What about SAP maintenance after 2027?

In SAP service documentation, the full support offered by SAP under the terms and conditions specified in the SAP Enterprise Support Service Plan is referred to as Mainstream Maintenance. For Business Suite 7 the end date of Mainstream Maintenance depends on the version of the deployed Enhancement Package (EhP):

• December 31, 2025 – End of Mainstream Maintenance for Enhancement Package (EhP) versions 1-5. Those customers do not have the option to purchase Extended Maintenance for their systems. To receive SAP support for core SAP Business Suite 7 applications that do not have an EhP implemented or have an EhP version lower than the last three implemented versions, an upgrade to the current EhP version is required. However, this solution will only work temporarily (details below).
• December 31, 2027 – End of Mainstream Maintenance for Enhancement Package (EhP) versions 6-8. For core SAP Business Suite 7 applications, including SAP ERP 6.0, SAP Customer Relationship Management 7.0, SAP Supply Chain Management 7.0, SAP Supplier Relationship Management 7.0 applications, SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA – SAP provides Mainstream Maintenance until December 31, 2027. Details available in SAP Note 2881788. For the three newest EhPs (6-8), it will be possible to purchase, for an additional fee, Extended Maintenance for the period from January 1, 2028 to December 31, 2030.

Until the end of 2027, for SAP Business Suite 7, the system manufacturer will charge fees in accordance with the terms and conditions of the current maintenance agreement, i.e.:

• at an annual rate of 19% (for Standard Support) and 22% (for Enterprise Support) calculated based on maintenance fees (including annual indexation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI)).
• plus any indexation of maintenance fees according to the inflation rate published by the Central Statistical Office.

For the period from January 1 to December 31, 2030, for SAP Business Suite 7 (Ehp 6-8 only), it will be possible to purchase Extended Maintenance at a cost of 2% of the base maintenance fee. Purchasing an Extended Maintenance plan requires a separate maintenance agreement or addendum.

After Mainstream Maintenance ends for SAP Business Suite 7, customers with an active maintenance agreement will automatically transition to the Customer Specific Maintenance phase. However, it’s important to note that while SAP continues to provide support during this phase (for example, access to migration tools, EHP 8, support packages available on the service portal, and handling of requests with certain restrictions), the scope of support is significantly limited. These limitations are described in detail in SAP Service Note 52505.

If the scope of Customer Specific Maintenance does not meet the customer’s business expectations, they are, of course, not obligated to continue the maintenance agreement. In such a case, the customer should terminate the maintenance agreement for all their SAP software within the timeframes specified in the agreement. However, if they decide not to terminate the agreement, full maintenance fees will apply under the terms and conditions specified in the agreement, despite the reduced scope of support, including CPI-based indexation.

In the Customer Specific Maintenance model, the standard scope of SAP Enterprise Support services is reduced as follows:

• No new Support Packages.
• No Legal Change Patches (containing corrections required by changes in legal regulations).
• Limited Technology Support:
  • Kernel support packages are not guaranteed for new database and operating system version.
  • Support packages are not guaranteed for non-ABAP components (e.g., Java).
  • In some cases, a direct (one-step) software version update may not be possible.
  • New interfaces are not guaranteed.
• Handling technical error requests:
  • Technical support is only provided for errors for which a solution or workaround is known.
  • Errors not yet known to SAP are resolved for a fee calculated on a time-and-material basis, according to the work performed by SAP. This limitation applies in particular to customer-specific extensions.
  • SAP does not guarantee the resolution of errors in third-party products (e.g., databases, operating systems) that are not maintained by their respective vendors.
• There is no SLA for response times or the provision of corrective action.
• Remote support services are not available for evaluating the innovative features of the latest SAP enhancement package.

Within CSM, technical error requests are processed according to the following rules:

• Customers can report technical errors as usual. This means, among other things, that Priority 1 (very high priority) requests are handled 24 hours a day (without an SLA). Services and tools remain fully available (e.g., the SAP Service Marketplace and SAP Solution Manager Support Portal), as well as the SAP Customer Service Center.
• Customer-reported errors are analyzed as follows:
  • If the error is already known, an SAP Note with the status “Released for Customers” exists on the SAP Service Marketplace support portal for the relevant software version that documents the issue. An existing solution is already available to the customer.
  • If no SAP Note with the status “Released for Customers” exists for the relevant software version, the error is treated as new and unknown. In such cases, the error is handled as part of consulting services, and the applicable fees are charged at local SAP rates. At the beginning of CSM, SAP deconstructs the internal system architecture for the given release. For this reason, resolving unknown errors is only possible with a one-off fix on the customer’s system. SAP works on the customer’s system in a developer role and has no additional privileges. Providing fixes for software components for which the source code is unavailable may not be possible.

In practice, security patches will only be delivered for 12 months after the CSM begins, and only for the highest priority threats. Details on this matter are provided in SAP Note 3053725.

In Poland, there is still a (relatively large) group of companies using a standalone SAP HR (SAP HCM) system that have not updated their systems to the latest EhP version. If they are using EhP 5 or lower, they must upgrade their system before considering Customer Specific Maintenance. An alternative is to implement SAP’s new human capital management solution, SAP SuccessFactors.

For our clients using All for One’s SAP maintenance services, we offer a feasibility study on using Customer Specific Maintenance. Working with the client, we analyze the costs and limitations and assess the potential risks associated with reduced support coverage.

For companies still running older system versions (EhP 5 or earlier) and not ready to migrate to SAP S/4HANA, we offer an SAP upgrade project to versions covered by CSM. As part of the project, we will analyze the SAP system landscape and the solutions used in the current system version, and, in collaboration with the client’s administrators, prepare and execute the work related to the SAP upgrade.

Our team includes experienced specialists with expertise in all areas of SAP – from Basis to business solutions – as well as expert consultants in IT technologies (databases, networks, hardware platforms, operating systems, etc.). In collaboration with the client, we will select the optimal system version to extend the support period, giving them time to better prepare for new SAP releases.

Dariusz Drożdż, SAP Technology Manager at All for One Poland summarizes: “Our observations indicate that, despite the repeated extensions of maintenance for older SAP releases, many companies still have not migrated to SAP S/4HANA. It is already clear that some organizations will not complete the transition by the end of 2027. The reasons are varied – business, financial, and organizational. Therefore, the Customer Specific Maintenance option is a good alternative for them. Of course, the risks associated with the limitations of this service must be carefully assessed, and a roadmap answering “what happens after 2030” should be outlined. Five years may sound long, but when planning complex IT projects, especially in large organizations, it’s not such a long time. In multi-branch organizations, migration projects commonly span 2-3 years.

We encourage companies running older system versions to contact us. We will help your company assess its current system landscape, recommend a cost- and performance-optimized solution, and carry out an upgrade project to meet the required CSM parameters.

A lack of vendor support for critical systems such as SAP ERP poses an unacceptable risk to business security."

• Detailed information on new releases and SAP’s strategy for maintenance services is available in the SAP Release Brochure:
• Key Service Note regarding support for SAP Business Suite 7: 2881788
• Portal for verifying support dates for specific software versions
• In particular for ECC 6.0