A Rimini Street-commissioned Foundry survey of 455 SAP customers found that 95% say building a positive ROI case for S/4HANA migration is “difficult or takes significant effort.” That is not a fringe view. It is the near-universal experience of the people who have actually tried to run the numbers.
The 2027 SAP ECC end-of-mainstream-maintenance deadline is turning what should be a deliberate financial decision into a perceived forced march. That is exactly when expensive mistakes get made.
Here is what this article gives you: a TCO comparison framework across three strategic paths, a clear-eyed look at the perpetual licence surrender decision, and the inputs you need for a business case that will hold up in a board meeting. This article is part of our complete guide to SAP ECC end of support and what comes next, which covers every dimension of the 2027 decision.
Why 95% of SAP customers struggle to build a positive business case for S/4HANA migration
There are concrete structural reasons why this is so hard. It is not because your finance team is bad at spreadsheets.
The Rimini Street/Foundry numbers tell you everything: 95% of 455 surveyed customers find positive ROI “challenging.” Ninety percent are worried about subscription cost unpredictability. And at the end of 2024, only 39% of SAP’s 35,000 ECC customers had actually migrated — and S/4HANA has been out for nearly a decade.
The structural problem is that SAP’s own ROI calculators leave out the costs that hurt the most: dual-run periods, custom code remediation, productivity loss during cutover, and mandatory Signavio add-ons. The Horváth Partners study of 200+ executives fills in the gap — 65% missed quality targets, 60% suffered planning overruns averaging 30% longer than planned, and 55% exceeded budget. Only 8% completed on schedule. For a full breakdown of why SAP projects go wrong, see why SAP migrations fail at a rate that should concern every decision maker.
The benefits of S/4HANA are real. They are also long-dated. The costs are immediate. A genuine positive ROI case requires a full TCO model across a 5–7 year horizon — one that includes the hidden costs and a realistic execution risk premium.
What surrendering your SAP perpetual licence actually means — and why you cannot undo it
This is the part that most migration conversations gloss over. It should not be glossed over.
Signing RISE with SAP requires surrendering your perpetual ECC licences as a precondition. Once surrendered, those licences are permanently retired from your account. There is no mechanism for SAP to reinstate them. None.
Your SAP ECC perpetual licences are owned assets. You paid for them once and own the right to run that software indefinitely, with an annual maintenance fee of around 22% of the original licence value. RISE with SAP is a subscription — an OpEx model that eliminates licence ownership entirely.
This is a one-way door. If you later want to exit RISE, you need to purchase new licences at current market prices or leave SAP entirely. As Redress Compliance put it: “Once surrendered, you cannot go back. Ensure the RISE economics genuinely justify giving up an asset you own forever.”
SAP has also become more assertive about auditing as the 2027 deadline approaches — a mechanism to accelerate the conversation toward RISE.
For your business case, the perpetual licence value must appear as a sunk asset written off at RISE signing. A quantified cost. Not an invisible concession.
What RISE with SAP actually costs when you add up everything in the contract
The RISE headline price is not the total commercial commitment. Not even close.
RISE bundles S/4HANA Cloud, managed infrastructure, and SAP BTP access. But several meaningful costs sit outside that number, and they add up fast.
SAP Signavio. Forrester Research (Akshara Naik Lopez, Charles Betz) confirmed SAP is “moving toward mandating that RISE-validated partners use SAP Signavio and LeanIX from day one of major cloud transformation programs.” Not optional. Its own subscription cost on top of everything else.
SAP BTP overages. BTP is bundled in RISE, but usage-based costs for integrations and extensions are metered and not capped in standard contracts. Consumption charges escalate quickly without a hard ceiling in writing.
Implementation partner cost. The actual migration is not included in RISE. You pay a GSI or SAP partner separately — typically 1.5–3x the first-year licence cost, according to ERP Logic data.
FUE licensing complexity. S/4HANA Cloud uses Full User Equivalents rather than named users. Organisations routinely underestimate FUE requirements at scoping and then discover at go-live that their actual usage patterns require more expensive licences — triggering true-up costs at renewal.
Dual-run costs. Running ECC alongside S/4HANA during migration means double-paying for 12–24 months. Almost never included in SAP’s estimates.
Renewal price escalation. RISE contracts typically allow 5–7% annual price increases. Without a cap in the initial contract, a five-year deal could cost 25–35% more on renewal.
Run the full model before you sign anything. The on-premises perpetual model often has a lower cumulative TCO over seven or more years once you do the honest maths.
What SAP BTP vendor lock-in is and how it actually works
BTP is not just a budget line item. It is a structural commitment that gets harder to undo the longer you are in it.
SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) replaces on-premises ABAP customisations in an S/4HANA Cloud deployment. The clean core mandate — SAP’s architectural requirement — means all custom ABAP code must be removed from the core system. Any code that survives must be re-platformed to BTP.
