How To List A SaaS App On SAP Store In 6 Months
Mateusz
“Congratulations! Your solution is published on SAP store.”
Imagine receiving this email from the SAP team next quarter. Your product becomes visible to global enterprise customers actively looking for a product like yours.
Look, it’s absolutely doable. But I won’t pretend it’s easy. At AvoTechs, we’ve helped clients through this process before, so we understand the path.
Getting your SaaS product listed on the SAP Store without prior SAP experience can feel like entering a black box. You don’t really know what to do, who to ask, or how long any of it’s going to take. And when you do ask around, most consultants tell you the same thing.
“It takes 9–12 months, if everything goes well.”
The truth is, you can list your SaaS product on SAP Store in under six months if you really understand how SAP actually works and how the three core programmes (SAP PartnerEdge, SAP ICC, and SAP ARC) interlock with one another.
Sort those out, and the timeline shrinks. That’s what I’ll walk you through here.
This guide is for SaaS vendors with no existing SAP ecosystem presence. They need to build their integration first, get it certified through ICC, join PartnerEdge, and pass the ARC before listing. This is the full path, and it requires the most careful sequencing.
Table of Contents
First, Understand What You’re Really Entering
Before your team writes a single line of integration code or fills in a single form, there are several concepts that need to be crystal clear at the executive level. Getting these wrong is the single most common cause of timeline overruns, and I’ve seen it happen more times than I’d care to count.
The SAP Store is not a self-serve listing directory like G2 or a typical marketplace. It’s a rigorously gated, quality-controlled ecosystem built on three tightly connected layers:
- SAP PartnerEdge (commercial entry)
- Application Readiness Check (quality gate)
- SAP Integration and Certification Center (technical validation)
Most SaaS teams treat these as separate steps. That’s the first mistake.
SAP treats them as one continuous system. Each layer has its own requirements, timeline, and logic. Think of them as sequential gates; you cannot skip one, and you cannot easily run them in the wrong order.
| Three Connected Layers | Their Purpose | Why They Matter |
| SAP PartnerEdge (Build Track) | This is the SAP partner program that gives you legal rights to access development tools to build or extend integrations and list them on SAP Store. | You cannot list your product on the SAP Store without it. You can enter through the free Open Ecosystem tier, but that does not grant commercial distribution rights. You have to become the build partner first. The commercial revenue share on partner-built solutions includes:
|
| SAP ICC (Integration & Certification Center) | This validates that your integration with an SAP product (e.g. S/4HANA, SuccessFactors) meets SAP’s technical standards | Required for ABAP-based integrations; strongly recommended for all others, as ARC reviewers expect it Read more about how to prepare your SaaS for SAP ICC. |
| SAP ARC (Application Readiness Check) | It’s SAP’s mandatory internal quality gate for all solutions listed on the SAP Store | Passing the first time is the critical path. A ‘Returned for Rework’ status can add 4–12 weeks to your timeline. Vendors who prepare their full documentation set (architecture diagrams, security whitepaper, support plan) before starting the ARC questionnaire complete the review 30–40% faster than those who assemble it reactively in response to reviewer queries. |
One thing many SaaS founders misunderstand is that there are actually two different paths:
SAP certification only: You certify the integration through SAP ICC and appear in SAP’s Certified Solutions Directory. This is cheaper and simpler.
SAP Store commercial listing: You join PartnerEdge Build and become part of the SAP commercial ecosystem. This involves additional partner requirements, commercial alignment, and sometimes revenue sharing.
That distinction matters because many SaaS companies do not actually need a full SAP Store commercial listing in the beginning. A focused certified integration is often the faster and lower-risk path into the SAP ecosystem.
A Six-Month Roadmap to SAP Store Listing
This 6-month strategy is structured around the core journey. Carefully read every step to understand what SAP reviewers and partner managers will expect from your submission.
Step 1: Get Inside the Open Ecosystem
The first month is about securing your beachhead. Establish your legal and technical presence inside the SAP ecosystem before writing a line of integration code.
