What ServiceNow Customers Can Expect in 2026: A Push for More

ServiceNow’s Q4 fiscal 2025 earnings were strong by any traditional measure:
•  Subscription revenue grew 21% year over year
•  Full-year revenue reached $12.89 billion
•  Remaining performance obligations climbed to $28.2 billion, up 26.5%.

For customers, these numbers tell a nuanced story, one about where ServiceNow is focused, how it expects growth to happen, and where risk is quietly shifting onto customers if it isn’t managed carefully.

Earnings calls are not just financial updates. They are roadmaps. And right now, ServiceNow’s roadmap highlights three things that matter deeply to them. Customers need to be aware of: expanding deal size, accelerating AI consumption, and long-term revenue capture beyond renewal cycles.

Growth Is Strong and Increasingly Dependent on Customers Expanding

One of the clearest signals from the earnings call was how much ServiceNow’s growth has and will continue to depend significantly on existing customers spending more.

ServiceNow reported 603 customers spending $5 million or more annually, a 20% increase year over year, with the average customer in that group spending $14.7 million per year. The company also closed 244 deals in Q4 alone with $1 million or more in net-new Annual Contract Value (NNACV), representing 40% growth in seven-figure expansions.

For customers, this matters because it confirms that expansion is not incidental: it’s foundational to ServiceNow’s business model. Customers are, and always have been, segmented and treated differently based on how much they spend. As that bar rises, so does the scrutiny. Today, moving into the $5 million-per-year tier (a threshold that not long ago sat at $1 million) places customers in a far more strategic category for ServiceNow.

The key is to ensure you are given the right pricing, protections, and flexibility from ServiceNow before letting ServiceNow add you and your significant spend profile to this reported number, a number that the investment community is closely watching.

Bigger Portfolios Also Mean Bigger Downstream Spend Commitments

As customers adopt more workflows and products, and make 3 to 5 year commitments, the remaining performance obligation (RPO) number also goes up.

ServiceNow’s rising RPO number reflects longer-term commitments and bundled portfolios to the investment community. That also benefits ServiceNow by locking in future revenue, something that investors are also paying close attention to these days.

AI Is the Fastest-Growing Opportunity (And the Fastest-Growing Risk)

AI, particularly NOW Assist, was a centerpiece of the earnings call. ServiceNow reported that NOW Assist net new ACV surpassed $600 million, more than doubling year over year. It is projected to be on track to reach $1 billion by FY26.

The number of $1 million-plus NOW Assist deals nearly tripled quarter over quarter, and customers spending at least $1 million on NOW Assist grew 40%. Adoption and consumption are accelerating.

Customers get access to NOW Assist through a hybrid licensing model, that is based on a number of units but also has a consumption-based pricing component. Usage like consumption draws down on the number of “assists” made available in the subscription. Once those assists are consumed, customers owe ServiceNow more money.

This is where risk shifts to the customer.

Customers want AI to deliver efficiency and measurable value, not financial uncertainty. Without clearly defined usage assumptions, upfront buffers, pricing protections, and scalable mechanisms such as volume discounting, successful adoption can quickly turn into unplanned spend. The earnings call made it clear that ServiceNow is not only relying on this dynamic but has explicitly told the investment community to expect it.

Turning Insight into Advantage

ServiceNow has made its priorities clear: more product adoption and AI adoption through Now assist, followed by accelerated consumption. Customers who recognize this and adequately prepare can turn ServiceNow’s needs into leverage, but only if they do it in a well thought out and orchestrated manner.

Navigating ServiceNow growth doesn’t have to be guesswork. UpperEdge’s ServiceNow Advisory Practice helps customers align commercial strategy, contract structure, and long-term value, especially as portfolios expand and AI adoption accelerates. Learn how we help organizations grow on their own terms.