SAP on AWS vs Azure:
Cost & Negotiation Comparison 2026

The choice between AWS and Azure as the infrastructure platform for SAP is among the most commercially significant decisions an enterprise IT organisation makes in a SAP transformation programme. With SAP workloads — particularly HANA in-memory database — requiring high-memory, SAP-certified instance types at premium pricing, the three-to-five year infrastructure cost for a typical large enterprise SAP deployment ranges from $1M to $20M+ depending on landscape size, reserved capacity commitments, and negotiated rates. Getting this decision right — and negotiating effectively — can make or break the business case for a SAP cloud migration. This guide is part of our SAP license negotiation series.

Both AWS and Microsoft Azure have deep SAP partnerships, SAP certification programmes, and dedicated SAP landing zone architectures. The technical differences between platforms are narrower than they were five years ago. What matters commercially is: the negotiated rate you can achieve on the specific instance types required for your SAP landscape, your existing cloud commitments and whether they can be leveraged, and the interaction between your cloud infrastructure choice and your SAP software licensing strategy (particularly BYOL versus SAP-provided licences through RISE).

The AWS vs Azure Decision for SAP

The platform decision is rarely a pure technical evaluation. For most enterprises, the key factors are: existing cloud provider relationships and committed spend (an existing AWS EDP or Azure MACC agreement makes that platform financially advantageous for incremental SAP workloads), organisational cloud strategy (hybrid and multi-cloud strategies may dictate infrastructure choices), SAP's own preference if you are on RISE with SAP (SAP partners with both AWS and Azure for RISE, but regional availability and SAP's operational familiarity varies), and the Microsoft 365 and Azure relationship (organisations with large Microsoft EA commitments can leverage Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server and SQL Server licences that may be part of the SAP landscape).

Start your platform evaluation by auditing your existing cloud commercial commitments before assessing any new SAP infrastructure commercial arrangement. If you have an existing AWS Enterprise Discount Programme (EDP) with uncommitted spend, adding SAP workloads to AWS is commercially straightforward — the SAP infrastructure spend counts toward your EDP commitment, potentially unlocking higher discount tiers. The same logic applies to Azure MACC commitments. The incremental cost of adding SAP to an existing platform commitment is often significantly lower than the published price for a standalone SAP infrastructure arrangement on a new platform.

SAP-Certified Instances: AWS vs Azure

SAP HANA requires SAP-certified hardware with specific memory configurations. Both AWS and Azure maintain current SAP HANA certification lists, but the instance families, memory configurations, and relative pricing differ between platforms.

AWS SAP HANA-certified instances: the x1e instance family (up to 3.84TB RAM) and x2gd (up to 1.5TB RAM) are the primary SAP HANA options, along with u-class high memory instances (up to 24TB RAM for scale-up HANA). AWS has historically led in high-memory instance options for the largest SAP HANA deployments (>4TB RAM), making it the default choice for extremely large SAP HANA databases. The u-class instances represent the practical upper limit for scale-up HANA on AWS and are significantly more expensive per hour than x1e class — ensure your sizing is accurate before committing to u-class reserved capacity.

Azure SAP HANA-certified instances: the M-series virtual machines (M128ms up to 4TB RAM, Mv2 series up to 12TB RAM) and the dedicated HANA Large Instances (HLI — bare metal, up to 24TB RAM) are Azure's SAP HANA options. Azure's M-series pricing for mid-range HANA (1–4TB) is generally competitive with AWS equivalent configurations. HLI (HANA Large Instances) are Azure-specific bare metal deployments for the largest HANA workloads — they have different pricing and commercial treatment than standard Azure VMs and require separate capacity planning and reservation commitments.

Infrastructure Pricing Models Compared

Both AWS and Azure offer on-demand pricing (no commitment, highest per-hour rate), reserved instances/reserved capacity (1–3 year commitments, 30–60% discount versus on-demand), and spot/preemptible instances (unsuitable for production SAP workloads but relevant for non-production). For SAP production workloads, the comparison is on reserved instance pricing across comparable memory configurations.

At 1-year reserved instance (all upfront) rates, comparable SAP HANA-certified configurations are broadly price-competitive between AWS and Azure — neither platform has a systematic 20–30% pricing advantage at standard catalogue rates. The meaningful price differences emerge from negotiated enterprise discount programmes and from the interaction with your existing cloud spend. AWS EDP negotiated rates and Azure MACC rates both provide 10–25% additional discounts on top of reserved instance pricing, depending on committed spend levels. An organisation with a $5M AWS EDP at 18% discount receives that discount on SAP HANA instance costs, potentially making AWS significantly cheaper than Azure list reserved rates even if Azure catalogue prices appear slightly lower.

Licensing Impact: BYOL and Included Licences

The SAP software licensing approach has significant cost implications for the infrastructure choice. Bring Your Own Licence (BYOL) — where you use existing SAP perpetual licences on cloud infrastructure — and included-licence arrangements through RISE with SAP interact differently with AWS and Azure commercial structures.

Under BYOL, your SAP software licence costs are fixed (your existing licence and maintenance fees) and infrastructure cost is the variable. Under RISE with SAP, SAP provides the software licences as part of the subscription, and your cost is the RISE subscription fee — but RISE pricing varies by infrastructure provider (SAP runs RISE on AWS, Azure, and GCP, with different pricing by region and provider). Organisations comparing BYOL-on-AWS versus BYOL-on-Azure are making a pure infrastructure pricing comparison. Organisations comparing RISE-on-AWS versus RISE-on-Azure versus BYOL-on-either are making a more complex combined infrastructure and software licensing decision.