The non-SAP SaaS Vendor who’s building, certifying & listing from scratch- this means starting from the ground up. You’re coming into the SAP ecosystem for the first time, so make sure you do your market research and validate demand from SAP’s customer base beforehand. The key to hitting the six-month target is running administrative onboarding, technical development, and compliance hardening on parallel tracks rather than in sequence.
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| SAP PartnerEdge Registration | Register for the SAP PartnerEdge Open Ecosystem (Build specialisation) at partneredge.sap.com. This is free and gives you access to BTP development tools and the Business Accelerator Hub. Note: this tier does not grant SAP Store listing rights(that comes later). |
| SAP BTP Access | Set up your BTP development environment. Provision a provider subaccount, configure global account administrators, and establish entitlements. Confirm active licences via the Partner Licensing Services (PLS) team. |
| S-User ID | Ensure a valid S-User ID is registered under the PE Build Partner Type. This is the technical credential required to initiate the ARC from within the SAP Partner Portal. |
| Internal Role Assignment | Assign three key roles:
|
| ICC Scenario Confirmation | Define your integration type precisely. If it’s a standalone SaaS that communicates with SAP data or a side-by-side BTP extension. This classification determines your ICC scenario. Remember that SAP ICC validates against scenarios tied to specific SAP products and integration patterns. Contact the SAP ICC team before development begins to confirm the correct certification scenario for your product. |
| Budget Sign-off | Secure executive approval covering PartnerEdge Build programme fee, ICC certification fee, and BTP consumption costs during testing. |
Step 2: Design the Right Architecture
This is the most critical month of the entire six-month journey. It’s where the actual work begins, and where the most expensive mistakes are made. Architecture decisions made now will be directly scrutinised during your ARC review. SAP’s reviewers are not looking for clever solutions. They are looking for solutions that are clean, cloud-compliant, and demonstrably built for the enterprise. If you get this wrong, everything downstream slows down.
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| API Mapping | Access the SAP Business Accelerator Hub and map every integration touchpoint to an officially released, publicly available SAP API. If the API is not published there, ICC cannot certify against it. |
| Clean Core Alignment | Design all custom logic and extensions to run side-by-side on SAP BTP, not inside the SAP ERP core. Use ABAP Cloud for any ABAP-based extensions (clean-core-compliant) or side-by-side extensions running on Cloud Foundry or Kyma. Classic core modifications will not pass ARC. |
| BTP Environment Architecture | Design your provider subaccount structure and configure trust between BTP and the Identity Authentication Service (IAS). Define the global account structure, subaccount hierarchy, and entitlements for your solution. Provision this environment by the end of the month. |
| Multi-Tenancy Design | Design your multi-tenancy model: a single running instance of your application serving multiple customer tenants, with strict data isolation between them. Define how the SaaS Registry, App Router, and Service Manager will handle tenant provisioning, routing, and data separation. |
| Architecture Documentation (Draft) | Begin your architecture diagram now. Document everything: component diagram (BTP services, your application, SAP touchpoints), data flow diagram (how data moves between your SaaS and SAP), and interface specifications per touchpoint. By the end of month two, you should have a first draft of your architecture diagram, data flow diagram, and interface specifications. Do not leave this until month five. Every week of documentation delay at this stage adds a corresponding delay to your ARC review cycle. |
| SAP Product Scope Confirmation | Formally confirm which SAP products your integration touches (S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, etc.) and at which version. Document this in writing. Your ICC scenario and your ARC submission must be consistent with this scope. |
Step 3: Build for SAP (Multi-tenant, API-first, enterprise-grade)
This step is the core development sprint; the highest-velocity period of the project.
The gap between ‘technically works’ and ‘passes ARC’ is often discovered here. Make sure your product behaves like an enterprise-grade extension, not just a SaaS add-on.
Multi-tenancy, API-first design, and clear separation of concerns are the baseline here.
