On this page · 12 sections
- What changed in 2026
- The baseline: SAP extended maintenance
- RISE with SAP: scope, editions and contract
- SAP GROW: scope, editions and contract
- Third-party support: what Rimini Street and Spinnaker publish
- Head-to-head comparison
- Decision table: which option fits
- Worked cost example: pricing a round trip
- India: GST, partners and data
- Questions to put to every bidder
- How eCorpIT can help
- References
Summary. SAP ECC customers have three realistic exits as mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 ends on 31 December 2027. RISE with SAP is SAP's guided path for existing customers to SAP Cloud ERP Private, a subscription with no public price. For systems of 2 TB or more, a transition option keeps ECC on SAP HANA running from 2031 to 2033, or to 2035 with further prerequisites. SAP GROW, launched in March 2023 as GROW with SAP, is a fresh start on S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SuccessFactors HCM, with published per-user prices for its finance and supply chain packages. Third-party support keeps ECC as it is: Rimini Street publishes a rolling 15-year commitment and a 10-minute Priority 1 response, and Spinnaker Support a response SLA of 15 minutes or less. What changed in 2026 is the cost of changing your mind. Under commitments the European Commission made binding on 9 July 2026, SAP waives its reinstatement fee, caps back-maintenance at the lower of six months of fees or half the fees for the time away, and lets customers split a landscape between providers. Pick RISE for complex estates staying with SAP, GROW for a clean restart, and third-party support to buy time.
About this article. For CIOs, CFOs and procurement leads choosing an ECC path for 2028 onwards. On 7 November 2026 we checked every date, term and number against SAP's news releases, product, pricing and Support Portal pages, the European Commission's press release of 9 July 2026 and its published commitments text for case AT.40823, Rimini Street's and Spinnaker Support's own pages and Rimini's filing of 29 October 2026, and GSTN advisories. Some SAP Notes need an SAP login; we say where that matters. This is not legal or contract advice, and vendors change terms often. No vendor paid for inclusion. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.
For the dates, the 2030 cut-offs and a migration plan, read our SAP ECC end of maintenance guide.
What changed in 2026
Five dated changes reshape this decision:
- 9 and 10 July 2026: new SAP maintenance commitments. The European Commission made SAP's commitments in case AT.40823 binding on 9 July, and SAP applied them worldwide from 10 July to all on-premise customers, for 10 years. SAP waives the reinstatement fee, caps back-maintenance at the lower of 50 percent of the fees for the off-support period or six months of payments, and lets customers split a landscape into Commercial Installations, each with its own SAP support model, another provider or none.
- 7 October 2026: the 2030 wall. SAP's CTO set out that SAP's agreements for third-party databases, and Java 8 support for AS Java 7.5, end with extended maintenance on 31 December 2030, and that conversion tooling for Business Suite 7 on a third-party database is available only before then.
- 13 October 2026: transition option to 2035. Transition option subscriptions may now run until 31 December 2035, with further prerequisites.
- 28 October 2026: AI migration tooling. Four migration assistants (data, test, custom code and business configuration) reached early adopters; three more are planned.
- 2 November 2026: Max Success Plan through partners. SAP's top success plan, which the transition option requires, became available through Cloud Choice and resell partners as well as directly.
SAP has also renamed things. Its cloud ERP products are SAP Cloud ERP, the ready-to-run edition, and SAP Cloud ERP Private, the tailored edition for migrating ECC or S/4HANA. GROW with SAP is now SAP GROW and includes SuccessFactors HCM.
The baseline: SAP extended maintenance
Mainstream maintenance to the end of 2027 covers the latest three enhancement packages of SAP ERP 6.0; extended maintenance then runs to the end of 2030 at a premium of two percentage points on the maintenance basis. Customers who have not opted for extended maintenance by the end of 2027 move automatically to customer-specific maintenance. Older enhancement packages have earlier dates, set out in SAP Note 1648480, which needs an SAP login.