Forrester Research (Akshara Naik Lopez, Charles Betz) names the consequence directly: “SAP’s shift toward bundled, subscription-based cloud models and heavy dependence on the Business Technology Platform for extensibility increases vendor lock-in.” Integrations built on BTP use SAP-proprietary APIs and cannot be lifted to another platform without a full rebuild.
Years of ABAP customisation investment must either be abandoned, rebuilt in BTP at cost and with new lock-in, or re-evaluated as over-engineered. The clean core mandate forces that reckoning whether you are ready for it or not.
The commercial context explains why this is not going to change. SAP SE reported €36.8 billion in 2025 revenue, with cloud backlog growth decelerating. SAP needs BTP adoption metrics. This is structural, not incidental.
Before finalising any migration cost estimate, audit every custom ABAP programme, integration, and user exit. Organisations that skip this audit routinely encounter 30–50% cost overruns at implementation.
Total cost of ownership across three strategic paths
Any defensible business case must evaluate all three options honestly. If your business case only models the migration path, it is not a business case — it is a justification.
Path 1 — Migrate to S/4HANA via RISE with SAP
The full cost picture: perpetual licence write-off, RISE subscription (years 1–5 with 5–7%/year renewal escalation), SAP Signavio (mandatory), BTP usage overages (metered), implementation partner fees (1.5–3x first-year licence), dual-run period (12–24 months), custom code remediation to BTP, training and change management. For organisations in the 50–500 employee range, migration costs typically run $1M–$5M over the first 24 months, excluding dual-run costs. Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) disclosed $42 million in SAP S/4 migration costs in Q4 2025 alone — and that is a single quarter.
Path 2 — Remain on SAP ECC with third-party support
Rimini Street or Spinnaker Support typically charge 50% of SAP’s maintenance fee, plus internal support team retention and a risk premium for operating post-2027. Third-party support covers security patching and regulatory updates for up to 15 years beyond SAP’s own deadlines. For many organisations, the 5-year TCO of this path is lower than Path 1. Worth modelling honestly. For a deeper look at this option and its risks, see the SAP alternatives SAP will not tell you about.
Path 3 — Composable ERP transition
ECC decommissioning, new application licensing across multiple vendors, integration platform costs, data migration, process redesign, and full retraining. Typically the highest short-term cost, but it eliminates SAP vendor dependency entirely.
The TCO comparison framework
Populate every cost category for your specific environment. Do not rely on vendor-supplied numbers for any path — including SAP’s.
The cost components to model: migration or transition cost; annual licence and support in year one and year five (accounting for escalation); BTP or integration platform costs; implementation partner fees; dual-run period; training and change management; and a risk premium calculated as base cost × 1.25 to 1.35, using the Horváth data.
How SAP uses contract renewal as commercial leverage — and what you can do about it
SAP has three commercial leverage mechanisms working in its favour right now. The 2027 support deadline creates urgency. Extended ECC support to 2030 is gated through RISE commercial commitments. And renewal pricing is not capped in standard RISE contracts.
But the dynamic cuts both ways. SAP’s stock fell 22% on 29 January 2026 following cloud backlog deceleration guidance. Customers with credible alternatives have real leverage at initial contract negotiation — and that is the window you need to use.
Five practical negotiation levers:
- Competitive quotes. Get formal pricing from Oracle, Workday, or composable ERP vendors. You do not need to intend to switch. A credible alternative changes the dynamic significantly.
- Timing. SAP’s fiscal year ends in December. Deals in the last two to three weeks of a fiscal quarter attract better terms.
- Price-cap clauses. Negotiate renewal price escalation caps — CPI-linked or fixed at 3%/year — into the initial RISE contract. At renewal, your leverage is minimal. Get it in writing now.
- Extended support access. Negotiate RISE contracts that include extended ECC support through 2030 without additional uplift.
- Signavio and BTP cost caps. Request explicit cost caps or credit allocations rather than uncapped metered billing.
No large enterprise pays SAP list price. Discounts of 30–70% are common. If you are accepting less than 40% on a significant deal, you left money on the table.
How to build a business case for SAP S/4HANA migration that holds up to board scrutiny
Most migration business cases fail not because the numbers are wrong, but because they use SAP’s framing. That framing starts with “you must migrate” and works backwards to justify the decision. A board-ready case starts somewhere else entirely: “Here are three legitimate paths. Here are the honest costs and risks of each. Here is our recommendation.”
Four things you need to build it properly:
- Full 5-year TCO model. Use the three-path framework above. Do not use SAP’s TCO calculator as a baseline — it is not designed to surface the costs that hurt you most.
- Risk-adjusted cost. Apply the Horváth data: (Base Migration Cost) × 1.25 to 1.35. A conservative estimate that proves accurate beats a point estimate that proves wrong every single time.
- Strategic optionality value. Account for what you give up by signing RISE — the perpetual licence asset at market value, the flexibility to adopt best-of-breed modules, and the ability to exit SAP without a full licence repurchase.
- Timeline scenarios. Model three: migrate before 2027 (highest urgency, highest execution risk); migrate before 2030 under extended support; or remain on third-party support indefinitely.
