GROW with SAP vs RISE with SAP: What Each Bundle Contains and Who It Is For

TL;DR: GROW with SAP is SAP’s bundle for companies new to SAP, built on S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. RISE with SAP is the bundle for existing SAP customers moving off an on-premises ERP, with either the public or the private edition at its core. Both are subscriptions. The real decision sits underneath the bundle: public edition (SAP’s standard, SAP runs the releases) or private edition (more room for your own code, more responsibility). Pick the edition, and the bundle mostly picks itself.

I spent more than twelve years at SAP before joining Spadoom. The question I heard most from mid-sized companies was never about features. It was: “GROW or RISE, which one is for us?” The honest answer is that the question is slightly the wrong way round. GROW and RISE are commercial bundles. What you live with for the next ten years is the edition inside them.

Here is what each bundle contains, how the two editions differ, how the licensing logic works, and how to tell which belongs on your shortlist.

The short answer

• New to SAP, want a cloud ERP on the standard: GROW with SAP, with the public edition.
• Running SAP ECC or S/4HANA on premises, moving to the cloud: RISE with SAP, usually with the private edition, sometimes with the public edition.
• Swiss subsidiary of a group that runs SAP: usually the public edition as a second tier, contracted the way the group buys from SAP.

SAP states the split itself on its SAP GROW page: GROW is designed for new SAP customers, while RISE “can have SAP Cloud ERP or SAP Cloud ERP Private at the core” and is aimed at existing SAP customers migrating from on-premises SAP environments.

A word on names, because SAP keeps renaming: S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is now marketed as SAP Cloud ERP, the private edition as SAP Cloud ERP Private, and GROW with SAP appears on sap.com as SAP GROW. Same products.

What GROW with SAP contains

According to SAP, GROW is SAP’s entry point to cloud ERP and is built on S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. In practice the bundle covers:

• The ERP itself, with finance, supply chain and HR. HR runs through SAP SuccessFactors and is integrated with finance.
• Preconfigured best practices for more than 25 industries, plus Joule, SAP’s AI assistant, across the three areas.
• The implementation toolchain: SAP Activate as the method, a Digital Discovery Assessment to preselect scope, SAP Central Business Configuration for setup and SAP Cloud ALM to run the project.
• SAP GROW Fast: a predefined scope delivered by certified partners for a quick, standardised go-live.
• Operations by SAP: SAP states a 99.9% service level and delivers tax, statutory reporting and e-government updates for 60 countries.

What GROW does not do: it does not let you modify the ERP core. Extensions use the released extensibility of the public edition or run side by side on SAP BTP. If your business depends on twenty years of custom ABAP, GROW is the wrong vehicle, or the custom code has to go.

What RISE with SAP contains

According to SAP, RISE is a guided path from an on-premises SAP ERP (ECC or S/4HANA) to SAP’s cloud ERP. Its building blocks:

• The cloud ERP, most often the private edition, operated in an SAP-managed cloud.
• Transformation tooling: Business Transformation Management tools to analyse and standardise processes, and seven AI-supported migration assistants (system analysis, custom code, data management, configuration, test management, rollout and project management).
• Custom code handling: the custom code assistant analyses your Z-code and shows what the standard can replace, what needs remediation and what stays.
• AI activation: on the private edition, SAP offers activation services for up to three Joule assistants at no additional cost.

For ECC customers the timing matters. SAP’s maintenance strategy for Business Suite 7 ends mainstream maintenance for ECC at the end of 2027. For large, complex systems SAP has added a transition option within RISE that buys time until 2033, under strict conditions. Our ECC 2027 hub lists the dates with sources.

Public or private edition: the decision underneath

The bundle is the contract. The edition is the system you run. These are the differences that matter in daily life:

	Public edition (SAP Cloud ERP)	Private edition (SAP Cloud ERP Private)
Typical bundle	GROW with SAP, sometimes RISE	RISE with SAP
Typical starting point	New implementation on the standard	Existing SAP ERP, migrated or converted
Custom code	Released extensibility in the system, apps on SAP BTP	Room for your own customisations, ideally clean core
Releases	SAP ships two releases a year to every customer	Upgrade rhythm as agreed in your RISE contract
Who adapts to whom	Your processes adapt to SAP Best Practices	The system can adapt more to your processes

The public edition’s strength is also its demand: you take SAP’s standard and SAP’s release rhythm. Currently that means two releases a year, 2602 and 2608 in SAP Help. Companies that can live with that get a system that stays current without upgrade projects. Companies that cannot should not force it.

We set out the full product picture on our S/4HANA Public Cloud page.

How the licensing works

Both bundles are subscriptions. There is no perpetual licence plus maintenance, as in the ECC world.

GROW sells packages by business area. SAP’s own FAQ describes subscription pricing in which you start with finance, supply chain or HR and add modular capabilities later, without reimplementing.

RISE bundles the ERP subscription with the transformation services and the SAP-managed infrastructure. The scope of what is included depends on the contract, and you should go through it line by line.

Users have commonly been counted in Full Use Equivalents (FUE): user types, from self-service to advanced users, convert into a share of a full user at fixed ratios, as SAPinsider explains. Metrics and ratios can differ between contract generations, so use the definitions in your current order form, not in an old slide deck.

Three things I tell every customer before a negotiation:

1. Count user types honestly. Most cost surprises come from users classified as occasional who in reality create documents every day.
2. Price the scope you will use in year two, not just at go-live. Adding packages later is easy, but it should be in the business case from day one.
3. Put implementation, payroll and integrations next to the subscription. The subscription is rarely the largest line in a five-year view.

Which one belongs on your shortlist

You are new to SAP

Start with GROW and the public edition. That is what SAP designed it for, and in our experience mid-sized companies do best when they adopt the standard rather than rebuild their old system in a new one. If you are still deciding whether SAP is right at all, our comparisons with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Abacus and Oracle NetSuite say plainly when another ERP fits better.

You run SAP ECC

RISE is built for you, but do not let the bundle choose the edition. Ask two questions first. How much of your custom code still earns its keep? And are you willing to adapt processes to the standard? If the answers are “little” and “yes”, a fresh start on the public edition is worth a serious look, even inside RISE.

You are the Swiss subsidiary of an SAP group

The public edition as a second tier is often the cleanest answer: the subsidiary gets a complete, current ERP while headquarters keeps its system. Our article on two-tier ERP with S/4HANA Public Cloud covers the four decisions that make it work.

Three misunderstandings I keep hearing

“RISE is for large companies, GROW for small ones.” No. The split is about where you come from (new to SAP or existing SAP customer), not about size.

“With the public edition we cannot extend anything.” Wrong. You cannot modify the core, but you can extend with released tools in the system and with side-by-side apps on SAP BTP. That is a discipline, not a ban.

“The bundle decides the edition.” Only partly. RISE can carry the public edition too. Choose the edition on the merits, then the contract.

Where to start

If you want a clear answer for your company, our S/4HANA readiness assessment takes five days at a fixed price and is credited against the transformation if you commission it. It covers the edition, the bundle and a realistic scope. Or simply get in touch and I will walk you through the licensing logic with your numbers.