Every SAP cost model you've received from SAP's sales team excludes the costs SAP doesn't want you to see: infrastructure beyond the headline subscription, integration work, user reclassification, and the support escalators baked into year three and beyond. We build independent SAP licensing cost models that show the real total cost of ownership — so you make decisions on facts, not SAP's projections.
SAP's commercial team builds their TCO models with one objective: to justify the transition, migration, or upgrade they're selling. Whether it's a RISE with SAP subscription, an S/4HANA on-premise deployment, or an Enterprise License Agreement, the model always reaches the same conclusion — that SAP's preferred option is the most cost-effective.
The problem is structural. SAP's models systematically undercount hidden costs, assume optimistic consumption baselines, ignore third-party maintenance options, and omit the contractual escalators that compound support spend over a five-year horizon. An organisation that trusts SAP's TCO model without independent verification is making a multi-million-pound commitment based on vendor-generated data.
Independent SAP contract negotiation requires knowing what you're actually committing to. Without a forensic cost model, you cannot negotiate from strength — you're reacting to SAP's numbers rather than presenting your own.
What SAP Leaves Out of Its TCO Models
RISE with SAP bundles SAP BTP credits and SAP-managed infrastructure — but integration middleware, third-party connectors, and custom extension costs are excluded entirely.
Enterprise Support at 22% of net licence value compounds annually with price increases. SAP's models typically show only the initial rate, not the five-year projection.
S/4HANA and RISE transitions require significant implementation investment that SAP's commercial models treat as sunk cost or partner expenditure — conveniently outside the comparison.
If your Named User mix shifts post-migration — as it almost always does with S/4HANA — the cost impact can be severe. SAP's models rarely account for post-go-live licence adjustments.
SAP never includes third-party support alternatives (Rimini Street, Spinnaker) in its TCO comparisons, despite these representing a legitimate 50%+ cost reduction opportunity for many enterprises.
Our cost modelling engagements produce the financial analysis you need to make SAP decisions with full visibility — and to negotiate from a position of data rather than SAP's estimates.
We build a bottom-up 5-year SAP licence cost model covering Named User fees, Engine licences, BTP consumption, digital access document volumes, and support costs — with realistic escalation assumptions based on market norms, not SAP's optimistic projections. This gives you a credible total spend figure to take into negotiations.
We model the true total cost of ownership for both RISE with SAP (cloud) and S/4HANA on-premise or Private Cloud Edition, including infrastructure, migration, integration, support, and licence costs on both paths. Most enterprises discover the gap is significantly smaller than SAP's model suggests — or reversed entirely when infrastructure costs are included.
We analyse your current Named User population by role and system access — identifying every user incorrectly classified as Professional when Limited Professional or Employee licences would qualify. This user reclassification analysis typically identifies 15-35% savings on Named User costs alone, forming the basis of SAP licence optimisation work.
We model your annual true-up risk — the gap between your contractual entitlements and your actual or projected consumption. Understanding your true-up exposure before the measurement cycle gives you time to remediate, reclassify, or renegotiate rather than being presented with a compliance claim you can't challenge.
When evaluating an ELA, RISE bundle, or major licence purchase, we model multiple commercial scenarios — different user counts, licence tiers, support options, and contract durations — to identify the optimal structure for your organisation. This scenario analysis is the foundation of our SAP ELA advisory and contract negotiation work.
SAP Enterprise Support at 22% of net licence value is often the largest single line item in a client's SAP cost base. We model the full range of support cost reduction scenarios: downgrade to Standard Support, third-party maintenance providers, self-support with SAP for Me, and hybrid approaches — giving your finance team real numbers to evaluate.
Our engagements are structured to give your finance, procurement, and IT teams the data they need to make defensible SAP commercial decisions.
Reconciliation of your contracted entitlements against your active deployment — establishing the factual baseline before any modelling begins.
Independent assessment of your user types against SAP's licence definitions — identifying reclassification candidates and quantifying the cost savings available.
A detailed financial model in Excel covering licence fees, support costs, consumption-based charges, infrastructure, and realistic escalation assumptions — independently validated.
Side-by-side modelling of your key commercial scenarios — ELA vs perpetual, RISE vs on-premise, SAP support vs third-party — with sensitivity analysis for key assumptions.
Identification of your current measurement risk under USMM and LAW — with recommended remediation actions to reduce exposure before your next true-up cycle.