RISE with SAP: scope, editions and contract
What it is. SAP now describes RISE with SAP as a guided, agent-led path from on-premise SAP ERP, whether ECC or S/4HANA, to SAP Cloud ERP Private. Its GROW pages add that RISE can have either Cloud ERP or Cloud ERP Private at its core.
The edition most ECC customers land on. SAP manages Cloud ERP Private from infrastructure to application, on a hyperscaler, in a private data centre or in a sovereign cloud. It has a two-year release cycle, innovations every six months and seven years of maintenance per release. SAP includes activation of up to three Joule Assistants at no extra cost.
Contract and cost basis. RISE replaces a perpetual licence plus annual maintenance with a subscription. The Cloud ERP Private package page offers a quote request and no list price. Older comparisons cite cloud credits to offset dual licensing, but SAP's 2024 credit offer ran only to the end of 2024, and the RISE pages we checked list no incentive. Any credit today is negotiated, so get it in writing.
The bridge for very large estates. The transition option is a subscription for SAP ECC on SAP HANA from 2031. It needs systems moved to SAP ERP, private edition on SAP HANA before 31 December 2030, a minimum system size of 2 TB, and Max Success Plan, whose fee comes on top. Customers who sign private edition in 2026 get a standard 20 percent uplift when they switch in 2031; for 2027 signers SAP has not disclosed the uplift. The option does not support Java-dependent capabilities. The 2035 prerequisites sit in SAP Note 3591251, behind an SAP login.
Main risks. No public price, renewal terms to negotiate up front, and a full S/4HANA migration however it is packaged.
SAP GROW: scope, editions and contract
What it is. SAP announced GROW with SAP on 21 March 2023 for midsize companies, bundling S/4HANA Cloud public edition with adoption services and Business Technology Platform, and claimed go-live in as little as four weeks. SAP now calls SAP GROW its entry point to cloud ERP, built around S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SuccessFactors HCM, with Joule embedded and preconfigured processes for more than 25 industries.
Who it is for. SAP positions GROW for companies new to SAP, but its GROW FAQ says it is also open to existing customers moving off older on-premise SAP systems. For an ECC customer, GROW means greenfield: fit-to-standard processes, no carried-over custom code, and new extensions built outside the core.
Contract and cost basis. GROW is sold as fixed-scope base and premium packages for finance, supply chain and HR. Unlike RISE, two of its three package families have a public price. SAP's India pricing page on 7 November 2026 listed the finance base and supply chain base packages at ₹26,880 per user per month and the premium packages at ₹38,470, shown for 25 to 39 users with a 15-user minimum. The HCM packages were price on request, and the page does not say whether GST is included. At that list price, 25 finance base users come to 25 × ₹26,880 = ₹6.72 lakh a month, or about ₹80.6 lakh a year, before implementation. GROW Fast is a fixed-scope implementation offer delivered by certified partners or SAP Services and Support using the SAP Activate methodology.
Innovation access. SAP manages public edition updates, so you stay current by design. That is the attraction and the constraint.
Main risks. Fit. A public-edition SaaS ERP suits standard processes; deep ECC customisation, complex manufacturing variants or industry add-ons may not fit, and gaps surface late if fit-to-standard workshops are rushed.
Third-party support: what Rimini Street and Spinnaker publish
Third-party support replaces SAP's maintenance for software you own under a perpetual licence. It gives you no new ERP and no new SAP releases. Two of the best-known providers publish this.
Rimini Street (Nasdaq: RMNI) calls itself the global leader in third-party support for SAP and pitches its service as an alternative to RISE. Its SAP page lists:
- a rolling 15-year support commitment, and support through 2040 and beyond;
- a guaranteed 10-minute response for Priority 1 cases and a 4-hour resolution SLA for P1 cases;
- more than 1,100 full-time engineers and experts covering 150-plus countries and territories;
- support for customisations at no additional charge;
- tax, legal and regulatory updates drawn, it says, from more than 5,300 government sites and 26,000 jurisdictions;
- an archiving service to secure your SAP entitlements before you leave, and Rimini Protect for virtual patching.
Rimini's own FAQ states the trade-off: once you leave SAP support, SAP updates stop, security patches included. Its quarterly filing to 30 September 2026 names a commercial risk: vendor contract policies, SAP's among them, may penalise customers who leave or return.
