase SAP licenses and add them to your maintenance base, that cost base is effectively locked in. If part of your SAP deployment becomes “shelfware” – modules or user licenses you aren’t using – you continue paying annual maintenance on those licenses. SAP’s standard policy is no partial termination of support; you can’t simply drop support for certain licenses you don’t use while keeping it for others. This leads to companies downsizing or stopping the use of a certain SAP product, yet they keep paying 20% of its cost every year with little to no value derived. It’s a sunk-cost effect that procurement finds frustrating. The only way SAP generally allows reducing the maintenance base is if you completely terminate the license (give up the rights to use that software), which is a drastic step many hesitate to take. We’ll discuss strategies around this later.
• Annual Increases and Escalations: SAP support contracts often include automatic annual price increases. Even if your license portfolio stays the same, the support bill might increase by a few percent each year due to indexation or SAP’s global policy changes. Over a decade, a 3% yearly increase means you’re paying roughly 30% more in year 10 than in year 1 for the same set of software. Furthermore, if you ever upgraded your support tier (from Standard to Enterprise) or entered extended maintenance periods, those jumps can permanently increase your cost base. This inflation of support costs can outpace your IT budget growth, causing pressure to find offsets elsewhere.
• Limited Leverage Once Locked: SAP’s support is structured so that the customer has limited leverage to negotiate discounts on the annual fees outside of specific circumstances. Suppose you have already bought the licenses and are midway through their lifecycle. In that case, SAP knows that stopping maintenance is usually not a viable option for you (because doing so leaves you unsupported or forces you to third-party support). Thus, customers often feel “stuck” paying the full maintenance rate. Unlike initial license sales, where there’s room for discounting, maintenance tends to be uniformly applied. This can be aggravating if the business value of certain licenses diminishes over time – you might be paying for support on a module that your business no longer uses actively. Yet, you can’t drop it without losing the license entirely.
• Support on Unused or Underutilized Licenses (Shelfware Maintenance): Tied to the above, the concept of shelfware is a big issue. Companies may have purchased extra user licenses or SAP modules anticipating growth or projects that never fully materialized. These licenses sit idle, yet the meter is running via maintenance fees. For example, if an enterprise buys a procurement module but later switches to a different solution, that SAP module might not be live. However, if it’s still technically owned, SAP will charge maintenance on it year after year. This is essentially pure waste in IT spending, providing no value since no one is using the software. Yet contracts make it non-trivial to eliminate those costs.
• Difficulty in Downgrading or Changing Support Level: Suppose an organization determines that they are not utilizing most of the Enterprise Support extras – in theory, one might think of reverting to Standard Support to save cost. SAP has historically been reluctant to let customers downgrade their support levels. While standard support officially exists, many customers report that SAP sales reps strongly push Enterprise Support (or its cloud equivalent), which may indicate that certain new products or cloud services are only available with Enterprise Support. Additionally, contractual nuances might tie your entire estate to one support level, making it complex to have a mix of standard and enterprise across different licenses. Thus, customers can feel stuck on a higher-cost tier even if their needs change.
• Underutilization of Support Services: Another hidden challenge is when companies pay for support but don’t fully use it. Perhaps they don’t log many support tickets or rarely schedule the proactive sessions in Enterprise Support. From a value perspective, this looks like a poor ROI on the maintenance fee. Yet it’s common, often due to a lack of awareness or resources, that companies might not take advantage of SAP’s offers (like not downloading new versions they are entitled to or not engaging with the Enterprise Support advisory services). This challenge is more about the internal process, but affects the perception of support costs (“Why are we paying so much and not using it?”).
• End-of-Life and Forced Upgrades: SAP’s roadmap, such as the 2027 end-of-mainstream-support for ECC 6.0, creates situations where if you stay on an old product longer, you pay more (as noted, extended maintenance fees kick in). It can feel like a squeeze: either invest in upgrading to S/4HANA (with its costs) or pay higher maintenance to stay on the old system. Procurement must navigate these choices; either path can increase costs if not managed well. Additionally, moving to RISE or the cloud to avoid those support increases means entering new subscription contracts, which, as discussed, have their cost escalation and lock-in.
• Complexity in Cloud Contracts: For those who have moved to the cloud (RISE or SaaS products), some new challenges appear: you can’t easily separate support discussions from the overall subscription. If service quality is lacking, you must negotiate within the bundle. Cloud contracts may bundle in things you don’t need or omit things you assumed were included (for example, standard RISE includes Enterprise Support, but if you expected a dedicated technical account manager, that’s a different service). Plus, scaling down cloud usage to save cost often can only happen at specific intervals or with penalties if mid-term, making it tricky to adjust support spending quickly in response to business change.

