SAP BTP for Beginners: What It Is and How the Account Works

SAP BTP (SAP Business Technology Platform) is SAP’s platform for building, connecting and extending business applications. Technically it is a set of cloud services that you rent from SAP and use inside an account structure: a global account for your contract, subaccounts as workspaces, and services you switch on as you need them. This post explains those building blocks in plain words. It is Part 1 of 3 in the series “SAP BTP for beginners”.

TL;DR: SAP BTP combines five portfolios: application development, process automation, integration, data and analytics, and AI. You work with it through an account model: the global account is your contract, subaccounts are workspaces in one region, and environments such as Cloud Foundry are the runtimes inside a subaccount. Everything you consume is a service with service plans. Entitlements say which plans you may use, quotas say how much. You pay by consumption or by subscription, and you can try it for free with a trial account or free tier plans.

I am learning BTP in the BAIP & Product team at Spadoom, and these are the explanations I would have wanted on my first day. No prior knowledge needed.

What SAP BTP is, in one paragraph

SAP describes BTP as an offering that integrates five technology portfolios: application development; process automation; integration; data, analytics and enterprise planning; and artificial intelligence. In practice that means: if your ERP and your CRM need to exchange data, or you need a small app that SAP’s standard does not offer, the tools for that live on BTP.

BTP is not one product you install. It is a catalogue of services, and you switch on what you need. The SAP Discovery Center lists them with their plans and regions.

An everyday picture: a co-working building

A picture helped me. Imagine a company rents space in a co-working building.

• The rental contract is the global account. It says what you are allowed to use.
• Each office you set up is a subaccount. Every office is in one city (a region), and the offices do not share keys or furniture with each other.
• The equipment you switch on in an office (a workshop, a kitchen) is an environment, such as Cloud Foundry.
• The things you order (a printer, a meeting room, a coffee machine) are services. Small, medium or large versions are service plans.

The picture has limits. In a real building, you pay rent no matter what. On BTP, many services are billed by actual usage. Keep the picture for the structure, not for the money.

The account model, level by level

SAP documents this in the account model.

Global account. The realisation of the contract your company has made with SAP. It is region- and environment-independent. Here you manage subaccounts, members, entitlements and quotas.

Directories (optional). Folders to group subaccounts, for example by project or business unit. You can nest them, but you do not have to use them at all.

Subaccount. The workspace where you deploy applications, use services and manage subscriptions. Each subaccount belongs to exactly one region, the physical location where data and applications are hosted. Subaccounts are independent of each other, which matters for security and data: what you set up in one does not automatically exist in another.

Environment. The runtime inside a subaccount. SAP lists Cloud Foundry, ABAP, Kyma and Neo. You enable an environment, which creates an instance of it in your subaccount.

Cloud Foundry org and space. When you enable Cloud Foundry in a subaccount, BTP creates an org for you. Subaccount and org have a 1:1 relationship. Inside the org you create spaces to separate applications and services further.

One detail surprised me: global accounts and subaccounts are completely independent of user accounts. Your login is not your account. You become a member of an account.

Services and service plans

On BTP, every external dependency, such as a database or a messaging system, is a service. Each service has one or more service plans. SAP’s own comparison is T-shirt sizes: the same database in different sizes, each one a different plan.

Concrete example: SAP Integration Suite is a service. To use it in a subaccount, someone has to pick a plan for it. If no plan is assigned, the service simply does not show up for you.

Entitlements and quotas

These two words sound alike, so here is the difference.

• An entitlement is your right to provision and consume a resource. In other words: the service plans you are allowed to use.
• A quota is the numeric quantity of a service plan that you may consume.

Entitlements and quotas are bought and managed at global account level. From there, an administrator assigns them to subaccounts, where they are consumed. If you open a fresh subaccount and the service you expected is missing, the first thing to check is whether its plan was assigned.

How you pay: consumption or subscription

SAP offers two commercial models for enterprise accounts:

Model	What you get	How you pay
Consumption-based (SAP BTPEA, CPEA, Pay-As-You-Go)	Access to all current and future eligible services; switch them on and off as needed	By usage: at month end, the units used determine the charge
Subscription-based	Only the services you subscribed to	Fixed cost, regardless of consumption

A company can use both models, in separate global accounts or in the same one.

Trial and free tier at a glance

You can try BTP without paying. There are two options, and they are not the same thing.

	Trial account	Free tier service plans
Duration	90 days	Per service, as defined by SAP
Purpose	Personal exploration and non-productive testing	Testing in a real enterprise account (Pay-As-You-Go or CPEA)
Production use	Not allowed, no team development	Projects can move to production
Support	Community	Community only, no SLA

In the Discovery Center, services with a free plan carry the tag “Free Tier”. Services whose plan is already included in your BTP contract carry “Always Free”. Part 2 goes through the decision in detail.

Glossary: BTP words in plain language

Term	Plain meaning	Where you see it
Global account	Your company’s contract with SAP	Top level in the BTP cockpit
Directory	Optional folder for subaccounts	Account explorer of the global account
Subaccount	A workspace in one region	Under the global account or a directory
Region	Where the data and apps physically run	Chosen when the subaccount is created
Environment	The runtime you switch on (Cloud Foundry, Kyma, ABAP, Neo)	Subaccount overview
Cloud Foundry org	The Cloud Foundry area of one subaccount (1:1)	Subaccount with Cloud Foundry enabled
Space	A compartment inside the org	Inside the Cloud Foundry org
Service	Something you consume, such as a database	Discovery Center, service marketplace
Service plan	A size or variant of a service	Plan selection for a service
Entitlement	Your right to use a plan	Global account and subaccount settings
Quota	How many units of a plan you may use	Next to the entitlement

Where to read next

This post is about the mechanics. For the business view of BTP (what it costs, when you need it, how it sits between S/4HANA and SAP CX), read Michael Suter’s What is SAP BTP?. His post on the five pillars of SAP BTP explains which services belong to which area.

Michael is the Senior SAP BAIP Architect in our team; his profile lists his other posts. How we use BTP for customers is on the SAP BTP solution page.

What Part 2 covers

Part 2 gets practical: choosing between trial and free tier, registering, what SAP creates for you automatically, a first tour of the cockpit and creating your first service instance from a free plan.

Frequently asked questions

What is SAP BTP in one sentence?

SAP BTP is SAP’s technology platform that brings together five portfolios: application development, process automation, integration, data and analytics with enterprise planning, and artificial intelligence. You use it to connect, extend and build on SAP and non-SAP applications.

What is the difference between a global account and a subaccount?

The global account is the realisation of your contract with SAP. It is not tied to a region and holds the entitlements and quotas you bought. A subaccount is a workspace in one region where you actually deploy applications, use services and manage subscriptions. Entitlements from the global account have to be assigned to a subaccount before anyone can use them there.

What is the difference between an entitlement and a quota?

An entitlement is your right to use a service plan. A quota is the number of units of that plan you may consume. Think of the entitlement as the item on your contract and the quota as the amount you are allowed to take.

Do I pay for SAP BTP per use or per month?

Both models exist. In the consumption-based model (SAP BTPEA, CPEA or Pay-As-You-Go) you can use all eligible services and pay for what you consume. In the subscription-based model you subscribe to specific services at a fixed cost, regardless of consumption. A company can use both.