--- title: "Rimini Street rose 24.31% on record SAP services sales as SAP's free Joule runtime ends December 31" description: "The third-party support vendor rose 24.31% on record SAP-services sales in the same week SAP made Joule agents free through December 2026. Same customers, two bills, and SAP starts charging in January." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Platforms" published: 2026-11-01T20:00:06.579Z modified: 2026-11-01T20:00:06.579Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/rimini-street-rose-24-31-on-record-sap-services-sales-as-sap-s-free-joule-runtime-ends-december-31 language: en keywords: "Rimini Street, SAP, Earnings, Enterprise Software, AI Agents" --- # Rimini Street rose 24.31% on record SAP services sales as SAP's free Joule runtime ends December 31 > The third-party support vendor rose 24.31% on record SAP-services sales in the same week SAP made Joule agents free through December 2026. Same customers, two bills, and SAP starts charging in January. [Rimini Street](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/rimini-street), the company that makes its living supporting [SAP](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/sap) and [Oracle](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/oracle) systems the vendors would rather replace, reported [record third-quarter sales of services for SAP software](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/rimini-street-announces-fiscal-third-quarter-2026-financial-and-operating-results-ce785fdadd81f424) on October 29, 2026 [4]. The stock closed at $4.96 the next day, up 24.31% [4]. That is the market paying up for the one thing SAP's growth story cannot price: the customers who have not moved. ## SAP put its counteroffer on the table four days earlier [At TechEd, SAP's annual developer conference, on October 27](https://news.sap.com/2026/10/sap-teched-ai-developers-build-what-matters-autonomous-execution/), SAP launched the machinery meant to make third-party support obsolete: Joule Work and Joule Studio for building enterprise agents from more than 70 AI models, a new Enterprise AI Gateway that consolidates authentication, policy enforcement, monitoring and auditing for every AI interaction, an assistant for EU AI Act compliance, and a managed Joule Studio runtime that runs customers' custom agents free through December 2026 [2]. The free runtime stays free through December 31, 2026; SAP starts charging in January [2]. Building first, billing after, is a deliberate purchase of habit: once a customer's agents run on SAP's runtime, the January invoice lands on a system that already does the work. ## The two bills compete for one budget, and both grew last quarter [SAP's own quarter, reported October 21](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/sap-announces-q3-2026-results-ce785cd9dd80f221), [crossed €10 billion in total revenue for the first time](https://theinference.org/article/sap-s-first-10-billion-quarter-shows-the-ai-agent-adds-to-the-seat-instead-of-replacing-it), with cloud revenue up 26% and the Cloud ERP Suite up 29% [6]. Rimini's quarter ran the other direction from the same wallet: revenue of $112.1 million, up 8.3%, and adjusted revenue, which strips out the PeopleSoft support book Rimini is winding down, up 10.7% [4]. The forward gauges lean further Rimini's way. [Adjusted calculated billings rose 21.9% to $78.0 million](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/rimini-street-rmni-said-q3-011406864.html), adjusted EBITDA rose 52% to $15.1 million, and remaining performance obligations, the contracted backlog, stand at $652.9 million, just below the company's record [3][4]. Billings, the forward gauge, are growing twice as fast as revenue, which says the deferral is accelerating, not fading. *Chart: **Growth resumed in Q2 2026, then Q3 2026 lifted revenue to a record** Line chart of Rimini Street quarterly revenue in US dollars from Q3 2024 to Q3 2026, showing growth resuming at 6.7 percent in Q2 2026 and rising to 112.1 million in Q3 2026, the highest point on the line.