In summary, SAP support cost management is challenging because of the inflexibility and opaqueness built into the model.

Once you’re in, it’s hard to get out or even scale back without drastic measures. Costs tend to rise, not fall, regardless of your usage. Understanding these challenges sets the stage for exploring how to address them.

Strategies for Controlling SAP Support Spend

Despite the challenges, there are strategies and best practices that IT procurement leaders can employ to manage and even reduce SAP support costs while maintaining needed service levels.

Below are several approaches to consider:

• Conduct Regular License and Support Audits: Start by clearly understanding what you’re paying for and how it’s being used. A thorough SAP license audit (internal) can reveal how many of your user licenses and package licenses are in use versus sitting idle. Use Software Asset Management (SAM) tools or SAP’s license measurement programs to identify shelfware. You have data to approach SAP with by quantifying unused licenses and modules. For example, if you discover that 15% of your licenses are unassigned or a certain engine is not utilized, you can strategize to remove or repurpose them. An audit should also review your contracts: know your maintenance base, support level entitlements, and any clauses about termination or notices. This forms the foundation for any cost containment plan.
• Optimize and Right-Size Your Support Tier: Evaluate whether your support level is the right fit for your current business needs. Are you truly leveraging Enterprise Support’s extra benefits? If not, explore the feasibility of switching to Standard Support to save that ~3% difference. If you’re a large customer of Enterprise Support, check if you meet the threshold for PSLE and if its reduced services would be acceptable. Under the right circumstances, moving to PSLE at 17% could yield significant savings. Be cautious: any change in support level will likely need to happen at contract renewal, and SAP will resist downgrades. But it’s not unheard of – especially if you can demonstrate internally that the higher-tier services aren’t being used. As part of this, consider if you need premium add-ons (like MaxAttention or Preferred Success in the cloud) or can rely on standard Enterprise Support. Align the tier to the criticality of your SAP environment; some less critical systems might not need top-tier support.
• Eliminate Shelfware (License Retirement): One of the most direct ways to cut maintenance costs is to terminate unused licenses so they are removed from the maintenance base. This is a big decision – you give up rights to that software (you can’t legally use it anymore unless you re-license it later). However, if you’re confident that certain SAP products or excess user counts will not be needed, consider formally surrendering those licenses to SAP. The process typically requires written notice to SAP, often 3 months before your support renewal date (many SAP maintenance renewals align with calendar year-end, so notice by Sept 30 is common). By doing this, you reduce the maintenance base for the next period. For example, dropping $1M worth of shelfware licenses saves about $220K in annual Enterprise Support fees as we advance. Be prepared for pushback from SAP – reps might say you cannot drop support or it’s not allowed (they often cite the contract clause against partial termination). But if you have truly decommissioned the software and are willing to relinquish it, contracts generally permit termination of the license itself. It’s your right not to renew maintenance on software you no longer own. Many companies have successfully executed this by retiring older modules after data archiving or when consolidating systems. It requires planning (ensure no business impact and get a legal review of your contracts for proper procedure), but the savings can be substantial.
• Negotiate Contractual Protections: When the opportunity arises (such as an upcoming renewal or, even better, when you’re about to make a new purchase from SAP), leverage that moment to negotiate better terms around support. Key negotiation levers include caps on annual maintenance increases (e.g., try to fix a 0% or 1% increase for a few years or cap at the inflation rate) and price protections that if you buy more licenses, the support percentage won’t change. Another lever is negotiating the ability to swap licenses – for instance, trading shelfware for other licenses or cloud subscriptions of equivalent value. SAP has offered programs (like a license conversion credit for moving to the cloud) where they will credit some of your unused on-prem license value towards a new cloud purchase, effectively reducing net new costs and relieving you of the maintenance on the old stuff. Ensure any such trade or conversion is documented so that your maintenance base can be adjusted appropriately. If you are a large customer, negotiating a flexible support model could also be on the table – e.g., commit to a certain spend (as in PSLE arrangements) in exchange for a lower percentage and the ability to adjust the scope. The key is to address support costs whenever you have something SAP wants (a new sale, a renewal commitment) – don’t treat maintenance renewal as an isolated “must-pay” invoice; make it part of the bigger commercial discussion.
