SAP package and engine metrics

SAP package and engine metrics are the business measures on which SAP licenses individual on-premise Packages, often called engines, under the SAP Software Use Rights (SUR). On-premise SAP licensing has two layers. A Named User licence defines what an individual may do, and a Package licence defines how much of a given Package the customer may use. The SUR states that “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.”^[1] The metrics themselves are defined in SUR Exhibit 2, which in enGLOBAL.v.4-2026 (PDF dated 20 April 2026) runs alphabetically from Assets to Values. This article covers the Package metrics most often met in an effective license position. The Named User types, Cores, Concurrent Sessions and Digital Access Documents are described in SAP Named User and Digital Access licensing.

Editions

Package metrics are not tied to editions. Each Package on the price list carries its own metric, and the Order Form records the Licensed Level, defined in SUR §1.2 as “the quantity of Metric for which each individual Package is licensed”. SAP’s 2020 S/4HANA licensing overview states that S/4HANA line-of-business and industry add-ons “are priced based on a single, value aligned metric”. It also describes a “no surcharge on like for like functionality” principle: where an ERP core capability is delivered technically by a separately licensed solution, SAP does not charge for it as long as only the core scope is used.^[3] That overview is informational. The binding definitions are those in the SUR.

Metrics

The table lists the Exhibit 2 metrics covered here, with the vendor’s definition in short form. Each definition links to its full SUR wording.^[1]

Other Exhibit 2 metrics include Assets, Barrel of Oil Equivalent per Day, Budgets, Business Partners, Cash Flows, Contacts, Contracts, Costs, Devices, Entities, Installations, Instances, Items, Objects, Outpatient Days, Patients, Plants, Point of Delivery, Premiums, Prices, Products, Records, Resources, Revenues and Expenses, Spends, Students, Subscriptions, Tons and Units. Several of these are specific to one industry.

Counting / floors

Licensed Level is a ceiling (effective 2026-04-20). Use of a Package may never exceed its Licensed Level (Package use may never exceed its Licensed Level). For Third Party Software Packages, any productive or non-productive use counts against the Licensed Level unless SUR §7 states otherwise.^[1] A Package metric does not replace the Named User requirement. For example, the SUR states that the BI Users metric “does not replace the overall SAP Named User licensing requirement”.

Revenues. Revenues are annual and exclude VAT, excise duty and similar sales-related taxes (Revenues metric excludes indirect taxes). The SUR scopes the count for many Packages. For listed trade-promotion, customer business planning and msg food-industry Packages, only the revenue of the business or division the Package is applied to counts. SAP CPQ counts revenue generated using the software. SAP Customer Experience products count sales revenue through their platforms over each trailing 12 months. Insurance uses Premiums, central banks Assets under Management, other banks gross interest plus noninterest income, and the public sector Total Annual Budgets (§§36.1.1-36.1.10).^[1] In the private cloud tailored option, revenue-based subscription software is sold in blocks, for example EUR 100 million converted to local currency using SAP standard exchange rates.^[2]

Employees. Every individual working for the licensing company or legal entity counts, whether part-time, full-time, on leave or a contract worker (Employees metric counts regardless of employment status). For HCM solutions, employees count as long as they are processed in the system. For payroll, retirees count while processed. SAP S/4HANA Defense & Security uses a weighted count: Military Personnel x 1.0 + Reserve x 0.5 + Civilian x 0.5.^[1] For example, 10,000 military, 4,000 reserve and 6,000 civilian personnel give 10,000 + 2,000 + 3,000 = 15,000 Employees.

Managed Systems. Every system with a unique system identifier, or cloud service, that the software controls, manages, monitors, scans or retires counts, including non-production usage types. The exception is SAP Information Lifecycle Management, which counts only productive systems (Managed Systems include non-production usage types).^[1]

Database sizes. Gigabyte database sizes are measured on productive systems and calculated separately for each system (each ERP, BI and CRM system). A separate 1.5 Terabyte accumulated metric sums all productive SAP systems where SAP Landscape Transformation is used (§14.2).^[1]

Values. SAP Application Value (SAV) and HANA SAP Application Value (HSAV) are computed from prices rather than counted. Both exclude items that the list of prices and conditions marks as not contributing. That list is part of the confidential price list, so the value cannot be recomputed from public documents alone. SUR §9.1 uses SAV to decide which Named Users and Packages are “SAV relevant” for a third-party runtime database. The HANA runtime editions are priced on HSAV and cost more whenever HSAV rises. See SAP HANA runtime and full-use licensing.

Runtime Software. A licensed Package may use limited functionality of other, unlicensed Packages (“Runtime Software”). Until the customer licenses them, that use is limited to access through the licensed Package, and to permitted Modifications, for the sole purpose of enabling that Package and integrating data from licensed SAP software. If a Package is used to build or operate a custom or third-party application, additional licences may be required (SUR §2.5.1).^[1] Exhibit 3 lists Runtime Software for many Packages, for example SAP ILM Retention Manager within S/4HANA Enterprise Management.

Virtualization & partitioning

Most Package metrics are hardware-independent. Revenues, Employees and Values do not change when a Package is virtualized or moved to another host. The hardware-linked metrics are:

• Servers. Physical computers, cases, boxes or blades housing the CPUs. The SUR states that multiple virtual machines on the same physical box are allowed and do not require additional licences (Servers metric: VMs on the same physical box need no extra license).^[1]
• Cores and Memory. Cores count physical or virtual cores that run the software, including cores temporarily assigned for peak processing. Memory counts the gigabytes the software may use. Both are described in the linked articles.
• Deployments. A Deployment is an installation of the BI Platform repository, and each tenant of a multi-tenant platform is a separate Deployment. See SAP BusinessObjects BI licensing.

Cloud / BYOL

On-premise Package metrics do not carry over to SAP cloud subscriptions. Cloud Service Description Guides define their own Usage Metrics, some of which share SUR names. The tailored option SDG, for example, defines Active User, Assets under Management, Barrel of Oil Equivalent per Day, Concurrent Session, Connections and Contacts in its §1. It also sets block sizes and maximum block counts per subscription software.^[2] The core ERP entitlement in the cloud is the Full Usage Equivalent. See RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP commercial constructs.

Programs

Package metrics are not programs. In SAP S/4HANA Product Conversion, SAP’s 2020 overview describes classic engines converting 1:1 into S/4HANA engines, whose metric (often Revenue) may differ from the classic engine’s metric. See SAP S/4HANA contract conversion programmes.

Out of scope

• Named User types, Digital Access Documents, Cores and Concurrent Sessions, which are covered in their own article.
• Package-specific metric overrides for individual industry solutions beyond the examples above.
• Price-list items that do not contribute to SAV or HSAV, and block prices, which are confidential.