SAP RISE FUE Is not just a new metric—It’s a whole new way to price license in SAP

 What Is the SAP FUE Model? Is This Change a Big Deal for Customers?

SAP’s Full Use Equivalent (FUE) model represents a significant shift in how software usage is licensed and measured across SAP environments. Unlike traditional models that charge per named user, the FUE model introduces a more flexible and role-based licensing approach. This model is especially relevant in the context of cloud-based solutions like RISE with SAP, where users may interact with multiple systems and perform various business functions.

In the FUE model, licenses are assigned based on predefined user personas, each of which reflects a typical set of business tasks and responsibilities. Common examples include: Business User, Developer, Professional User, or Self-Service User.

Each persona corresponds to a weighted FUE value that contributes to the company’s overall consumption. For example, a Developer might count as 5 FUEs, whereas a Self-Service User might count as 0.033 FUE. The total number of FUEs directly determines the final license cost.

OK, but how much does it actually cost?

SAP landscape where 1,000 users are required

• Self-Service (0.033 FUE) → ~66 EUR/year
• Core (0.2 FUE) → ~400 EUR/year
• Advanced (1.0 FUE) → 2,000 EUR/year

Developer (5.0 FUE) → 10,000 EUR/yearLet’s use a simplified example. Assume an environment where 1,000 FUEs are required, and the average cost is 2,000 EUR per FUE per year.

This means that for an organization with 1,000 users, total licensing costs could range anywhere from 66,000 EUR to 2,000,000 EUR per year, depending entirely on how users are classified. It’s important to note that actual licensing costs vary significantly depending on the number of FUEs purchased, customer location, SAP pricing tiers, contract terms, and any rebates or bundled services negotiated. These numbers are purely illustrative and intended to show how much the cost can fluctuate based on access design. But one thing is clear: Whether you’re in Germany, Poland, or Spain—FUE classification has a direct and potentially dramatic impact on your SAP licensing bill. Treating it as “just a technical detail” can lead to hundreds of thousands of euros in avoidable cost. That’s why this is such a big deal—and why transparency, control, and the right tools are no longer optional.

Why SAP Introduced the FUE Model

The SAP FUE (Full Use Equivalent) model was introduced as part of SAP’s broader move toward cloud-based, subscription-driven licensing—particularly under initiatives like RISE with SAP. Traditional SAP licensing was based on named users and specific system access (e.g., dialogue users, developer users, etc.), but this model struggled to keep up with the increasing complexity of digital transformation and hybrid IT landscapes. With customers accessing multiple SAP applications across cloud and on-premise environments, it became increasingly difficult to manage user licenses in a consistent, fair, and scalable way.

The need for a FUE – role-based, activity-driven licensing framework was clear. SAP introduced the FUE model to address requirements such as aligning licensing with business processes rather than technical system access, simplifying subscription licensing across the SAP ecosystem, and—at least in theory—increasing transparency and predictability in license consumption. However, in practice, many customers struggle with selecting the correct number of FUEs. The process is far from simple: SAP’s licensing criteria include over 2,000+ lines of authorization value definitions and more than 700 authorization objects that determine when and what type of license should be assigned. This complexity often makes license estimation difficult and error-prone, especially for organizations without deep SAP security expertise. It is worth noting that SAP does support customers more transparently by sharing these criteria publicly—for example, via notes and downloadable spreadsheets—so that license decisions can be better aligned with access design and compliance strategy.

However, this shift also places more responsibility on customers: they must now continuously monitor and justify how access rights are granted and used across their SAP landscape. Without the right tools and processes, ensuring compliance with FUE definitions can quickly become a manual, hard to avoid-error type of task.

This is why governance and automation solutions such as SAP GRC Access Control or alternatives like smartGRC are increasingly critical—they allow organizations to manage this complexity while ensuring both compliance and cost-efficiency.

FUE Is Just Another Model—No Real Change, Really?

At first glance, SAP’s Full Use Equivalent (FUE) model may seem like just a new way of counting users. But this is a serious misconception. The truth is: FUE represents one of the most significant shifts in SAP’s licensing model in decades. In the traditional model, a “dialog user” might have access to multiple systems and transactions with limited oversight. Licensing was often based on job titles or headcount. FUE breaks away from this paradigm completely. It no longer matters how many users you have—it matters what each of them is technically capable of doing in the system.

SAP now calculates license usage based on:

• The activities a user can perform (create, display, approve, post, etc.),
• The authorization objects and values assigned to their roles,
• And the business persona that best matches their system behavior.

This is not just a change in form—it’s a change in substance. It demands:

• A deeper understanding of system access,
• Real-time control over what users can actually do,
• And the ability to adjust roles quickly to avoid license inflation.

Example: The Cost of Business Partner Access

Let’s say a user has access to transaction BP (Business Partner) to view customer records.
If they only have display rights (Activity 03), they might fall under a Self-Service User license.
But if their role includes create (Activity 01) or change (Activity 02), they may be classified as a Core or even Advanced User, even if they never use those functions.