• Link New Purchases or Upgrades with Support Savings: Tactically, if you plan to adopt new SAP products (like moving to S/4HANA or buying additional cloud modules), negotiate a deal that also addresses your maintenance on existing products. For example, if you’re buying S/4HANA licenses, ask for a reduction or waiver of one year of maintenance on replacing the legacy system or secure credit for it. In cloud agreements like RISE, you might negotiate that SAP extends support on your old system at no extra charge until go-live, or that they don’t double-dip maintenance (some RISE deals allow customers to maintain ECC a bit longer without paying both RISE and ECC maintenance in parallel). The idea is to avoid overlap and get SAP to acknowledge the shift in spending. SAP sales teams have some flexibility here, especially if it means a new sale – they might, for instance, throw in a few free months of support or use a “migration credit” so that you’re not paying full boat on everything concurrently. Ensure any such concessions are written into the contract or order form.
• Consider Third-Party Support Providers: For certain scenarios, third-party support can be a cost-saving game-changer. Companies like Rimini Street and Spinnaker Support offer independent support for SAP products, typically at 50% of the cost of SAP’s maintenance (or even less). Moving to third-party support usually makes sense if: (a) your SAP system is stable and you do not plan to upgrade to new SAP versions (since third-party providers will support your existing system but cannot provide new SAP releases), and (b) you are out of major license compliance risks. By switching, customers immediately halve their support spend and still get a break/fix help, tax/legal updates (the third party often creates their patches for legal changes), and support for customizations. The downside is losing direct SAP support and the right to implement new SAP software versions. This path is essentially chosen by those who either plan to eventually migrate off SAP or stay on an older version for an extended period without change. Even if you don’t fully execute this option, obtaining a quote from a third-party support vendor can be leveraged by SAP. Suppose SAP knows you are seriously considering leaving their maintenance. In that case, they may become more flexible on price or offer incentives to keep you (such as extra discounts on future purchases or one-time credits). Be careful: switching to third-party support typically requires that you terminate SAP maintenance (again with appropriate notice) – SAP will not support you during the third-party contract. However, you retain your perpetual license rights to continue using the software. Some organizations take a “maintenance holiday” via third-party support to save money for a few years, then use some savings to fund a re-license or migration later. It’s an aggressive strategy, but worth evaluating for cost containment, especially if the support bill has grown very large and internal pressure to cut costs is high.
• Monitor and Manage Usage to Align with Value: Treat support like a service that must show value to drive more accountability in the relationship with SAP. Set up governance to track support usage and benefits. For example, keep metrics on how many incidents you open with SAP, how quickly they respond, and how many issues were resolved. Track which preventive services (like quality checks or learning sessions) you consumed in a year. Then, this data will be regularly reviewed with SAP in business review meetings. This creates a feedback loop where SAP’s support team can highlight what’s available, and you can challenge them to demonstrate value. If certain services are not being used, ask why – do you need more awareness, or are they irrelevant? Pushing SAP to be a partner in value realization can lead to them helping you use what you pay for (they often have Customer Success resources to improve adoption of support offerings). Internally, socialize these support benefits with business and IT stakeholders so that the organization understands the value of staying on support (or what would be lost if support is dropped). This alignment helps justify the spending when delivering results and spotlights areas to cut if not.
• Explore Flexible Licensing or Subscriptions: In some cases, you might negotiate a transition from perpetual licenses to a subscription model in a way that resets your maintenance. For instance, SAP has offered programs where customers can convert their on-prem licenses to a SaaS subscription (like converting some modules to SAP cloud equivalents). In doing so, the old licenses (and their maintenance) go away and are replaced by a potentially more flexible subscription. While this might not “save money” outright (and could cost more in the long run), it can provide short-term relief by eliminating a chunk of maintenance fees and bundling them into a new contract that perhaps has better terms or aligns costs with actual active use. This is a complex area and essentially a partial move to the cloud – but for some, it’s a way to stop paying for shelfware (by converting it to something useful). Always compare the total cost and ensure you’re not just trading one expense for a larger one hidden in a subscription.
• Engage in Benchmarking and Peer Insights: Leverage SAP user groups (ASUG, DSAG, etc.) and procurement peer networks to benchmark support costs and strategies. Knowing what peers are doing – for example, if many are succeeding in negotiating caps or if some have successfully switched to Standard Support – can strengthen your position. There are also advisory firms and consultants (many former SAP negotiators) who can provide insights or even assist in negotiations for a fee, potentially saving much more in contract value. Use expert insights to understand SAP’s pressure points (we know SAP values cloud subscription growth and protecting maintenance revenue; use that knowledge to craft a win-win proposal when negotiating).

