ServiceNow is a powerful platform, but its licensing costs can skyrocket if you’re not careful. Many organizations unknowingly pay for far more licenses, roles, and add-ons than they actually use. The good news? By digging into your usage data, you can spot exactly where you’re over-licensed.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to interpret ServiceNow’s license reports and dashboards to uncover underutilized users, modules, and add-ons. The goal is to turn those insights into cost savings.
By the end, you’ll know how to identify underused ServiceNow licenses, determine where over-licensing exists, and take action to rightsize your environment before renewal time.
For more insights on optimization, read our guide, ServiceNow Over-Licensing – How to Detect and Prevent It Early.
Identify Underused ServiceNow Licenses – Turning Data into Cost Savings
Understanding where your ServiceNow licenses are underused is the first step to cutting waste.
Over-licensing often hides in plain sight: users with powerful roles who rarely log in, modules enabled that see little traffic, or pricey add-ons that no one touches. Interpreting the data can reveal these gaps. Think of it like an expert audit of your ServiceNow instance, where every inactive user or idle feature is a dollar on the table.
You don’t need to be a data scientist – just a bit of guidance on what to look for. By reviewing login frequencies, transaction counts, and module adoption rates, you can pinpoint licenses that aren’t pulling their weight.
This isn’t just about saving money (though that’s a big win); it’s also about aligning your ServiceNow investment with actual business needs. If a license isn’t used, it’s not providing value. Let’s break down how to spot these underused licenses and what to do about them.
Mini-scenario: A logistics firm discovered that 300 of its 1,200 “fulfiller” users hadn’t logged into ServiceNow in over 90 days. These users had full platform access licenses, each costing a significant sum. Essentially, a quarter of their expensive licenses were sitting idle — a hidden waste of roughly $250,000 annually. By identifying these underused licenses, the firm was able to reclaim and reassign them before the renewal, instantly cutting a huge chunk of unnecessary spend.
Pro Tip: Low activity is often the first sign of shelfware. If a user or module shows little to no activity, don’t wait until after you’ve renewed to investigate – check it before the renewal date. Early detection of underuse lets you adjust your license counts proactively, not reactively.
What “Underused” Really Means
When we say a license is “underused,” we mean the person or module associated with it isn’t doing much of anything in ServiceNow. It could be a user who barely logs in or only handles a handful of tickets, or a module that’s enabled but not being adopted by staff.
Underuse is a red flag: it signals either excess capacity (you have more licenses than needed) or a misalignment (the license type or module might not fit the actual need).
In practical terms, underused licenses show up as low frequency or low volume in the ServiceNow usage data:
- Infrequent logins: For example, a licensed user who hasn’t logged in for months.
- Minimal transactions: A fulfiller who resolves very few incidents or a requester who opens almost no requests.
- Dormant modules: A purchased module (like IT Business Management, HR Service Delivery, etc.) with very few records or transactions over time.
Why does this matter? Because every one of those licenses likely carries a cost. If 50 users have premium ITSM roles but only 30 are actively using them, you have 20 licenses paid for nothing. If you bought an add-on like Virtual Agent but the usage logs show near-zero chats, that’s money wasted. Underused means you have an opportunity to optimize – by cutting or reassigning what isn’t needed.
Pro Tip: Patterns matter more than single data points. One quiet month for a user might be a blip, but recurring inactivity (month after month) means systemic waste. Look for trends over time, not just one-off dips, to truly define “underused.”
The Top Indicators of Over-Licensing
How can you tell if you’re over-licensed? There are common red flags in your ServiceNow data that shout “waste.” Think of these as the canaries in the coal mine for underutilization.
If you spot any of these indicators, it’s time to dig deeper and verify if you have licenses to pull back.
Key Red Flags to Monitor (Checklist):
- Users with 60+ days since last login (stale accounts consuming licenses)
- Under 10 transactions or tickets per user per month (very low individual activity)
- Modules with < 20% adoption (e.g. only a small fraction of licensed users actually using a module)
- Duplicate or redundant roles assigned to the same user (e.g., two expensive roles where one would do)
- Inactive contractors or off-boarded staff still holding licenses (licenses assigned to people no longer with the company or in changed roles)
Each of these is a strong indicator that you’re paying for something not fully utilized. For instance, if a given module was bought for 100 users but only 10 are regularly using it, that’s <10% adoption — a glaring sign of over-licensing. Likewise, an employee who left 3 months ago but still has an active account with a license is pure waste.
Pro Tip: No single metric tells the whole story, so cross-check multiple indicators. If a user hasn’t logged in for 90 days and has under five tickets in the last quarter, you have a solid case to consider removing or reallocating that license. One indicator might be a fluke, but two or three together confirm you’ve found genuine over-licensing.
Using Reports to Locate the Waste
ServiceNow provides built-in reports and dashboards that are gold mines for finding underused licenses. The trick is knowing how to filter and interpret them.
