SAP BTP services are the catalog of managed platform capabilities you can switch on inside SAP Business Technology Platform — runtimes, databases, integration engines, AI tooling, identity, connectivity, and operations services that your applications consume instead of you building them yourself. If you are new to the platform, start with What is SAP BTP?; this guide zooms in on the services themselves.
The service catalog is what turns BTP from a hosting platform into a complete development environment. But it adds a model of its own: services are entitled, subscribed to, instantiated, and bound, each with plans and keys. Once you understand that lifecycle, almost every service on the platform behaves the same way — which is the point. This guide explains how the model works, which service families exist, and how to find your way around the catalog.
How the BTP Service Model Works
Every BTP service follows the same lifecycle: it is entitled at the account level, enabled in a subaccount, and consumed either through a subscription or through instances that your applications bind to.
Entitlements and subscriptions
An entitlement is the right to use a service with a defined quota of plans, assigned from your global account to a subaccount. Until the entitlement exists, the service cannot be provisioned in that subaccount — which is why "the plan I need is missing" almost always means an account administrator has to assign the entitlement first.
Two consumption models exist side by side:
- Subscription-based services — ready-to-run applications you subscribe to once per subaccount and open through their own URL. You configure users and settings, but there is nothing of your own to deploy.
- Instance-based services — technical services such as databases, messaging, destinations, and authorization that you instantiate inside a space or namespace and bind to your own code.
The account hierarchy behind entitlements — global accounts, directories, subaccounts, and spaces — is covered in detail in the SAP BTP architecture guide.
The Service Marketplace, instances, and plans
The Service Marketplace in the SAP BTP cockpit lists everything a subaccount is entitled to. Each service offers one or more plans, and the plan determines what you get: free or paid, shared or dedicated infrastructure, size limits, and included features. A HANA Cloud instance on a free plan and one on a production plan are the same service with very different footprints.
Creating a service instance provisions the service for your use. In Cloud Foundry that is cf create-service <service> <plan> <name>; in Kyma you declare instances as custom resources through the SAP BTP Service Operator. An instance is a real resource that lives until you delete it — not just a line of configuration.
Service keys and bindings
Applications reach instances through credentials:
- A service binding connects a running application to an instance. In Cloud Foundry, binding injects the credentials into the application environment (
VCAP_SERVICES). - A service key generates the same kind of credentials for anything running outside the platform — local development, CI pipelines, or external systems.
One instance can serve many bindings and keys, which is how several applications share a single database or destination service. For managing instances and bindings across environments, Service Manager is the service designed for exactly that job.
The Main Service Families
BTP groups its hundreds of services into functional families. The table maps the territory:
| Service family | What it covers | Services you meet first |
|---|---|---|
| Application runtimes & containers | Managed environments where your code runs | Cloud Foundry, Kyma, ABAP Environment |
| Integration | Connecting apps, APIs, events, and partners | SAP Integration Suite |
| Data & analytics | Databases, warehousing, and data modeling | SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Datasphere |
| AI | ML pipelines and generative AI access | SAP AI Core, SAP AI Launchpad |
| Identity & security | Sign-on, authorization, user provisioning | SAP Cloud Identity Services (IAS/IPS) |
| Connectivity & destinations | Reaching remote and on-premise systems | Destination Service, Connectivity Service, SAP Cloud Connector |
| Monitoring & operations | Logs, metrics, scheduled jobs, transports | Cloud Logging Service, Job Scheduling, Cloud Transport Management |
A few notes on the families developers touch most:
Runtimes are services too. Cloud Foundry, Kyma, and the ABAP Environment are entitled and enabled like any other service — the plan you enable determines how much compute the environment gets in that subaccount. A single landscape commonly mixes them, for example an ABAP Environment subaccount for backend logic next to a Cloud Foundry subaccount for the Fiori frontend.
Integration Suite is the umbrella for Cloud Integration (iFlows), API Management, Event Mesh, and B2B tooling. It is usually consumed as a subscription plus supporting service instances for APIs and events. The Integration Suite skill covers the whole set.
Data services pair naturally. SAP HANA Cloud is the in-memory database most CAP applications bind to, while Datasphere is the warehousing and semantics layer for analytics across sources.
AI services split by job: SAP AI Core runs ML pipelines and hosts generative AI orchestration, while SAP AI Launchpad is the web UI where you configure and monitor that work.
Identity and connectivity are the quiet workhorses. Nearly every production BTP application authenticates users through SAP Cloud Identity Services and calls remote systems through the Destination and Connectivity services, with SAP Cloud Connector bridging securely into on-premise networks.
Operations services round out the lifecycle. Cloud Logging collects logs, metrics, and traces in one place, the Job Scheduling service runs recurring background tasks, and Cloud Transport Management moves artifacts between subaccounts along a defined route.
How to Discover Services
Two entry points cover most day-to-day discovery:
- The Service Marketplace in the cockpit — open your subaccount, browse or search the marketplace, and inspect the plans and documentation links for each service. Entries you are not entitled to show up as requiring an entitlement assignment first.
- The
btpCLI —btp list entitlementsshows what a subaccount may use, and account administrators can assign entitlements from the same tool. Inside a Cloud Foundry space,cf marketplacelists available services and plans, andcf servicesshows the instances you already have.
The SAP Discovery Center is the companion resource: it documents each service with guided missions and tutorials, and it is the most reliable place to check what a service actually does before you commit to a plan.
Free Tier and Trial Plans
Most services offer more than one plan, and the split is usually visible in the plan names:
- Free tier plans carry no cost but limit memory, storage, throughput, or features. They are available through SAP BTP Enterprise Agreement and Pay-As-You-Go accounts — commercial account types with no time limitation — so free-tier instances can live as long as the account does.
- Standard (paid) plans lift those limits and add production-grade options such as dedicated or highly available infrastructure.
The separate BTP trial is a different thing: a time-limited, non-commercial environment for evaluation. It works for working through tutorials, but the free tier model on a commercial account is the better base for ongoing learning and prototypes because it does not expire. The details are in the SAP BTP free tier guide.
Giving Your AI Assistant Accurate Service Context
BTP's catalog is exactly where general-purpose AI assistants struggle: service names change over time, plans differ per service, and the cockpit steps are easy to invent. Loading a curated skill gives the assistant accurate, current context instead. For the services in this guide:
sap-btp-cloud-platform— the core platform reference covering accounts, entitlements, and the cockpit.sap-btp-connectivity— destinations, connectivity, and Cloud Connector patterns.sap-btp-integration-suite— Cloud Integration, API Management, and Event Mesh.sap-btp-cloud-logging— observability through OpenSearch Dashboards.sap-btp-job-scheduling— defining, scheduling, and running recurring jobs.
Install one the usual way:
npx skills add secondsky/sap-skills --skill sap-btp-cloud-platform
You can browse the rest of the skills catalog for service-specific coverage.
Where to Go From Here
Start small: pick the service family that matches your current project, entitle it in a subaccount, and create your first instance from the Service Marketplace. For deeper background on how accounts, environments, and transports fit together, read the SAP BTP architecture guide and the other guides in the learn library. And when you want accurate, service-level context for your AI assistant while you build, browse the SAP BTP skills category.