Timing and thorough preparation are crucial in implementing these strategies. Most changes to support arrangements will coincide with your annual renewal or a new purchase. Start planning well before those dates—at least six months out—to gather data, engage stakeholders (IT operations, legal, finance, and the SAP account team), and decide on your approach.

It’s also worth prioritizing which strategies fit your organizational risk tolerance. For instance, third-party support has high rewards but also high impact/risk; not every organization is comfortable leaving SAP’s umbrella. However, doing an internal audit and trimming shelfware should be a no-regrets move for anyone.

Aligning Support Spend with Business Value

A central theme in controlling SAP support costs is ensuring that every dollar (or euro, etc.) spent aligns with business value.

Procurement leaders should facilitate conversations between IT and business units about what SAP support enables for them. Some tips to achieve this alignment and accountability include:

• Map Support Features to Business Needs: Translate the support services into business outcomes. For example, if Enterprise Support offers faster issue resolution, tie that to the business impact of avoiding system downtime in critical processes (which could save millions in prevented losses). If support provides legal change patches, emphasize how it keeps the company compliant in payroll processing or tax reporting. By making these connections, business leaders see why support is important and worth funding.
• Drive Utilization of Preventative Services: Encourage IT teams to proactively use the available support services to drive improvements. For instance, schedule regular SAP EarlyWatch Alert reviews and invite application owners to those meetings so they understand system health. When SAP offers a free optimization service (like a performance check), ensure it’s taken, and the recommendations are followed up on. Essentially, get your money’s worth. Over time, this can improve system performance or reduce incidents, which is directly valued by support. Document these wins – e.g., “We engaged SAP’s quality check and improved our billing process speed by 20%” – to demonstrate value.
• Set Internal KPIs for SAP Support Value: Just as one would track vendor performance, track internal KPIs such as “% of SAP incidents resolved within SLA” or “number of critical patches applied per quarter.” If those metrics lag, it indicates underutilization of support or possibly issues with SAP’s responsiveness. In both cases, it prompts action – either push the team to use support more effectively or escalate with SAP account management if SLAs are not met. Holding SAP accountable is easier when you have data; don’t hesitate to escalate chronic support issues to your SAP Account Director and ask for service improvement plans. Remember, as a paying customer, you are entitled to satisfactory support.
• Regularly reassess the Portfolio: Business value from software can change. Make it a practice to review your SAP application portfolio at least annually with an eye on “Do we still need this component? Is it mission-critical, or can it be retired/replaced?” If certain SAP products deliver low value, that’s a cue to question their maintenance spend. Sometimes, engaging the business on this leads to a decision to decommission something, which, as discussed, can save support dollars (or free those funds to invest in areas with greater ROI). It also prevents inertia, where you renew support out of habit rather than need.
• Budget Transparently and Charge Back: Some organizations improve accountability by charging the cost of SAP support to business units based on their usage or license counts. When business units see a line item, “SAP support $X,” in their budget for which they are responsible, they tend to ask questions about value. This can spark healthy discussions on whether the level of support is justified or if usage can be optimized. It essentially turns support into a cost that business units need to justify, not just an IT overhead. If doing this, ensure the business also understands the consequences of any reduction they might propose (for instance, if they say “cut support,” explain what that would mean in terms of risk or loss of service).
• Engage SAP as a Partner in Value Realization: Don’t overlook that SAP itself is interested in showing you the value of support – use that. Many SAP account teams will conduct “value realization” or “support benefit” workshops if you request them, where they review what you’ve been using and what more you could use. They can help identify features of support you might not be leveraging. While part of their motive is to retain you as a customer, approaching it objectively can lead to better usage of what you already pay for. Additionally, participate in SAP user groups or Customer Advocacy councils; hearing how other companies extract value from support can spark ideas for your own.

