![\"\"](\"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/banner_bdc_2026_1200x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\nFor existing SAP customers, the switch to S\/4 Hana no longer means a technical release upgrade, but a fundamental realignment of their commercial IT architecture, where the risk of cost explosions, over-licensing and the total loss of digital sovereignty is a constant companion. Anyone who fails to deconstruct the mechanisms of SAP Cloud Subscription, the Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) and the new licensing metrics down to the smallest detail will inevitably fall victim to a masterfully orchestrated monetization machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SAP's historic transition to the cloud world, primarily driven by the all-encompassing Rise and Grow contract packages, marks a complex shift from capital expenditure (capex) to ongoing operating expenditure (opex) for ERP users. While on-prem licenses were acquired as perpetual property and guaranteed the ongoing, legal right to use the system even if the maintenance contracts were terminated, the cloud subscription degrades the customer to a defenceless tenant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SAP is converting existing on-prem licenses into cloud subscriptions via contract conversion, which leads to the irretrievable destruction of the old, valuable purchase licenses. The central instrument of this transformation is the Full Use Equivalent (FUE) metric, a highly complex set of rules that presses the previous detailed usage-based user allocation from the ECC world into standardized cloud usage types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An FUE serves as a billing unit, which is allocated to user types such as Developer Access, Advanced Use, Core Use or Self-Service Use using different weighting factors. The critical challenge for existing SAP customers lies in the basis of assessment: in the new S\/4 Cloud world, SAP no longer licenses primarily according to the actual use of the software, but rigorously according to the authorizations assigned in the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorization-based measurement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As authorizations were often assigned extremely generously in the grown SAP landscapes R\/3, R\/3 Enterprise and ERP\/ECC 6.0 (SAP Business Suite), this authorization-based measurement leads to massive over-licensing in the event of an unprepared migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Independent licensing experts warn that the new cloud metric can drive up licensing costs by an alarming 50 to 150 percent, as even occasional users will suddenly have to pay for expensive Professional or Advanced licenses as soon as they are assigned far-reaching roles on the system side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SAP attempts to support customers with classification using the so-called S\/4 Trusted Authorization Review (Star Service), but this tool bluntly analyses the authorization objects and automatically assigns the most expensive license type to unclear cases, which is considered a highly dangerous cost trap for unsuspecting users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contractual basis for these cloudy constructs is the SAP price and conditions list, which has grown into a veritable legal labyrinth in the cloud age. The PKL no longer consists of a simple Excel price list and a master document, but is fragmented into an unmanageable web of cloud supplements, service description guides, cloud general terms and conditions and service level agreements (SLAs), all of which are inseparable components of the so-called order form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Toxic Cloud Supplements<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The cloud supplements regulate in detail the usage restrictions, metrics and provisioning details for each individual cloud service. The toxic element is that SAP changes and adapts these documents and metrics on a quarterly basis, which makes reliable and long-term budgeting impossible for the CFO. For existing SAP customers, this means that they are forced to archive the daily supplements in a legally compliant manner every time they sign a contract or renew, as SAP reserves the right to make unilateral price adjustments when extending the term or to suddenly price functions that were previously included separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commercial risks are even more drastic when it comes to the Business Technology Platform, which SAP promotes as the technical backbone and the essential innovation layer of the clean core strategy. In future, all customer-specific extensions (side-by-side extensibility) and integrations are to take place on the BTP in order to keep the digital core of S\/4 Hana clean and upgradeable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BTPEA and Cloud Bill Shock<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
BTP services are primarily licensed via consumption-based consumption models, namely the Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement (CPEA) or the newer BTP Enterprise Agreement (BTPEA), under which the customer purchases cloud credits in advance. The commercial pitfall of these models lies in the impending expiry of the purchased credits: Unused cloud credits expire without exception at the end of each contract year, which creates extreme pressure to actually consume the services in order to avoid financing so-called shelfware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, the dreaded cloud bill shock lurks in the event of intensive use. As soon as the pre-purchased quota of Cloud Credits is exhausted, SAP will mercilessly bill any further overuse at the list price without discount. Alternatively, SAP offers a pay-as-you-go model, which does not require a minimum purchase quantity, but where the service fees are not discountable and is therefore the most expensive of all operating models when used at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The management and monitoring of these BTP consumptions via the SAP for Me portal or the BTP Cockpit is criticized by user associations such as DSAG as highly inadequate and non-transparent, as granular cost evaluations at the level of individual business processes are often missing. The SAP Integration Suite, the cloud-based successor to the classic SAP PI\/PO middleware from the NetWeaver stack, presents a similarly restrictive picture. The licensing of this essential integration tool, which is indispensable for connecting SAP and non-SAP systems, is often based on metrics such as tenants and packages of 10,000 messages each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The business challenge for existing SAP customers lies in the predictability of message volumes. In modern, event-driven ERP landscapes and IoT scenarios, the number