Gartner highlights Firstbase in 2025 MDLS Guide for second year in a row >> Get the guide >>
Skip to main content
Users often recommend ServiceNow on how the platform consolidates ticketing, change management, and automation under one roof.
Hybrid and remote work have led to lost laptops and freight overruns, incurring costly expenses for enterprises. ServiceNow handles tickets, but it doesn’t close the hardware and compliance gaps.
Finance teams face opaque pricing, IT leaders struggle with admin overhead, and CISOs lack the audit trail for device chain-of-custody.
In this ServiceNow review, we’ll explore how the platform stacks up, why lifecycle blind spots persist, and what capabilities are non-negotiable in 2025 to pass audits without scrambling.
ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform that brings together a wide set of enterprise applications under one multi-tenant architecture. At its core, it’s designed to automate workflows and unify how large organizations run IT and business operations. That flexibility is a big part of its appeal: you can keep it simple or scale into a highly customized setup as your needs evolve.
Its biggest draw is that it centralizes IT operations, service requests, and business workflows in one place, which is why it’s become a default choice for many enterprises evaluating ITSM platforms.
On the ITSM side, ServiceNow doesn’t reinvent the wheel (and that’s the point). It delivers the standard modules (incident, problem, and change management) you’d expect, with the flexibility to configure them to match a company’s complexity. That flexibility is both a strength and a selling point.
Beyond ITSM, ServiceNow has built out a broad IT Asset Management (ITAM) suite. It tracks hardware and software through their entire lifecycle and ensures data is accurate and complete.
The platform includes tools for SaaS license tracking, cloud cost management, onboarding automation, and even enterprise asset mapping. With predictive intelligence baked in, the system can spot issues and automate resolutions before they escalate.
ServiceNow’s IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite pushes visibility further. It maps services across on-prem and cloud environments, applies discovery and event management, and leans on its proprietary Now LLM to turn raw cryptic alerts into plain-language summaries. The goal is faster triage, clearer root-cause analysis, and reduced downtime.
What makes ServiceNow stand out is its range. Beyond IT, the same platform supports HR service delivery, security operations, finance and risk management, customer service, and project portfolio management. Because these modules all connect, an HR request that touches IT or a security incident involving customer data stays aligned across departments (without endless back-and-forth).
If you want one platform to connect tickets, data, and automation, ServiceNow does that well. It unifies AI, data, and workflows on a single cloud platform and gives you room to scale by module.
Flexibility is its strength. You can start with ITSM, then add ITOM, HR, CSM, SecOps, and more without switching tools, because everything runs on the same underlying platform services.
The AI layer is useful, not new, though. Now Assist, the generative AI-powered module, automatically generates incident summaries, creates resolution notes, and even drafts knowledge articles. Over time, those articles can serve as a self-service library, cutting down on repetitive troubleshooting.
Ecosystem depth is another plus. The ServiceNow Store provides a certified catalog of apps, integrations, and now, AI agents. The partner program is broad enough to find an implementation or integration specialist in most regions and industries.
That said, there are consistent friction points you should plan for.
Verified reviews repeatedly call out a steep initial configuration curve and heavy customization to match real-world processes. This often translates into needing experienced admins or a partner on retainer.
Some users even complain about their UI and poor documentation. Such complexity means companies often need dedicated administrators.
“The UI is awful, and it's missing features from the current applications we use. The main thing is that implementation has been poor because we used a third party to help set up things, and it's very basic.”
Because pricing is opaque, some organisations only discover additional licence requirements after implementation. One reviewer notes,
“ServiceNow licensing can feel pretty scummy with how disjointed their products are if you plan to customize, basically unknowable license rules (even by their own reps), which benefits SN in the end. They’ve come knocking multiple times asking for fees for licenses they came up with AFTER we implemented with them and for things we’ve had in production for years.”
For fast‑growing companies with lean IT teams, this overhead erodes the return on investment.
ServiceNow doesn’t publish fixed list prices, and costs vary by role, module, and contract, so buyers often negotiate in the dark. Despite its capabilities, ServiceNow’s pricing and complexity frequently frustrate buyers.
Their consultation and setup fees range from $30 to $80 per hour or $30,000-70,000 per year. Go-live costs add $10,000-100,000, and post‑implementation subscription fees start around $90 per user per month, with advanced modules costing $150-200 per user per month.
Small‑to‑medium businesses typically pay $20,000-50,000 in consultation costs, while larger enterprises spend $100,000-500,000.
Integration hub licenses start at $100 per month, and migration projects can cost anywhere from a few thousand to over $100,000. Training courses range from $500 to $2,700 per user, and ServiceNow still charges annual maintenance fees starting from $200 per year.
Customers struggle with ServiceNow’s pricing policies and feel nudged into higher price brackets. And sometimes they see their costs increase when functionality is repackaged into new modules.