By linking support spending to clear business outcomes (system uptime, compliance, innovation enablement, user productivity, etc.), you create a narrative that either justifies the cost or flags when the cost is too high relative to value—in which case it’s time to press harder on the strategies discussed earlier.

The ultimate goal is to avoid the scenario where support costs are seen as a “tax” with no return; instead, they should be viewed as an investment in keeping critical systems running and evolving for the business. Adjustments must be made if that investment is too large for the return.

Best Practices Checklist for SAP Support Renewals

For procurement professionals managing SAP support renewals and negotiations, the following checklist summarizes best practices to ensure value and control costs:

• Inventory Your SAP Landscape: Document all SAP products and licenses your organization owns and their current usage status (active use vs. idle). Know your maintenance base and which support tier applies to each component.
• Review Contract Terms and Deadlines: Mark your support contract end dates, notice periods (e.g., 90 days’ notice required for non-renewal or reductions), and any clauses about price increases or restrictions. Ensure you don’t miss a notice deadline if you intend to make changes.
• Engage Stakeholders Early: Six months (or more) before renewal, start discussions with IT operations, SAP architects, finance, and relevant business owners. Align on the objectives—whether cost savings, retaining the same level, or upgrading/downgrading support. Early alignment avoids last-minute scrambles.
• Assess Support Utilization: Gather data on how support was used over the past year, including the number of incidents opened, critical issues resolved, major patches or upgrades performed, proactive services taken, etc. Identify gaps or things of value that weren’t utilized.
• Identify Shelfware for Potential Removal: Based on usage and business input, list any licenses or components that could potentially be retired. Calculate the maintenance dollars associated with these. This quantifies the savings opportunity if you terminate them.
• Evaluate Support Level Needs: Determine if the organization still needs the same support tier. If you have Enterprise Support, list the extra benefits you used; if very few, consider proposing a switch to Standard (or vice versa; if you foresee bigger needs, ensure you have Enterprise. If considering PSLE, clarify eligibility and what you’d lose or gain.
• Research Alternatives (Third-Party, etc.): Even if just for due diligence, obtain information or a quote from a third-party support provider if applicable. Know the pros and cons. Also, research if other similar companies have negotiated special deals with SAP recently (via public case studies or consultants).
• Develop a Negotiation Strategy: Plan your discussion with SAP. If you buy new SAP products or cloud services, use that as leverage to address maintenance. Outline asks such as: cap annual increases for the next X years, credit for unused licenses, moving certain unused licenses into a cloud subscription, etc. Also, prepare your fallback positions (e.g., if SAP says no to cutting anything, will you go to a third-party? Will you drop some licenses anyway?).
• Engage SAP Account Team: Don’t wait until the last minute – inform your SAP account executive that you want to discuss the upcoming renewal. Indicate that you are evaluating your support needs. This signals that the renewal is not a rubber stamp. The account team can often involve SAP’s support specialists to highlight value or even offer creative solutions. A transparent, albeit firm, dialogue can lead to options you might not get if you send a cancellation notice or purchase order.
• Leverage Executive Relationships: If your maintenance spend is very large, consider having a senior executive (CIO or CFO) communicate with SAP at a high level about optimizing the support costs. Strategic relationships can sometimes lead to bespoke arrangements or at least get attention to your account’s needs.
• Plan for Execution: If you do decide to terminate certain licenses or switch support providers, have a detailed plan to execute that: archiving data, uninstalling software if required, formal letters to SAP, and alternative support for that component. If you negotiate a new arrangement, ensure contracts are updated accordingly. Always get any promises in writing on the SAP order form or amendment.
• Monitor Post-Renewal Performance: After renewal or changes, closely monitor that the billing reflects what was agreed upon (e.g., if you dropped licenses, did the invoice reduce accordingly?). Continue to monitor support responsiveness and service use, especially if you negotiated SLAs or additional help from SAP.

By following this checklist, procurement leaders can approach SAP maintenance renewals methodically and proactively rather than simply accepting year-over-year increases.

The key is preparation, data, and negotiation – treating the support renewal with the same rigor as a new purchase, since the dollars involved are often even higher over time.