Now multiply this logic across dozens of roles and hundreds of users—and you begin to see why this isn’t just a formal model change.

So What’s the Real Risk?

Many companies still treat licensing as an afterthought during implementations or role redesigns. But under the FUE model, that can mean:

• Paying 2x or 3x more than necessary,
• Assigning licenses based on theoretical access, not actual business need,
• And losing control of the licensing strategy due to sheer complexity.

Look into SAP’s Tools: SAP Note 3113382

To help customers navigate this complexity, SAP Note 3113382 provides a simulation report (SLIM_USER_CLF_HELP) that estimates FUE consumption based on current SAP ECC authorization assignments. This report allows customers to:

• Review existing users, roles, and profiles,
• Project how those assignments translate to FUE and Named User types in SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management,
• And identify licensing implications before migrating to S/4HANA or RISE with SAP.

However, the note comes with several caveats:

• The ruleset includes over 700 authorization objects and over 2,000 conditions, making the classification logic highly detailed and technical.
• The tool does not differentiate engine-based usage from core usage.
• SAP recommends combining it with expert validation services, such as the SAP Trusted Authorization Review (STAR), for reliable results.

This shows that while SAP has significantly increased transparency by sharing the full ruleset and simulation logic, the burden of interpretation still lies with the customer—especially in complex environments.

The Good News. Tools like SAP GRC Access Control or alternatives like SmartGRC make it possible to:

• Analyze the link between authorizations and license types,
• Simulate licensing impact before applying changes,
• Visualize role inflation and potential license downgrades,
• And generate reports to keep licensing and compliance teams aligned.

Bottom Line:

FUE is not just a new label—it’s a fundamentally new way to manage and price access to your SAP environment. The sooner organizations adapt their access governance processes to reflect this reality, the better they’ll be able to control licensing costs and compliance risk.

The Role of GRC tools in managing SAP FUE Licensing

With the introduction of the Full Use Equivalent (FUE) model, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) is no longer just about internal controls or audit readiness—it’s now also a key enabler of cost-effective licensing. Why? Because FUE licensing is inseparable from access governance. What a user can technically do in the system directly impacts which license tier they consume. Without continuous visibility and control over role assignments, organizations risk both compliance failures and unnecessary licensing costs.

GRC fills the operational and strategic gaps by:

• Mapping roles and authorizations to FUE personas
• Simulating license impacts before changes are made
• Detecting over-provisioning and license inflation
• Supporting SoD-compliant role optimization
• Providing defensible data during audits

SAP itself provides some foundational tools for user classification in FUE-based landscapes, but these are technical and limited in scope. Without automation and analytics, organizations are left with manual guesswork and reactive corrections.

That’s why solutions like SAP GRC Access Control and alternatives like smartGRC are becoming essential—not only to manage risk and access, but also to defend and optimize your license investment under the FUE model.

How SmartGRC Can Support Organizations Under the SAP FUE Model

The Full Use Equivalent (FUE) licensing model shifts the focus from counting users to classifying them based on their actual business tasks and access rights. In practice, this requires organizations not only to understand what users can access, but more importantly, whether that access justifies a particular license type. GRC Advisory has introduced an enhancement for SAP GRC Access Control or offers a smarGRC alternative solutions that directly supports this challenge. This new functionality enables:

• Analysis of SAP user authorizations from a licensing perspective
• Assignment of license types to roles and users based on SAP’s official rulesets
• Simulation of license classification impact when changes are made to role content
• Reporting of required license types for both roles and users
• Visibility of licensing data in access requests, user access reviews and even role creation with license cost taken into account

The full implementation is structured into three main phases:

1. Creation of a license ruleset in GRC tool
2. Making license data available to business users
3. Comprehensive license reporting across units and systems

This approach enables organizations not only to ensure compliance with SAP licensing rules, but also to optimize licensing costs—by identifying users or roles that could be downgraded to less expensive license types without affecting daily operations.

Summary

SAP’s Full Use Equivalent (FUE) model is not just a new way to measure licenses—it’s a fundamental change in how access, cost, and compliance intersect in the SAP landscape. It shifts the responsibility onto customers to understand, monitor, and justify each user’s access with precision.

Organizations that treat FUE as a formal checkbox risk:

• Overpaying for licenses due to over-provisioned roles,
• Falling out of compliance by misclassifying users,
• Losing control of their licensing costs in the long term.

But this challenge also creates an opportunity.

With the right tools and methodology, FUE can become a driver of smarter access governance and cost efficiency. Solutions like SAP GRC Access Control, enhanced by offerings such alternative as smartGRC, allow organizations to:

• Analyze authorizations in the context of licensing
• Simulate access impacts in real-time
• Optimize roles while respecting both SoD policies and license definitions
• And ensure that the license you pay for is exactly what your users need—no more, no less

The organizations that succeed under FUE will be those that integrate GRC thinking into their licensing strategy, and treat access not only as a security risk—but as a cost driver that can and should be optimized.