of system messages to be processed often explodes uncontrollably. As the Integration Suite is provisioned centrally via the BTP, it is virtually impossible to allocate services internally to specific departments, while sudden load peaks rapidly deplete the cloud credit balance and cause incalculable additional costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the pinnacle of SAP's monetization strategy is revealed in the new Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) and the SAP Datasphere. The BDC is praised by SAP marketing as an open, harmonized data foundation (data fabric) that will break up historical SAP data silos and federate them with hyperscaler services such as Databricks or Snowflake. However, if you read the small print of the contracts and Service Description Guides, the BDC turns out to be a system of restrictive thumbscrews that DSAG aptly mocks as \u201eBusiness Data Complexity\u201c. SAP places extremely strict limits on data usage. Every time the minimum limits are exceeded, SAP reserves the right to penalize with additional and sensitive fees. These tough technical and commercial barriers completely thwart the promise of an open data culture and force companies to throttle their data analyses precisely in accordance with the expensive volume specifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isolationist tactic is escalated by the highly controversial new API policy published by SAP in April 2026. Under the pretext of security concerns and system stability, SAP is now precisely regulating the conditions under which existing customers may transfer their own data to third-party systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The API guideline explicitly prohibits the use of SAP APIs for purposes that are not explicitly documented and prohibits systematic mass data extractions to external data warehouses or data For existing SAP customers, this is a fatal blow to their own digital sovereignty. Anyone who wants to efficiently extract their historical S\/4 data in future in order to analyze it with AI tools from third-party providers or on platforms such as Microsoft Fabric will be de facto forced into expensive in-house solutions such as SAP Datasphere and SAP BDC due to the blocking of high-performance interfaces (such as ODP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ban on autonomous and generative AI agents from third-party providers is particularly controversial: AI systems are no longer allowed to freely and independently access SAP data via APIs. SAP is effectively erecting a digital customs barrier here, where any external access that touches on Walldorf's data sovereignty will in future be regulated and almost certainly monetized in order to secure an artificial competitive advantage for its own, often technically lagging AI assistants such as Joule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The API restrictions merge seamlessly with one of the most dangerous licensing issues in SAP's history: indirect use and the Digital Access pricing model. In the era of Industry 4.0, robotics process automation (RPA) and networked supply chains, countless third-party systems access the ERP system automatically. With Digital Access, SAP has created an outcome-based license model that no longer counts the human user, but the sheer number of documents initially created in non-SAP sources and imported into the SAP core. The list prices for this document volume are set astronomically high, which is why SAP has to entice customers into the new model with discount programs (Digital Access Adoption Program, DAAP) of up to 90 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But these discounts are a contractual illusion: once a company has opted for digital access, there is no way back to the old, potentially more cost-effective user-based world. Inadequate measurement tools such as the SAP Passport tool often place the burden of proof for the correct counting of documents, such as the distinction between new documents requiring a license and license-free reading (indirect static read), entirely on the customer. Any external AI agent or IoT sensor that autonomously creates orders in S\/4 Hana in the future will cause meter readings at Digital Access to skyrocket and lead to additional charges without strict governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the ultimate danger in the SAP cloud subscription model is revealed at its end: there is simply no native, contractually guaranteed cloud exit strategy on the part of SAP. The all-in-cloud contracts under Rise with SAP act as a mathematical trapdoor function - a strategic one-way street. As the customer had to irrevocably give up their perpetual on-prem licenses during contract conversion, they are left empty-handed at the end of the cloud contract term. If a user company is no longer able or willing to pay the expensive subscription fees, the right to access the software expires immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This asymmetry puts SAP in an absolute monopoly position with every upcoming contract renewal, allowing the group to ruthlessly dictate unilateral price increases and less favorable metrics without the customer having a realistic opportunity to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legal efforts of the European Union through the EU Data Act, which is intended to break up cloud lock-in effects and enforce data portability, are also largely ineffective in ERP practice, as the law regulates the technical data output, but does not solve the problem of missing application licenses for further data processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In view of this mined commercial terrain, E3 Magazine, in agreement with independent licensing experts and DSAG, has often formulated drastic but essential recommendations for every existing SAP customer: The top priority is absolute transparency and optimization of one's own license landscape before even signing a Rise-with-SAP or cloud contract. Under no circumstances should you embark on the journey to the cloud with historical legacy and unused shelfware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Existing SAP customers must regain control of their user and authorization structures. As the future metric in S\/4 will be based on assigned authorizations and no longer on pure usage, it is imperative that SAP roles are redesigned before SAP's own Star Service is applied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is strongly recommended to use independent software asset management (SAM) tools from specialized providers such as USU, Snow, Flexera or Dynamic License Control, which simulate actual usage and show which expensive authorization objects in the roles can be eliminated to prevent a fatal classification in the expensive professional licenses. If you clean this up in advance, you can massively reduce the final FUE requirement for the cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E3 