Microsoft Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHUB) provides a specific licensing advantage for Microsoft-heavy organisations. If your SAP infrastructure includes Windows Server (for SAP application servers and non-Linux components) and SQL Server (for non-HANA databases, BW, or auxiliary systems), AHUB allows you to apply existing Windows Server and SQL Server licences from your Microsoft EA to Azure virtual machines — eliminating the OS and database licence component of the Azure VM price. For SAP landscapes with significant Windows Server footprint, AHUB can provide 30–50% cost reduction on Windows-based instances, which may tip the AWS vs Azure comparison in Azure's favour for mixed landscapes.

RISE with SAP: AWS vs Azure Preference

RISE with SAP abstracts infrastructure choice from the buyer's perspective — SAP manages the infrastructure, and RISE pricing is quoted as a per-user or per-SAPS subscription fee regardless of underlying cloud provider. However, the infrastructure provider within a RISE deployment is not commercially neutral. RISE pricing varies by region and provider, and SAP's operational preferences — including where SAP has the deepest technical expertise and the best unit economics — influence both pricing and service level consistency.

Practically, if you have a preference for AWS or Azure (driven by existing commitments or data residency requirements), negotiate this preference explicitly in RISE commercial discussions. SAP can typically accommodate cloud provider preferences within RISE, but there may be pricing implications. If you are agnostic between providers, ask SAP to quote RISE on both AWS and Azure — the comparison may reveal provider-specific pricing differences that influence your decision. For comprehensive RISE negotiation guidance including pricing structure and commercial levers, see our RISE with SAP negotiation guide.

Negotiating SAP Infrastructure on AWS

The primary AWS negotiation vehicle for SAP infrastructure is the Enterprise Discount Programme (EDP). An EDP provides a committed annual spend discount applied across all AWS services including the high-memory instances used for SAP HANA. If you do not have an existing EDP, include your SAP workload migration in the EDP spend commitment calculation to establish the initial agreement. If you have an existing EDP, request a RISE/SAP workload addendum that specifically includes the projected SAP infrastructure spend in your commitment baseline and adjusts your discount tier accordingly.

Reserved Instance strategy for SAP on AWS: purchase 3-year all-upfront RIs for HANA production instances (the largest discount — typically 50–60% versus on-demand), 1-year convertible RIs for development and test environments (allowing instance type changes as sizing is refined), and on-demand for training and temporary project environments. Convertible RIs allow you to exchange instance types as SAP HANA sizing evolves — critical for organisations that are not confident in their long-term HANA memory footprint. See our AWS EDP negotiation guide for detailed EDP structuring tactics.

Negotiating SAP Infrastructure on Azure

The primary Azure negotiation vehicle for SAP infrastructure is the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). A MACC commits annual Azure spend at a defined level in exchange for overall pricing benefits that flow through your Microsoft EA. Including SAP infrastructure spend in your MACC commitment level can unlock higher EA discount tiers, particularly if your SAP Azure consumption represents a meaningful increment to your existing Azure footprint.

Azure Reserved VM Instances for SAP M-series: 3-year all-upfront reservations for production M-series instances provide 50–65% discount versus pay-as-you-go, and Azure allows instance size flexibility within the same VM family — meaning an M128ms reservation can be applied to smaller M-series instances if sizing requires adjustment. For HANA Large Instances (HLI), the commercial model is different: HLI capacity is reserved by the unit (specific hardware configurations) with annual or three-year reservation terms. HLI pricing is not published publicly and must be negotiated directly with Microsoft's specialist SAP team. Expect significant variability in HLI quotes between organisations — always negotiate, never accept first offer.

Azure Hybrid Benefit maximisation: conduct a systematic audit of all Windows Server and SQL Server licence entitlements in your Microsoft EA and determine which can be applied to Azure VMs in the SAP landscape. AHUB savings compound with reserved instance discounts — the combination of AHUB (eliminating licence cost) and 3-year RI (compute cost discount) can reduce total Azure VM cost for Windows-based SAP components by 60–75% versus pay-as-you-go list. Our Azure MACC negotiation guide covers the full structure of Azure enterprise commercial arrangements.

Decision Framework and TCO Considerations

A rigorous AWS vs Azure SAP infrastructure decision requires a 5-year total cost of ownership model that includes: compute (reserved instance costs for all environment tiers), storage (HANA data and log volume, backup storage, archive), networking (data transfer, VPN, direct connect/ExpressRoute), and ancillary services (monitoring, backup, disaster recovery). The TCO model must be built on your specific sizing requirements — not vendor-provided reference architectures, which are often optimistically sized and commercially opaque.

Factor	Advantage: AWS	Advantage: Azure	Neutral
High-memory instances (>4TB)	Deeper instance variety
Windows Server BYOL		Azure Hybrid Benefit
Existing Microsoft EA		MACC + AHUB synergy
Existing AWS EDP	EDP discount applies
Global region availability			Both broadly equivalent
SAP partnership depth			Both certified, both RISE
Mid-range HANA (1–4TB) pricing			Broadly competitive
RISE with SAP availability			Both fully supported