SAP licensing

SAP licensing covers an estate that runs from classic on-premise ERP (SAP ECC and the SAP Business Suite) and its successor SAP S/4HANA, through the SAP HANA database and the SAP BusinessObjects analytics tools, to cloud ERP subscriptions sold as RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP. On-premise use is governed by the SAP Software Use Rights (SUR), a global document that SAP revises several times a year; the version current in September 2026 is enGLOBAL.v.4-2026. Its core principle is a two-layer licence: except where the SUR states otherwise, “the Use of any Package requires both a Named User License and a Package License”.^[1] Commercial terms such as fees and audit rights sit in the country version of the SAP General Terms and Conditions (GTC) and the Order Form,^[2] while cloud subscriptions are governed by a Supplement and a Service Description Guide (SDG) or Service Use Description (SUD).^[6] SAP’s price list is confidential, so list prices are not given here. This article summarises the whole estate; the detailed articles are listed under Guides.

Editions

SAP does not sell a single edition ladder. Each product family has its own commercial units:

SAP Business One, the small-business ERP, has its own user types in Exhibit 6 of the SUR. The Starter Package has a minimum of one user and a maximum of five in total.^[1] SAP BusinessObjects is licensed per Deployment, which the SUR defines as a single installation of the system repository component of the BI Platform.^[1] Several cloud portfolios that SAP acquired, such as SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba and SAP Concur, are sold under their own cloud Supplements and are outside the scope of this overview. The acquisitions are listed on the SAP vendor page and in Software acquisitions and product history.

Metrics

On-premise metrics fall into three groups, each a row in the catalog:

• Named User types. A Named User is any individual authorised by the customer to use a Package, and “Named User Licenses cannot be assigned to more than 1 individual”.^[1] Exhibit 2 of the SUR defines the current types, from SAP Professional User and SAP Developer User through SAP Employee User, SAP Worker User and SAP Platform User. Customers whose contracts date from June 2014 or earlier may hold older types such as mySAP.com Users. The full list is in SAP Named User and Digital Access licensing.
• Package (engine) metrics. Each Package is licensed on the metric set for it in Exhibit 2, for example Revenues, Employees, Gigabytes of Memory, Cores, Concurrent Sessions or Managed Systems. See SAP package and engine metrics.
• Value metrics. SAP Application Value (SAV) and HANA SAP Application Value (HSAV) are sums of prices of other licensed software. SAV governs third-party runtime databases sold by SAP and HSAV governs SAP HANA runtime editions (Exhibit 2 §48).^[1]

For indirect use, Documents are the unit of SAP S/4HANA Digital Access. SUR Exhibit 2 §17.5 names nine Document Types; each Document counts as one, except Material and Financial Documents, which count as 0.2.^[1] In the cloud, the core ERP entitlement is the Full Usage Equivalent (FUE). One FUE equals 0.50 Developer Access, 1 advanced use, 5 core use or 30 self-service use, and an FUE “cannot be divided between or among different use types”.^[5] GROW with SAP uses the same ratios.^[7] SAP publishes no conversion table between FUE use types and on-premise Named User types.

Counting / floors

Use and indirect use

The SUR defines Use broadly. It includes activating the processing capabilities of the software or displaying information resulting from them, whether through an SAP interface, a customer or third-party interface, or another intermediary system.^[1] Individuals who reach SAP data through a non-SAP front end therefore still need Named User licences, unless the customer licenses S/4HANA Digital Access, which covers humans using S/4HANA through directly integrated non-SAP applications and non-humans such as bots and devices, counted by Documents created annually.^[1] This scope of Use was at issue in SAP UK v Diageo.

Licensed Level

“Each Package is licensed based upon the Metric applicable to it, and in no case may Use of a Package exceed the License Level for which the Package is licensed” (SUR §6.1.1).^[1] A Package metric does not replace the Named User requirement. Revenue-based Packages count annual revenue excluding indirect taxes, and the SUR narrows the count for many industry Packages.^[1]

Named User transfer

A Named User licence may move from one individual to another only if the original holder is on vacation, is absent through sickness, has left the company, has moved to a job that no longer needs the Packages, or meets a condition otherwise agreed with SAP (SUR §5.1.1).^[1] Classifying users is therefore a recurring task rather than a one-time assignment.