A great starting point is the User Activity reports:
- Filter by role: Separate reports for fulfillers, approvers, requesters, etc. Focus on fulfillers (or any role that requires a paid license) first, because that’s where cost is highest.
- Sort by last login date: Identify users who haven’t logged in recently (for example, sort ascending to see the oldest login dates at the top).
- Look at active task counts: For each user, check how many incidents or requests they’ve handled in the last month or quarter. Zero or very low counts stand out.
You can often combine data from different sources, such as joining the license allocation table with the activity table, to get a comprehensive view. ServiceNow’s License Analytics or Subscription Management dashboard (if available in your instance) is purpose-built for this — it can show license usage trends per application and role.
By running these reports, you effectively shine a flashlight into the dark corners of your license usage. It becomes clear who’s using their access and who isn’t. Often, you’ll find a cluster of users with high-cost roles who show minimal activity. Those are prime targets for rightsizing (either by downgrading their role or removing the license if it’s truly not needed).
Mini-scenario: A healthcare provider used ServiceNow’s reporting to analyze its HR Service Delivery (HRSD) module. The report revealed that about 40% of their HRSD agent users logged in less than twice per quarter. These were HR staff with an expensive fulfiller license, yet many of them were only peeking in occasionally or not at all. This insight was a clear signal: they had far more HRSD licenses than actual active agents. Armed with this data, the provider targeted those inactive licenses for removal, reallocating some and cutting the rest, optimizing their spend significantly.
Pro Tip: Focus on high-cost roles first. If a report shows underuse across the board, prioritize the expensive licenses (like ITSM fulfillers, HRSD agents, CSM roles) because wasting each one of those costs the budget more than a low-cost or free role. It’s better to reclaim ten $1,000 licenses than twenty $50 ones in terms of impact.
How to gain visibility, Creating a ServiceNow License Usage Dashboard for Visibility.
Finding Low-Use Modules and Add-Ons
Over-licensing isn’t just about user roles — it’s also about modules and add-ons you’ve purchased but aren’t fully leveraging. Companies often buy entire ServiceNow products or extra features during an implementation or renewal, only to find out later that adoption is low.
To identify these low-use components, you need to look at module utilization data.
ServiceNow tracks activity per application/module, which you can access via usage analytics or simply by querying records:
- Records or transactions per module: Check how many records (like incidents, requests, changes, HR cases, etc.) are created in each module per month versus how many licenses you have for it. If you have a Customer Service Management (CSM) module for 50 agents but only 5 cases a month are logged, that module is severely underused.
- Add-on feature usage: If you’ve licensed add-ons like Integration Hub, Virtual Agent, or Performance Analytics, look at their specific usage metrics (e.g., number of executed integrations or chatbot sessions). An add-on might be quietly draining subscription costs without anyone actually using it.
Steps to Identify Underused Modules (Checklist):
- Pull the usage logs or reports for each active ServiceNow SKU/module you own (e.g., ITSM, CSM, HRSD, SecOps, etc., plus add-ons).
- Compare the number of licenses/users allocated vs. actual activity volume in that module (transactions, records, or usage stats).
- Flag any module or add-on with < 25% utilization (for example, if only 1 in 4 licensed users is active, or usage counts are a quarter of what you’d expect) for closer review and potential action.
When you find a module with very low usage relative to its cost, it’s a candidate for removal or downgrade in your next contract. Sometimes the issue is that the module wasn’t rolled out properly or users need training, but often it’s simply not needed as much as anticipated. Identifying this gives you leverage to reduce licenses or even eliminate that product from your ServiceNow package if it’s truly not providing value.
Pro Tip: Unused add-ons are renewal killers. Vendors might bundle them in, and they sound exciting, but if your usage logs show near-zero activity, push to cut them out before the next quote. Every add-on or module should earn its keep; if it’s not used, it shouldn’t be renewed.
Read more about Waste Hotspots: ServiceNow Modules with Low ROI.
Correlating Usage to Business Roles
A common reason for underused licenses is misalignment between the license role assigned and what the person actually does day-to-day. ServiceNow has different user roles (fulfillers, approvers, requesters, etc.), each often tied to a different license cost. It’s not uncommon to find users with a fulfiller license who only ever approve tickets or just read information.
To tackle this, map your license allocations to actual job functions:
- Review users with expensive roles and ask, “What is this person’s job? Do they really need that level of access?” For instance, a department manager might have been given a full ITIL fulfiller license, but if they only occasionally check dashboards or approve requests, a cheaper approver role might suffice.
- Look for patterns, such as entire teams that have been over-provisioned. Maybe every member of the HR team got an HRSD agent license, but some of them are coordinators who never directly handle cases.
By correlating usage with roles, you can find cases where a simpler (and cheaper) license would do. It’s about right-sizing the role to the actual need.
Removing licenses outright isn’t always the answer – sometimes it’s downgrading a user from a full platform role to a lighter role. They still have what they need to do their job, and you save money.