editorial team warns against prematurely converting your own perpetual on-prem purchase licenses to the cloud subscription model (contract conversion). Wherever it is still contractually possible and sensible, a product conversion should be insisted on, which guarantees the preservation of the license portfolio and old special usage rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For companies aiming for cloud operation but wanting to maintain their digital sovereignty, the bring-your-own-license (BYOL) model on the infrastructure of a neutral hyperscaler (IaaS) or Green Lake from Hewlett Packard Enterprise is recommended. In this case, the existing SAP customer remains the legal owner of the software licenses and can change hosting providers or transfer the licenses back to their own data center (on-premises private cloud) if they are dissatisfied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pitfalls of BTP and indirect use must be meticulously negotiated. When using the BTP Enterprise Agreement (BTPEA), companies should never start with cloud credit packages that are too large, as unused volumes inevitably expire at the end of the year. Instead, a small-volume start should be chosen or secure subscription models for clearly defined, permanently required services (such as the Integration Suite) should be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to digital access, companies must analyze their system architecture and all interfaces to non-SAP systems in detail before an audit. Not every data transfer automatically triggers a document count; functions such as Indirect Static Read must remain contractually watertight and defined as free of charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When reading SAP contracts, an almost forensic precision must be applied. An SAP cloud contract is not completed on the order form. SAP customers must download, read and physically archive the latest Cloud Supplements and Service Description Guides from the SAP Trust Center, as these documents define the hard metrics, restrictions (such as the limit of 2000 OData API calls in the BDC) and support level agreements. As SAP regularly changes these links and documents, there is no chance of later providing evidence in the event of license disputes without solid archiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critical IT decision-makers must understand that the current SAP cloud and ERP licensing model does not primarily serve to liberate the customer, but rather represents a masterfully constructed commercial network to maximize and stabilize SAP revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone who relies on Rise-with-SAP presentations without a sound IT strategy, without external legal advice and without independent licensing tools will inevitably fall into a cost trap that will ruinously drive up the total cost of ownership for years to come and leave their own company permanently on the software giant's drip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the digital sovereignty of existing SAP customers can no longer be secured by blindly trusting SAP's roadmap, but requires radical personal responsibility, in-depth technical and contractual understanding and the willingness to meet the global ERP market leader at eye level and with the utmost rigor in every license negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The current SAP cloud and licensing model in no way serves to technically and organizationally liberate existing customers, but rather binds them more closely to Walldorf. Those who rely on Rise with SAP without a sound IT strategy, external legal advice and license control risk high costs and permanent dependence on the software group.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44462,37922,44463],"tags":[39,601,73,65,624,517,236],"coauthors":[27825],"class_list":["post-163463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coverstory-26-06","category-coverstorys","category-mag-26-06","tag-cloud","tag-digitalisierung","tag-erp","tag-hana","tag-ki-joule","tag-s4","tag-sap","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-400x180.jpg",400,180,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-768x346.jpg",768,346,true],"large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-100":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-100x45.jpg",100,45,true],"image-480":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-480x216.jpg",480,216,true],"image-640":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-640x288.jpg",640,288,true],"image-720":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-720x324.jpg",720,324,true],"image-960":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-960x432.jpg",960,432,true],"image-1168":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-1440":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-1920":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"trp-custom-language-flag":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-18x8.jpg",18,8,true],"bricks_large_16x9":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_large_square":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_medium":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-600x270.jpg",600,270,true],"bricks_medium_square":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2606_cs_cover_pc_e3_dlc-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":" Das aktuelle SAP-Cloud- und Lizenzmodell dient keineswegs der technischen und organisatorischen Befreiung der Bestandskunden, sondern bindet sie enger an Walldorf. Wer ohne fundierte IT-Strategie, externe Rechtsberatung und Lizenzkontrolle auf Rise with SAP setzt, riskiert hohe Kosten und dauerhafte Abh\u00e4ngigkeit vom Softwarekonzern.<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Coverstory 26-06<\/a>, Coverstorys<\/a>, MAG 26-06<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Peter M. F\u00e4rbinger, E3 Magazine","url":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/author\/peter-m-faerbinger-e-3-magazin\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163463"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163599,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163463\/revisions\/163599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163463"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=163463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/erp_ist_nicht_ki_web.jpg\")
SAP API Policy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Lakes, unless SAP has explicitly permitted this specific use case in the product documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cloud exit strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Transparency and optimization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Forensic accuracy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/download_banner_D_1000x125.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n