SAP HANA

The HANA enterprise edition may be used with any licensed data source up to its memory Licensed Level. The runtime editions (REAB, REAB-Partial, Runtime for BW and Limited Runtime) may be used only with the SAP software they support, and their fee is calculated on HSAV, so it rises when the customer licenses more SAP software.^[1] The SUR also states that “S/4HANA Packages are not licensed for Use with any third party runtime database” (Exhibit 3 §2.1).^[1] Details are in SAP HANA runtime and full-use licensing.

Support and maintenance

On-premise licences are perpetual (except subscription or term licences), and the customer pays both the licence fees and the SAP Support fees set out in the Order Form.^[2] SAP’s support page states that the list price of SAP Enterprise Support for new on-premise purchases “remains fixed at 22 percent until 2025”. It also states that fees for existing contracts do not rise in the initial and first renewal periods, after which SAP may increase them by CPI yearly, subject to contract terms.^[4] The same page states that SAP Enterprise Support is included with every cloud subscription.^[4]

The Enterprise Support Schedule is published per country. The Indian version, used here as an example, covers “all software licensed by Licensee under the Agreement”, with fees paid annually in advance.^[3] Either party may terminate with three months’ notice before a renewal period. A move to SAP Standard Support applies to all Enterprise Support Solutions, and the schedule states that partial termination of SAP Enterprise Support is not permitted for any part of the agreement.^[3] If support is later reinstated after a gap, SAP invoices the accrued support fees for that period plus a reinstatement fee.^[3] Commentary: because support cannot be dropped for part of an estate, removing shelfware usually involves a conversion or a negotiated contract change rather than simply ending support on unused licences.

For product lifecycles, SAP announced in 2020 a maintenance commitment for SAP S/4HANA until the end of 2040, and mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 core applications until the end of 2027, followed by optional extended maintenance until the end of 2030.^[9]

Audit and measurement

The on-premise GTC gives SAP the right to audit “at least once annually and in accordance with SAP standard procedures, which may include on-site and/or remote audit” the usage of the SAP Materials.^[2] If an audit finds underpaid licence or support fees or use beyond the licensed quantities, the customer pays for the excess at the then-current price list and signs an additional Order Form. The customer also pays reasonable audit costs if usage exceeds the licensed levels.^[2]

SUR §4.1.1 describes how this works in practice. SAP audits “in general once a year” by system measurement. The customer can run the measurement itself using the unaltered tools and self-declaration forms SAP provides, and transmits the result to SAP online or in a machine-readable format.^[1] The self-declaration covers Package metrics that system tools cannot measure, such as revenue or employees. The Enterprise Support Schedule adds a separate right to check, at least once a year, the information the customer provided and its use of Solution Manager Enterprise Edition.^[3] In the cloud, the Cloud ERP Private and RISE Supplement lets SAP audit use of the Cloud Service and Bundled Cloud Services on the same annual basis (rule).^[6] For the general practice see Software license audit.

Virtualization & partitioning

Most SAP metrics do not depend on hardware. Named Users, Revenues, Employees and value metrics do not change when a system is virtualized or moved. The hardware-linked metrics are Cores and Memory. For Cores, the SUR counts each physical or virtual core that runs at least part of the software, including cores assigned temporarily for peak processing, and “if the licensed Software will run in a pure virtual environment, physical Cores will not be counted”.^[1] SAP publishes no hard or soft partitioning policy comparable to those of other database vendors. For HANA, each licensed edition must be deployed in its own tenant database when a customer holds more than one edition.^[1] For the general concepts see Virtualization and partitioning.

Cloud / BYOL

On-premise SAP licences may run on infrastructure-as-a-service. SAP’s support site lists certified IaaS platforms from Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Huawei, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Open Telekom Cloud.^[11] The SUR metrics apply unchanged there, and SAP publishes no vCPU mapping for Named Users or Documents.

RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP are not bring-your-own-licence constructs. They are subscriptions counted in FUE, and existing on-premise licences do not carry into them as licences. Instead, SAP ties hybrid rights to converting on-premise support fees. Tailored option customers may use S/4HANA Compatibility Packs until 2033-12-31, but using them with on-premise systems requires converting at least 50% of the annual on-premise SAP Support Fee through the Cloud Extension Program.^[5] Customers first subscribing to Core Cloud ERP on or after 2024-10-07 must meet the same 50% threshold before SAP AI Technology may extend to their on-premise systems.^[6] Bundled services, renewal terms and FUE tiers are covered in RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP commercial constructs.

Programs

• SAP S/4HANA Product Conversion converts classic engines 1:1 into their S/4HANA equivalents under the existing contract. SAP S/4HANA Contract Conversion moves the customer wholesale to new S/4HANA use rights. SAP’s 2020 overview described the maximum contract conversion credit as the “lesser of 100% current maintenance base or 90% of net NEW license fee” for eligible software.^[8] The deck is informational and current credits are set in each conversion contract.
• Customers executing either conversion receive dual use rights for SAP Business Suite 7 and SAP S/4HANA “until completion of their transition”, replacing the earlier limit of the end of 2025.^[9]
• The Cloud Extension Program converts on-premise support fees into cloud subscriptions, and the time-limited RISE with SAP Migration and Modernization program, announced on 2024-01-30, offered credits for moves to RISE or GROW through the end of 2024.^[10]
• RISE with SAP is itself the private cloud subscription program, and SAP certified IaaS is recorded as a program for running on-premise licences on hyperscalers.

All routes are described in SAP S/4HANA contract conversion programmes.

Recent licensing changes

• Software Use Rights revisions. SAP versions the SUR by number and year; the global English text current in September 2026 is enGLOBAL.v.4-2026, dated 2026-04-20. Older contracts may reference earlier versions and user types, and customers with contracts from June 2014 or earlier “are not permitted to license SAP Named Users within their existing license contract”.^[1]
• Cloud ERP naming. The Supplement enGLOBAL.v.7-2026 applies both to SAP Cloud ERP Private and to RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.^[6]
• Hybrid AI rights. Since 2024-10-07, SAP AI on on-premise systems has depended on converting at least half of the on-premise support fee.^[6]
• Compatibility Packs. In the tailored option, Compatibility Pack use runs through 2033-12-31, subject to SAP Note 2269324.^[5]

Guides

Articles on this wiki about SAP licensing:

• SAP Named User and Digital Access licensing: Named User types, Documents, Cores and Concurrent Sessions.
• SAP package and engine metrics: Revenues, Employees, Memory, SAV and other Package metrics.
• SAP HANA runtime and full-use licensing: enterprise edition against runtime editions.
• SAP BusinessObjects BI licensing: Deployments, Users and Concurrent Sessions.
• RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP commercial constructs: FUE, bundled services and renewals.
• SAP S/4HANA contract conversion programmes: product conversion, contract conversion and the Cloud Extension Program.

Archived white papers, kept as sources: Quick guide to SAP licensing, Quick guide to SAP S/4HANA licensing, Quick guide to SAP Digital Access, Quick guide to SAP HANA database licensing, Quick guide to RISE and GROW with SAP, Quick guide to SAP BTP licensing, Quick guide to SAP Concur licensing, Quick guide to SAP SuccessFactors licensing and SAP white papers.

Court cases involving SAP licensing are listed in the Litigation section of the SAP vendor page, including SAP UK v Diageo (indirect use), SAP America v. Anheuser-Busch, Teradata v. SAP (HANA tying), Celonis v. SAP (data extraction) and Waste Management v. SAP.

Out of scope

This article does not cover SAP price lists or discounts, which are confidential; the licensing of SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur and other line-of-business cloud services; country-specific GTC variations beyond the United Kingdom version cited; or the historical Digital Access Adoption Program. SAPS and aSAPS are hardware sizing units, not licence metrics.