Spinnaker Support, founded in 2008, added SAP ERP support in 2012. It reports more than 1,000 client companies across its products, 450-plus employees and support in more than 104 countries. Its SAP comparison table lists a response SLA of 15 minutes or less, custom code support, access to an archive of the upgrade rights you held before switching, and full-stack intrusion detection with virtual patching. Its Ultimate Support Guarantee, for a new customer's initial term, commits it not to breach the licensor's terms or intellectual property, to work without the licensor's proprietary compiled source code, to defend you if audited as a direct result of its services, and, if it fails to deliver, to facilitate your return to SAP and cover the associated costs as its terms set out.
Apply the same checks to other independent providers. Both firms headline percentage savings against SAP's fees; these are unverified vendor marketing figures, so we do not repeat them.
Main risks. No new SAP functionality or SAP patches, and a dependency on your provider for tax changes and security. The transition option needs systems on SAP ERP, private edition before 31 December 2030, so a customer on third-party support would first have to sign that SAP subscription. And after 2030 SAP says it cannot fully support third-party database or Java issues on ECC, kernel patches included, even under customer-specific maintenance, so ask providers how they will cover that.
Head-to-head comparison
The table draws on the SAP, Rimini Street and Spinnaker pages cited above.
| RISE with SAP | SAP GROW | Third-party support | SAP extended maintenance (baseline) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAP's target customer | Existing SAP ERP customers with large migrations | Companies new to SAP; also open to on-premise SAP customers | Owners of perpetual SAP licences | Existing ECC customers who opt in by end of 2027 |
| What you run afterwards | SAP Cloud ERP Private (or SAP Cloud ERP) | S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition plus SuccessFactors HCM | Your current ECC, unchanged | Your current ECC, to 31 Dec 2030 |
| Deployment | SAP-managed: hyperscaler, private data centre or sovereign cloud | SAP-managed public cloud | Wherever ECC runs today | Wherever ECC runs today |
| Contract model | Negotiated subscription | Packages plus GROW Fast services | Annual support contract | Existing maintenance contract |
| Published price | Quote only | Finance and supply chain listed per user; HCM on request | Quote only | Plus 2 percentage points on maintenance basis |
| Innovation access | Current releases and SAP's AI roadmap | Continuous SAP-managed updates | None from SAP; provider's own add-ons | Support only, no new ERP |
| Support horizon | Seven years per release; transition option to 2033 or 2035 | Continuous SaaS updates | Rimini: rolling 15 years; Spinnaker: as long as you need | Ends 31 Dec 2030 |
| Custom code | Remediated towards clean core | Rebuilt as extensions or dropped | Supported as is | Supported as today |
| India GST updates from | SAP (confirm India scope) | SAP (confirm India scope) | Your provider | SAP (confirm scope in writing) |
| If you change your mind | Subscription term and exit clauses | Subscription term and exit clauses | Return to SAP: no reinstatement fee, capped back-maintenance | Move to RISE, GROW or third party |
| Biggest risk | Cost opacity; migration effort | Process fit | No SAP patches or new releases | 2030 still arrives |
If you have EU entities, read our EU Data Act switching guide before you sign a cloud ERP exit clause.
Decision table: which option fits
| Pick | If |
|---|---|
| RISE with SAP (Cloud ERP Private) | You run a large, customised ECC, will stay on SAP for a decade, and want brownfield or selective migration with SAP running operations |
| RISE with transition option | Systems of 2 TB or more cannot finish by 2030, and you can move them to private edition on SAP HANA before 31 Dec 2030 |
| SAP GROW | Your processes are close to standard, you are willing to redesign, and you want a fixed-scope greenfield on SaaS |
| Third-party support | ECC is stable, you need no new SAP functionality soon, and you want time to plan with a provider you have vetted |
| A split landscape | Some systems head to S/4HANA under SAP support while others stay on ECC with another provider |
| Extended maintenance | You will convert or replace before 31 Dec 2030, want SAP support while you do, and can opt in by the end of 2027 |
Worked cost example: pricing a round trip
The July 2026 commitments make a leave-now, return-later plan possible to model. The figures are hypothetical; only the rules come from SAP.