* *Rimini Street quarterly revenue, US dollars, from its SEC filings. Growth resumed in Q2 2026, up 6.7% year over year, then Q3 2026 lifted revenue to a record. Source: company SEC filings. [5]* *Chart: **One installed base, two growth rates: SAP's cloud grows faster, Rimini's billings close the gap** Bars chart ranking year-over-year growth for the quarter ended September 30, 2026: SAP Cloud ERP Suite 29%, SAP cloud revenue 26%, Rimini adjusted billings 21.9%, Rimini adjusted revenue 10.7%, with the two Rimini bars highlighted.* *Year-over-year growth for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Rimini bars are adjusted, excluding the winding-down PeopleSoft book; SAP bars are as reported, in euros. Sources: Rimini Street Q3 2026 press release; SAP Q3 2026 results. [4][6]* The pitch in one customer's words: Khimji Ramdas Group, an Omani conglomerate, said Rimini cut its SAP support costs by 80%, freeing funds for AI innovation without migrations or replatforming [4]. SAP's answer to that customer is Joule, free until the bill starts. ## Rimini's own numbers cap its bull case The record quarter rests on the installed base rather than conquests of new accounts. Active clients grew 1.9% to 3,214 and revenue retention is 90%, so a tenth of the book walks off every year [3]. Revenue grew 8.3% while the client count grew 1.9%, so the extra dollars came from existing relationships renewing and expanding [3][4]. The limits show in management's own words. CEO Seth Ravin told analysts clients are still early in identifying which processes to hand to AI, and the commercial contribution of Rimini's agentic suite in 2027 is unclear [3]. The margin gains came from process efficiency and labor relocation, not internal AI [1]. *Chart: **Gross margin has hovered near 61% for two years, below the mid-60s Rimini promises for 2027** Line chart of Rimini Street quarterly gross margin from Q3 2024 to Q3 2026, hovering between 59 and 64 percent, with a reference line at 65 percent marking the mid-60s target for 2027.* *Rimini Street quarterly gross margin, percent of revenue, from its SEC filings. The January 2027 Investor Day plan targets roughly $1 billion of revenue at mid-60s gross margins. Source: company SEC filings. [5]* ## What decides it next Watch three dates: December 31, 2026, when SAP's free runtime lapses and billing starts in January [2]; Rimini's fourth-quarter guidance of $117 million to $119 million [4]; and [its January 14, 2027 Investor Day](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/rimini-street-inc-q3-2026-123000242.html), where the 2027 plan lands alongside targets of roughly $1 billion revenue at mid-60s gross margins [1]. Until then, every dollar of Rimini's $652.9 million backlog is a meter running on SAP migrations not yet signed [4][1]. ## Takeaway Rimini Street's record quarter shows the SAP installed base holding: adjusted billings grew 21.9%, twice revenue growth, and $652.9 million is contracted backlog. But SAP's free Joule agent runtime starts billing in January, and Rimini's client count grew just 1.9%. ## Sources 1. [Yahoo Finance / Moby Intelligence, Rimini Street, Inc. Q3 2026 Earnings Call Summary, 30 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/rimini-street-inc-q3-2026-123000242.html) 2. [SAP News Center, SAP Empowers AI Developers to Build What Matters and Turn Intent into Autonomous Execution, 27 October 2026](https://news.sap.com/2026/10/sap-teched-ai-developers-build-what-matters-autonomous-execution/) 3. [MarketBeat via Yahoo Finance, What Rimini Street (RMNI) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call, 29 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/rimini-street-rmni-said-q3-011406864.html) 4. [Business Wire via MarketScreener, Rimini Street Announces Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Financial and Operating Results, 29 October 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/rimini-street-announces-fiscal-third-quarter-2026-financial-and-operating-results-ce785fdadd81f424) 5. [Rimini Street, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 1 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001635282) 6. [SAP SE via MarketScreener, SAP Announces Q3 2026 Results, 21 October 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/sap-announces-q3-2026-results-ce785cd9dd80f221) --- Rimini Street rose 24.31% on record SAP services sales as SAP's free Joule runtime ends December 31 — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/rimini-street-rose-24-31-on-record-sap-services-sales-as-sap-s-free-joule-runtime-ends-december-31