Mini-scenario: A financial services firm discovered that many of its users with “ITSM fulfiller” licenses were actually just department heads who monitored work or approved changes, but never actively resolved incidents. These users were holding a pricey license type unnecessarily. By reassigning about 100 of these fulfillers to an “approver” role (which didn’t require a paid license for their use case), the firm freed up those fulfiller licenses. This change contributed to an 18% reduction in their ServiceNow licensing costs in the next year, with no loss of functionality for those users.
Pro Tip: Always align licenses to tasks. If a user primarily reads or approves requests and seldom performs hands-on work, they likely don’t need a premium fulfiller role. Matching the role to the responsibility ensures you’re not overspending on a Ferrari when a bicycle would do the job.
Prioritizing Rightsizing Targets
Once you’ve gathered all this data on underutilization, the next step is deciding where to take action first. Not all savings opportunities are equal – some licenses are far more expensive, so cutting one of those yields more benefit than cutting five cheap ones.
A practical approach is to score or prioritize your findings:
- High priority: Expensive license + very low usage. These are your top targets. For example, a $1,000/yr ITSM fulfiller license for a user who hasn’t logged in in 3 months is a high priority to remove or reallocate.
- Medium priority: Moderate cost license or moderate underuse. Perhaps a mid-tier license that’s only partly used – say a user logs in occasionally but not to the level expected. You should address these, but only after the high-priority items.
- Low priority: Low-cost or free roles that are underutilized. If someone has a free requester role and never logs in, it’s technically underused but doesn’t directly cost you money. These can be noted for cleanup, but are not financially urgent.
To illustrate the approach:
Prioritization Table for Rightsizing Targets
| Priority Level | Criteria | Example | Suggested Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | Expensive license, low/no usage | ITSM Fulfiller not logged in 90 days | Revoke or reassign ASAP before renewal |
| Medium | Moderate cost, partial usage | ITIL user logging in once a month | Investigate need; consider downgrading role |
| Low | Low cost or free, underused | Requester with no activity | Monitor or deactivate account (low impact) |
In practice, start where waste hurts the most: focus on rightsizing your premium modules and high-value user licenses first (like ITSM, CSM, HRSD – the big-ticket modules). If those are optimized, you’ll reap the majority of the savings. Then work your way down to the less expensive items. This way, you’re tackling over-licensing systematically, ensuring the effort you put in delivers maximum ROI in cost reduction.
Integrating Findings into Governance
Finding underused licenses shouldn’t be a one-time project – it should feed into your ongoing IT Asset Management (ITAM) governance and processes. After you do the initial cleanup, set up a cadence and ownership to prevent creep back into over-licensing:
- Regular review meetings: Incorporate a license utilization review in your quarterly ITAM or SAM meetings. Go over the latest usage reports and see if any new underuse patterns are emerging.
- Assign module owners or license owners: For each major ServiceNow product or department, designate someone responsible for monitoring its license usage. If underuse is flagged, they can validate if those licenses are truly unnecessary or if there’s a business reason.
- Document changes and savings: Keep a log of licenses you remove or downgrade and track the cost savings achieved. This not only helps in compliance (audit trail) but strengthens your hand in renewal negotiations (“We reduced 50 licenses, saving $X, and we have the data to show we don’t need them”).
By baking these practices into governance, you create a culture of continuous optimization. ServiceNow licensing will no longer be a set-and-forget expense; it becomes a managed investment that you regularly tune for efficiency.
Pro Tip: Turn one-off insights into recurring savings. Make license optimization a regular part of your operations, not a fire drill before contract renewal.
With governance in place, you catch underused licenses throughout the year, meaning smaller fixes and constant savings – rather than a mad scramble to cut costs right before a true-down.
5 Insightful Next Steps for Buyers
Identifying underused ServiceNow licenses is only valuable if you act on that knowledge. For those looking to rightsize and optimize their ServiceNow investment, here are five actionable next steps to put this into practice:
- Run comprehensive activity reports for all users with paid roles (fulfillers, agents, approvers) to establish a baseline of who is doing what. This will immediately highlight the obvious inactivity.
- Flag any user inactive for 60+ days and review their necessity. If someone hasn’t logged in for two months or more, reach out to confirm if they still need access or consider removing their license.
- Review module and add-on usage metrics, focusing on anything below 25% utilization. For each, decide if you can boost adoption (through training or process changes) or if it makes more sense to reduce the license count for that module.
- Map each license role to actual job duties by collaborating with team leads. Ensure that people have the right level of access to what they do. Where you find mismatches (e.g., view-only users with full licenses), plan role downgrades.
- Prepare a true-down or optimization proposal at least 3–6 months before your ServiceNow renewal. Compile the data of what can be reduced and approach your vendor or reseller early. This proactive stance can lead to better negotiated terms and avoid last-minute surprises.
By following these steps, buyers can translate the insight of “we have underused licenses” into a concrete action plan. The result? A leaner, more cost-effective ServiceNow deployment that continues to support the business without excess bloat. In the world of enterprise software, monitoring utilization is the key to ensuring you only pay for what you truly need. Happy rightsizing!
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