Assume an ECC customer pays SAP ₹6 crore a year on a ₹30 crore maintenance basis. It considers third-party support from 1 January 2028, then a return to SAP on 1 January 2030 to convert before the 2030 tooling cut-off.
- Stay on extended maintenance, 2028 to 2030: the premium is 2 percent of ₹30 crore, or ₹60 lakh a year, so ₹6.6 crore a year and ₹19.8 crore over three years.
- Back-maintenance on return in 2030: fees for the two-year absence would have been ₹12 crore (₹13.2 crore at extended maintenance rates). Half of that is ₹6 crore to ₹6.6 crore; six months of payments is ₹3 crore to ₹3.3 crore. The cap is the lower figure, so at most ₹3.3 crore. The reinstatement fee is zero.
- Round-trip cost: two years of third-party fees (annual quote T), plus up to ₹3.3 crore of back-maintenance, plus ₹6.6 crore for 2030.
- Break-even: 2T + ₹9.9 crore must stay below ₹19.8 crore, so T must be below ₹4.95 crore a year, about 82 percent of today's SAP fee, for the round trip to save money.
Three caveats. First, the model assumes SAP will sell a returning customer extended maintenance for 2030. SAP's 2020 terms move customers who have not opted in by the end of 2027 to customer-specific maintenance, and its reinstatement programme lists Enterprise, Standard and large-enterprise product support as the eligible offerings, so get the 2030 terms in writing before you leave. Second, a split must leave each Commercial Installation able to run on its own, and technically integrated systems are harder to separate. Third, SAP treats split requests within six months and makes them effective on the next 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October, so on our reading a split meant to take effect on 1 January 2028 should be requested by the end of June 2027.
India: GST, partners and data
GST and e-invoicing updates. With RISE and GROW, SAP ships statutory changes; SAP says GROW delivers tax and statutory reporting updates across 60 countries. With third-party support, your provider does. E-invoicing has applied above ₹5 crore aggregate turnover since 1 August 2023, and since 1 April 2025 taxpayers at ₹10 crore or more cannot report an invoice to the IRP more than 30 days after its date, so a late update stops billing, not only filing. Ask any third-party provider how it tracked GSTN's 2026 ship-to GSTIN advisories for ECC clients; our ship-to GSTIN guide lists the error codes to test against.
Localisation. SAP says it offers more than 1,000 local versions of its products, and that GROW's HR package is localised for 100-plus countries and territories. Confirm the India scope of the exact edition you are quoted, including GST, TDS and e-way bill.
Partners. GROW Fast is delivered by certified partners or by SAP, and Max Success Plan can now be bought through Cloud Choice and resell partners. Check the partner's Indian delivery bench, not just its global logo.
Data residency. Ask RISE bidders which Indian region hosts production, backups and disaster recovery, and map personal data against the DPDP Act; our DPDP engineering playbook covers the controls. With third-party support, data stays where ECC runs, but the provider's engineers will access it, so contract for access logging and data handling.
Questions to put to every bidder
- What exactly is the cost basis, and what caps apply at renewal?
- Which systems, add-ons and custom objects are in scope, and which are excluded?
- Who delivers Indian statutory changes, how fast after a GSTN advisory, and with what evidence?
- What is the security model: SAP patches, virtual patching or compensating controls?
- What does leaving cost: data export, archived entitlements, subscription exit?
- For SAP: which discounts and renewal caps apply, and will you sell 2030 extended maintenance to a returning customer?
- For GROW: which ECC processes fail fit-to-standard, and what replaces them?
- For third-party support: which SAP entitlements do we archive before we switch, and who verifies them?
How eCorpIT can help
eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. We build the integration layer around whichever ERP you choose, including GST e-invoicing connectors, data migration and reconciliation, and the cloud hosting behind it, through our digital transformation services. Talk to us at /contact-us/.
Last updated: 7 November 2026.