If recommending RISE, the perpetual licence surrender must appear as an asset write-off. Omitting it is a material misrepresentation of the RISE path cost — and a board that finds out later will not be pleased.
For board credibility, cite the data that holds up to scrutiny: the Rimini Street/Foundry survey (95% ROI difficulty — this is industry-wide, not your internal failure); Forrester Research (Akshara Naik Lopez, Charles Betz — independently names BTP lock-in risk); Horváth Partners (execution risk data); Halliburton Q4 2025 ($42M — publicly audited, SEC-disclosed).
When you complete this process, you will have the vocabulary and evidence base to have a substantive commercial negotiation with SAP — not just accept the terms offered. For a broader view of all strategic options across the 2027 decision, see our comprehensive SAP ECC end-of-support guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to stay on SAP ECC with third-party support than to migrate to S/4HANA?
For many organisations, yes — on a 5-year TCO basis. Rimini Street or Spinnaker Support typically reduce annual maintenance by around 50% compared to SAP’s own fee, with no implementation cost, no perpetual licence write-off, and no escalation risk. Third-party support buys you time but does not resolve what comes after 2030. It is a legitimate path and genuine negotiating leverage with SAP.
What exactly is the perpetual licence surrender in RISE with SAP, and can it be reversed?
Perpetual licence surrender means handing back your SAP ECC licences as a precondition for signing RISE. Those licences are permanently retired from your account. It cannot be reversed. If you later want to leave RISE, you need to purchase new licences at current market prices or exit SAP entirely. Treat it as an asset write-off in the financial model.
What is SAP RISE vendor lock-in and how serious is it?
RISE creates lock-in through two mechanisms: perpetual licence surrender makes returning to on-premises SAP expensive; BTP dependency increases switching costs because custom integrations built on BTP cannot be moved to another platform without a full rebuild. Forrester Research (Akshara Naik Lopez, Charles Betz) explicitly names BTP dependency as a strategic risk in their “SAP Sapphire 2025: What Tech Leaders Need To Know” analysis. Lock-in scales with BTP investment.
Can I negotiate better pricing at SAP contract renewal?
Renewal leverage is limited — SAP CEO Christian Klein has confirmed the company will not discount the renewal base. The leverage window is initial contract negotiation. Get formal competitive quotes, time the deal to SAP’s Q4 end, and negotiate renewal price caps and Signavio/BTP cost limits at signing. Once you are live on RISE with surrendered licences, that leverage disappears.
What is SAP Signavio and why does it appear in my RISE contract costs?
SAP Signavio is a process intelligence platform SAP acquired and integrated into its portfolio. It is mandated from day one of RISE-validated partner programmes — not optional — with its own subscription cost on top of everything else. If you do not plan to actively use it, negotiate its cost or a credit into the RISE contract before you sign.
How do I account for execution risk in an SAP migration business case?
Apply the Horváth Partners data as a risk multiplier: 65% of SAP migrations missed quality targets; 60% suffered planning overruns averaging 30% longer than planned; 55% exceeded budget; only 8% completed on schedule. The formula: (Base Migration Cost) × 1.25 to 1.35.
What is a “dual-run period” and how much does it cost?
A dual-run period is when both SAP ECC and S/4HANA run simultaneously for testing and cutover validation — typically 3–12 months. The cost is doubled infrastructure plus internal resource cost. It is almost never included in SAP’s or implementation partners’ estimates. It belongs as a separate line item in your TCO model.
What does the SAP 2027 ECC end-of-support deadline actually mean for my contract?
2027 ends SAP’s mainstream maintenance for ECC — no standard support packages or functional updates after that date. Extended support at a 2% premium is available through 2030 via SAP or RISE. The deadline is a commercial lever, not a technical cliff. Rimini Street and Spinnaker Support offer continued ECC support post-2027, covering security patching and regulatory updates.
What is the difference between greenfield and brownfield S/4HANA migration, and which costs more?
Greenfield is a clean-slate implementation — starting fresh, higher upfront cost, clean system. Brownfield converts existing ECC configuration directly into S/4HANA — lower upfront cost but carries legacy technical debt forward. Around 49% of organisations pursue a hybrid approach, the most common real-world outcome despite being the most complex to plan.
How much does SAP S/4HANA migration actually cost for a mid-market company?
For organisations in the 50–500 employee range with moderate ECC customisation, migration costs on the RISE path typically run $1M–$5M over the first 24 months. Gartner cites $2M to $1B depending on complexity. Key components: RISE subscription, implementation partner fees (1.5–3x first-year licence), infrastructure, training, and custom code remediation.
What does “clean core” mean and why does it drive up SAP S/4HANA migration costs?
Clean core is SAP’s architectural mandate for S/4HANA Cloud: all custom ABAP code and direct modifications to the SAP core must be removed. Code that cannot be eliminated must be re-platformed to SAP BTP — the primary hidden cost driver in migrations with heavily customised ECC landscapes. Audit every custom integration, ABAP programme, and user exit before finalising a migration cost estimate. Organisations that skip this routinely encounter 30–50% cost overruns.