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| Multi-Tenancy Implementation | Implement the SaaS Registry service and the required subscription and unsubscription callback endpoints. When a customer subscribes via the SAP Service Marketplace, these callbacks trigger the MTX sidecar to register the tenant and provision a dedicated HDI container or database schema for that tenant’s data. |
| App Router & Tenant Routing | Implement the App Router to derive the tenant identifier from the incoming host URL and route requests to the correct tenant database at runtime. Test with multiple simultaneous tenant sessions before proceeding to ICC or ARC. |
| API-first Integration | Build all integration touchpoints using only officially released SAP APIs (OData, REST, or SOAP) as confirmed on the Business Accelerator Hub. No proprietary or undocumented endpoints. No direct database access. All data exchange must go through the defined interfaces. |
| XSUAA & Role-Based Access Control | Define all scopes, roles, and role collections in your xs-security.json descriptor. Role-based access control must be demonstrably functional. No hard-coded credentials anywhere in the codebase. |
| Documentation: Build As You Go | By the end of month 3, your documentation set should be substantially complete, including an architecture diagram (final), data flow diagram, interface specifications per SAP touchpoint, operational playbook (incident response, backup/restore, upgrade process), and a first draft of your security posture summary. |
| CAP Model or Kyma Runtime | Use the SAP Cloud Application Programming (CAP) model as your development framework where possible. It is BTP-native, Clean Core-aligned, and significantly reduces the boilerplate required for tenant management. Kyma runtime is appropriate for polyglot workloads or containerised microservices. |
Step 4: Security and Certification Readiness
This step is the most technically intensive period of the journey for most SaaS vendors. Security hardening and ICC certification run in parallel. The effort required here is consistently underestimated, and it is the most common cause of vendors sliding from a five-month timeline to a nine-month one.
SAP accepts only evidence. Every security control you implement needs to be documentable, demonstrable, and described in precise technical terms in your ARC submission.
If you are preparing for ICC testing this month, the discipline required for the test day is the same discipline required for ARC: specificity, evidence, and complete preparation.
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| IAS Integration (Identity Authentication Service) | Implement IAS for Single Sign-On and Multi-Factor Authentication for critical roles. Configure federation with corporate identity providers (e.g. Microsoft Azure AD) where required. Support SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect (OIDC). Document the federation flow. ARC reviewers will ask for it. |
| IPS Integration (Identity Provisioning Service) | Configure IPS to automate user provisioning and de-provisioning across systems based on real-time changes in source systems (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors). Ensure the identity lifecycle is fully automated, not manually managed. |
| Data Encryption & Transport Security | Implement AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.3 for all data in transit. Eliminate any legacy TLS 1.0 or 1.1 configurations. Document your key management approach and transport protocol configuration. Vague answers are the most common cause of security review delays. |
| Token Handling & JWT Validation | Implement JWT-based token validation. Follow OWASP Top 10 guidelines. All sensitive configurations must be managed through the SAP BTP Destination service to decouple endpoints from application logic. No hard-coded credentials. |
| SAP ICC Certification | Try to schedule and complete the ICC test day this month. The process includes:
Budget €5,000 – €10,000 total. |
| Security Documentation Finalisation | Finalise your Security Whitepaper covering: authentication mechanisms, data encryption (at rest and in transit), access control model, incident response plan, data residency and sub-processor list, and GDPR/DPA compliance. Attach supporting evidence (SOC 2 Type 2 or ISO 27001, if available). These attestations are not mandatory but significantly accelerate the ARC security review. (A SOC 2 Type 2 report evaluates your controls over six to twelve months, giving SAP reviewers confidence that your security posture is stable and operational rather than assembled for the submission.) |
| PartnerEdge Build Upgrade | Upgrade from the Open Ecosystem tier to the full PartnerEdge Build track. Join the commercial programme agreement. This must be complete before ARC submission. |
Step 5: Pass the Application Readiness Check
This is the make-or-break step. Everything in the previous months has been preparation for this moment.
Pass ARC on the first attempt, and you are typically six weeks from a live listing. Receive a return for rework, and you have likely added three months to your timeline.
Reviewers at SAP have seen every flavour of under-prepared submission. What separates fast approvals from slow ones is evidence quality.
Vague answers are returned for rework. For instance, ‘We encrypt data’ will get you a reviewer query.