A commercial brief translating the cost model findings into a clear negotiation position — the pricing evidence, the benchmarks, and the asks that will drive a better outcome with SAP.
We start by gathering your SAP contract portfolio — Master Agreement, Order Forms, Support Maintenance Schedule — alongside your most recent USMM or LAW measurement output, Named User lists by system, and any pending audit or commercial correspondence from SAP. This data forms the factual foundation of the cost model.
We build a precise picture of your current SAP licence position — contracted entitlements, active deployments, user type classifications, and outstanding compliance gaps. Most enterprises discover significant discrepancies at this stage: over-provisioned user types, redundant engine licences, and undisclosed digital access exposure that directly affects the cost model.
Working with your finance and IT leadership, we define the commercial scenarios you need to evaluate — typically three to five options covering your strategic alternatives. We then build the full 5-year cost model for each scenario, applying real market benchmarks for pricing, support rates, and escalation assumptions rather than SAP's commercial data.
We run sensitivity analysis on the key assumptions in each scenario — user growth, consumption volumes, price escalation rates, and implementation cost ranges. This stress testing identifies which scenarios are robust against variation and which become uneconomic if SAP's assumptions prove optimistic.
We present the findings to your finance, procurement, and IT leadership in a structured executive briefing — translating the cost model into clear decision support and a prioritised negotiation strategy. The output gives your team everything needed to challenge SAP's numbers and negotiate from a position of independent data.
SAP's commercial team has presented a compelling financial case for RISE or a new ELA. Before the board approves a multi-year commitment, you need an independent financial model that validates — or challenges — SAP's numbers.
You're deciding between RISE with SAP, S/4HANA Private Cloud, and an on-premise S/4HANA deployment. The financial implications span a decade. You need a model that captures the full cost of each path — not SAP's simplified comparison.
You know SAP's pricing is negotiable but need independent data to support your position. Our cost model gives you the evidence — market benchmarks, consumption analysis, and scenario comparisons — that SAP's team cannot easily dismiss.
You're being asked to approve a significant SAP licence commitment based on financial models produced by the vendor. Independent cost modelling ensures the board is making a decision based on unbiased analysis — not a document designed to close a deal.
At minimum, we need your current SAP Master Agreement and Order Forms, your most recent USMM or LAW measurement output, a Named User list by system and user type, and the commercial proposal or scenario you're evaluating. In practice, many organisations do not have clean access to all of this data — part of our process involves helping clients locate and reconcile their licence documentation, which in itself often reveals material cost implications.
SAP's models are built to justify a commercial outcome. They use SAP-defined assumptions for consumption growth, exclude competing support options, and omit costs that SAP's team prefers not to surface. Our models use independent market benchmarks for pricing, include the full spectrum of cost categories (infrastructure, integration, implementation, support alternatives), apply realistic escalation assumptions, and are stress-tested against a range of scenarios. The difference in output is typically 30-50% — with our models consistently showing higher real-world costs than SAP's projections.
Yes. A cloud vs on-premise TCO comparison is one of our most common engagement types. We model both paths over a 5-year horizon, capturing the subscription fees, infrastructure delta, migration investment, integration costs, support obligations, and post-go-live licence adjustments for each. We also model the increasingly common hybrid scenario — on-premise core with cloud extensions — which SAP rarely presents as a commercial option because it doesn't maximise their RISE revenue.
All 5-year cost models involve assumptions — the question is whose assumptions you're working from. SAP's assumptions are consistently optimistic: lower-than-realistic price escalation, faster-than-realistic benefit realisation, and costs excluded because they sit with a system integrator. Our assumptions are drawn from real client engagements across industries — what SAP pricing has actually done, what migrations have actually cost, and what support rates actually look like at contract renewal. We also provide sensitivity ranges for every key assumption, so your finance team can see how the economics shift under different scenarios.
Yes, in several ways. A post-signature cost model identifies whether your actual consumption is tracking to entitlement, where you're accumulating true-up exposure, and where your next renegotiation leverage points are. As you approach the renewal window — typically 12-18 months before expiry — an updated cost model becomes the foundation for your renegotiation strategy. See also our SAP ELA advisory service for mid-term ELA restructuring support.
Our SAP licensing cost modelling engagements give enterprise finance and IT teams the independent financial analysis they need to make defensible SAP decisions — and the data to negotiate from strength. Book a free consultation to discuss your modelling requirements.