Many teams find they need dedicated admins/developers (or a partner) to operate, extend, and govern the platform. Here’s what a user’s Gartner review says,
“Learning curve on using the service now, and you really need a dedicated service now administrator.”
That’s not inherently bad. This is enterprise software, but it also needs an FTE approach you should plan for. Even ServiceNow’s own guidance outlines a “core platform team” for day-to-day management and strategic direction.
Even if your ticketing is tight, the money leaks in the hardware flow: idle stock, lost gear, and unpredictable freight that IT ends up managing off the side of their desk.
On average, teams burn about 500 IT hours a year per 100 remote employees on logistics alone.
Retrieval is the big hole. A lot of assets never come back. Run the math: with 1,000 employees and 15% churn, even an above-average 70% retrieval still leaves 45 missing laptops; at $1,500 per device, that’s $67,500 gone before you factor security risk or replacement time.
Freight isn’t trivial either. Distributed shipping adds up to about $100 per remote worker per year, so a 1,000-person org is staring at $100,000 annually just in shipping, before surcharges or cross-border complications.
Inventory clarity is another story. In the pre-remote era, 30% of IT assets were “ghosts” (documented but not physically accounted for), and the problem gets worse as gear spreads across homes, hubs, and storage units. That’s a compliance and audit headache waiting to happen.
Layer these together (low retrieval, ghost assets, and freight) and you’re paying for devices twice: once to buy them and again when they vanish into idle stock or never return. Without a turnkey logistics engine and truly zero-touch provisioning tied to your stack, the “hidden” costs become your run-rate.
Spend 8X less time on equipment management, just like Brightwheel did with Firstbase. Take a short, self-guided tour now and recover hundreds of admin hours.
If you want predictable costs, audit-ready processes, and fewer late nights chasing laptops, here are five non-negotiables.
You need a system that procures, preps, ships, tracks, retrieves, grades, wipes, and redeploys devices with a verifiable audit trail so HR, IT, and Finance see the same facts. Firstbase’s platform tracks every serial number to a real employee and creates an audit log as equipment moves, covering onboarding through offboarding.
If your OEM ships Macs pre-registered to Apple Business Manager or PCs to Intune, Firstbase still adds the missing central visibility and workflow layer you won’t get from MDM alone.
Industry retrieval rates are around 30-50%, which bleeds assets and creates risk. Firstbase customers report 95%+ retrieval rates and a door-to-inventory turnaround of under 30 days, with 1.6 times better retrieval rates and 1.8 times better asset tracking.
Firstbase’s process automates address confirmation, ships return kits, and tracks each step in real-time to increase compliance and reuse. One customer recovered 1.5 times more laptops and cut “not collected” devices by 700+, directly improving utilization and TCO.
You need evidence for auditors that devices were retrieved, wiped to NIST SP 800-88 standards, or physically destroyed when required. Firstbase provides SOC 2 Type II controls, secure warehouses, and a lifecycle audit trail that maps assets to people and locations.
Firstbase’s global ITAD network delivers NIST-certified wipes and documented destruction with HIPAA-compliant processes to satisfy audits across regions. Missed retrievals are a real liability (note the $35M in fine Morgan Stanley paid for mishandled hardware), so closing the loop isn’t optional.
Your partner should combine SaaS control with worldwide physical operations (customs, storage, shipping, repairs) so employees get equipment on time and stay productive.
Firstbase delivers an integrated SaaS + global operations model that handles shipping, security, and repairs across regions with a 48-hour global SLA in 150+ countries.
When gear breaks, expedited loaners keep people working while Firstbase manages repair or replacement on the backend. Procurement stays vendor-neutral: buy or lease through Firstbase, or send your own hardware so you avoid OEM lock-in and keep agility high.
Distributed teams ship one-to-one, not to a single office (expect $100 per remote worker per year in shipping unless you optimize).
Enterprises burn 500-700+ staff hours/month on retrieval logistics. In practice, one firm automated 75% of lifecycle work with Firstbase; another recouped over $ 175,000 via reuse during a RIF. It integrates with more than 100 apps (including ServiceNow, Workday, and Okta) so asset and user data stay in sync instead of being re-keyed.
That clarity shows up in staffing ratios and budget planning: customers maintain lean IT headcount while scaling globally, and CFOs highlight the shift to predictable, planned device spending.
Global teams save $100K and 5,000+ IT hours with Firstbase. Calculate your ROI today.
While ServiceNow excels at ITSM depth and workflow automation, it stops short at the physical device lifecycle. That’s where Firstbase takes over: procuring, shipping, retrieving, grading, wiping, and redeploying devices with full chain-of-custody records.
Finance teams get predictable cost control, IT escapes admin overhead, and Compliance finally gets airtight audit trails. Together, you get end-to-end coverage across both software and hardware.
Join the companies with 40,000+ workers already supported by Firstbase, built for growing teams of 50 and global teams of 5,000. Book a 30-minute demo and see predictable logistics in action.