And writing specifically as,
‘AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, key management via [your specific service], see attached Security Whitepaper section 4.2’ will get you an approval.
Specificity is the strategy here.
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| ARC Initiation | Initiate the Application Readiness Check from the ‘Manage My Apps’ section of the SAP Partner Portal (MMA front page). Confirm that your valid S-User ID and active PLS licences are in place before submitting. |
| Business Value (ARC Category) | Write a precise value proposition for your target SAP customer. Name the specific business process your solution improves, the SAP product it integrates with, and the measurable outcome. Attach a solution demo or walkthrough video. |
| Architecture Quality (ARC Category) | Submit your final architecture diagram showing BTP services, your application, and all SAP touchpoints. Ensure it is consistent with your ICC test documentation. Any discrepancy between the two documents will trigger a reviewer query. |
| Security Maturity (ARC Category) | Submit your Security Whitepaper with specific, technical responses to all security categories. For each control, reference the specific service or mechanism: not “we use role-based access”, but write “RBAC implemented via XSUAA, role collections defined in xs-security.json, MFA enforced via IAS login policy.” |
| Operational Readiness (ARC Category) | Document your support model: ticketing system, SLA commitments, escalation path, incident response plan. SAP requires evidence that you can support enterprise customers at scale, not just that you have built a working product. |
| ARC Coordinator Management | Assign your ARC coordinator to monitor all SAP reviewer communications from the moment of submission. Respond to every query within 24 to 48 hours at the absolute maximum. Reviewers move on to other submissions whilst waiting. |
Prepare your full documentation set before you open the ARC questionnaire. Vendors who prepare documentation before starting the ARC complete the process 30–40% faster than those who assemble it reactively.
The SAP review team typically takes 2 to 4 weeks. Add two to three weeks of buffer into your plan if your submission falls near SAPPHIRE (May) or TechEd (October/November), as review queues grow significantly around these events.
AvoTechs acts as the “accelerator” that cuts the traditional project delays (especially in the ARC process) and helps you get listed fast. Check pricing and scope of service.
Step 6: Publish and Go-to-Market
Once ARC approval arrives, you will receive a welcome email with instructions to begin the publishing workflow. The SAP Store listing review typically takes about 1 business day. The primary focus of Month 6 is commercial launch quality and the activation of your go-to-market motion. This is the part many vendors underestimate. The SAP Store is a transactional marketplace where SAP’s own sales teams can reference, recommend, and co-sell your solution. Vendors who treat the listing as the end of the process leave significant commercial value on the table.
Your listing is the minimum viable presence. What you do with it determines the commercial outcome.
Suggested Reading:
The ROI of SAP Partnership and SAP Store Listing for SaaS Companies
| Activity | ISVs Building from Scratch |
| Due Diligence Completion | After ARC approval, complete the Due Diligence questionnaire as part of the onboarding workflow. Have your legal and compliance contacts available for this step. |
| SAP Store Listing Quality | Write your product description around business outcomes, not technical features. Name the specific SAP products you integrate with, the business processes you improve, and the results customers achieve. Listings that speak the language of enterprise procurement teams convert materially better. |
| Pricing Tier Confirmation | Confirm your revenue share tier before publishing. Integration tier (15%): solutions that dynamically communicate with SAP solutions.Platform tier (25%): solutions built natively on BTP where you bundle SAP licences.Content tier (0%): templates, whitepapers, or free tools. |
| Trial and Demo Activation | If you can offer a free trial or interactive demo, enable it. Listings with working trials convert materially better than those without. Even a time-limited or feature-limited trial demonstrates commercial confidence in your product. |
| Press Release and SAP Badging | Prepare a press release announcing your SAP Store listing. This must be approved by SAP before publication. Add SAP-approved badges to your website, email signatures, and social media channels upon publication. These badges are trust signals that matter in enterprise sales cycles. |
| Partner Cockpit and Lead Management | Configure the SAP Store Partner Cockpit for lead and opportunity management. When SAP customers express interest in your listing, that interest flows into the Cockpit. Have a documented process for responding within 24 hours (enterprise buyers do not wait). |
| SAP Sales Team Engagement | Actively brief SAP’s sales teams on your solution. Some SAP Build partners report that 15–20% of their qualified leads originate from SAP’s ecosystem post-listing. But this requires investment in the relationship. Attend SAP partner events, participate in joint go-to-market programmes, and position your solution within SAP’s account-based selling motion. |
Data Protection and Security Compliance: The Core of Enterprise Trust
SaaS applications on the SAP Store must meet stringent data protection requirements, governed by international laws such as GDPR or CCPA. A data processing agreement (DPA) is a legally binding contract mandated by GDPR Article 28 that defines how data controllers and processors handle personal data. SAP provides a self-service portal in SAP where partners can manage compliance by signing DPA amendments for EU/EEA and UK customers.
