The buyer-side comparison of RISE with SAP against the on-premise S/4HANA route, against the PCE outside the RISE bundle and against the brownfield-stay route. The Admodum read on the commercial profile, the operating profile and the exit profile of each route.
The RISE with SAP route bundles six components into a single subscription: S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition (the typical RISE variant), hyperscaler infrastructure (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or Alibaba in selected geographies), SAP-managed operations (basis administration, database operations, patching, upgrade management), the BTPEA credit (a Business Technology Platform consumption pool), the SAP Signavio process tools, and the SAP LeanIX enterprise-architecture tools.
SAP holds the hyperscaler-customer relationship inside the standard RISE construct. The buyer does not contract with the hyperscaler directly for the RISE-allocated infrastructure. The buyer's existing EDP, MACC or hyperscaler-side discount surface does not apply to the RISE-allocated capacity. The wider RISE bundle anatomy spoke reads the bundle in component detail.
The on-premise plus bring-your-own-hyperscaler route licenses S/4HANA on-premise under SAP's perpetual-licence-plus-maintenance commercial model (or the on-premise subscription where available) and runs the workload on hyperscaler infrastructure that the buyer contracts directly. The buyer holds the AWS, Azure or Google Cloud commercial relationship and applies the existing EDP, MACC or hyperscaler-side commitment terms to the SAP workload.
The operating model places the basis administration, the database operations, the patching and the upgrade management with the buyer or with a buyer-selected systems-integration partner. The route preserves the buyer's hyperscaler-customer position and the buyer's existing on-premise operating capability, at the cost of the SAP-managed-operations burden. The SAP hyperscaler choice spoke reads the hyperscaler-side commercial positioning.
The S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition outside the RISE bundle is the SAP-side managed-software construct (SAP provides the S/4HANA software licence, the application-level management and the basis operations), with the buyer holding the hyperscaler relationship. The PCE-outside-RISE route is the middle route between the full RISE bundle and the on-premise plus BYO-hyperscaler route.
The PCE-outside-RISE construct allows the buyer to retain the hyperscaler-customer position (the EDP, MACC or commitment terms apply to the PCE infrastructure) while accepting the SAP-managed application-and-basis layer. The route is appropriate for the buyer with significant existing hyperscaler commitment that would be stranded by a RISE transition. The SAP Private Cloud Edition spoke reads the PCE construct in detail.
The brownfield-stay-on-prem route converts the existing ECC estate to on-premise S/4HANA without a cloud transition. The route applies the SAP-defined conversion methodology to the existing system: the Simplification List remediation, the custom-code adjustments, the named-user-category rebuild to the S/4HANA on-premise category set. The route preserves the on-premise commercial model.
The brownfield-stay route does not carry a conversion credit. The on-premise licence value is preserved as on-premise licence value. The route is read against the 2027 ECC mainstream-maintenance close: the brownfield-stay route exits the ECC product code by the 2027 close, but stays inside the on-premise commercial model. The S/4HANA conversion planning read sequences the brownfield route against the timeline.
The route comparison reads against four dimensions: the per-seat commercial weight, the infrastructure-cost weight, the operating-cost weight and the exit-cost weight. The RISE route bundles the four into a single per-FUE subscription; the on-premise plus BYO route splits the four into separate commercial weights against separate counterparties; the PCE-outside-RISE route splits the SAP-side weight (per-FUE) from the hyperscaler-side weight (the buyer's existing hyperscaler agreement).
The buyer-side artefact is the comparable-route TCO: the same seat inventory, the same workload, the same five-year horizon, modelled against each route. The artefact reads the per-FUE inflation factor against the on-premise per-seat commercial weight (the FUE conversion arithmetic read) and reads the hyperscaler-side commercial weight against each route option.
The exit posture reads the buyer's ability to leave the route at the end of the term. The RISE exit terms specify the post-RISE return-to-on-premise process: the data extraction format, the licence-restoration mechanism, the notice period (typically twelve months), the hyperscaler-handover mechanic. The on-premise plus BYO route has no SAP-side exit barrier (the buyer holds the perpetual licence). The PCE-outside-RISE exit posture sits between the two. The brownfield-stay route has no cloud exit because there is no cloud entry.
The wider engagement sits in the SAP practice; the aggregated reading list sits in the SAP knowledge hub; active renewal moments route to the Renewal Programme; the buyer-side methodology sits in the how we work overview; the route-against-the-timeline read continues in ECC end of mainstream.
A senior Admodum SAP advisor will read your existing on-premise estate, your hyperscaler position and your operating capability against the four route alternatives on a private call. Active renewal moments route to Renewal Programme.