How Much Does It Cost to List a SaaS on SAP Store?
The cost of listing a SaaS product on the SAP Store depends on solution complexity, ICC scenario, and internal engineering capacity. The following figures are indicative ranges based on typical first-time submissions.
In practice, there are usually these cost layers involved:
| Cost Item | Indicative Range | Notes |
| SAP PartnerEdge Build Track | €1,500–3,000/year | Required for commercial SAP Store participation and SAP Build partnership rights. (Pricing varies by region and partner type.) |
| ICC Certification Fee | Typically starts around €3,000 | Covers ICC consulting, test plan, and validation. Complex enterprise integrations attract higher fees. |
| SAP-Hosted Test Systems (if needed) | Variable | Confirm with ICC. Shared test systems are cheaper than dedicated systems. |
| BTP Consumption (Dev & Test) | €500–2,000+/month | Depends on Integration Suite usage, CAP runtime, HANA Cloud, API calls, tenant size, and environments. Smaller pilots stay near the lower end. |
| Total First-Year Budget | €25,000–100,000+ | Varies significantly by scope |
5 Most Common Timeline Killers
In our experience working with SaaS vendors through the SAP store listing process, five factors account for the vast majority of timeline overruns. None of them are unavoidable; every single one is the result of decisions made early in the project.
| Timeline Killers | What Happens | How to Avoid It |
| Submitting the ARC before the solution is genuinely ready for sale | ARC is returned for rework; 4–12 weeks added to the timeline | Submit only when your product is technically ready for production customers |
| Vague or missing security documentation | Reviewer queries delay approval; multiple feedback cycles | Prepare the full documentation set before starting the questionnaire |
| Wrong ICC scenario selected | Integration must be rebuilt to match the test plan | Contact ICC before development begins, not after |
| Submitting near SAPPHIRE or TechEd | The review queue is significantly longer than normal | Build 2–3 weeks of buffer if submitting May or Oct/Nov |
| No dedicated ARC coordinator | Documentation version confusion; slow reviewer responses | Appoint a single ARC owner before Phase 1 begins |
AvoTechs Helps Saas Vendors with SAP Certification, Partnership, and SAP Store Listing
Getting your SaaS application onto the SAP Store within six months is entirely manageable, provided you start your ICC engagement early, build your documentation in parallel with your code, and run administrative and technical tracks simultaneously.
We help SaaS companies turn an existing SAP integration into an SAP-certified product and become recognised SAP partners in a fast, structured, and low-risk way. We work with you as your delivery partner through the entire SAP certification process, preparing the technical landscape and documentation, and managing interactions with SAP’s Integration and Certification Centre (ICC).
AvoTechs also guides you through SAP’s partner models, identifies the option that best fits your product and go-to-market strategy, and manages the full onboarding journey. We ensure you meet SAP’s technical, commercial, and compliance requirements so you can secure official partner status.
See Pricing & Scope of Services OR Schedule a 30-minutes Free Consultation
Keep in mind that an SAP partner marketplace listing is not the finish line; it’s the starting gun for a commercial partnership with access to one of the world’s largest enterprise customer bases. The vendors who succeed on SAP Store are those who treat the listing as the beginning of a go-to-market investment. Engage with SAP’s sales teams, participate in joint go-to-market programmes, and leverage the “SAP Certified” or “SAP Partner” badge in every enterprise conversation you have.
