ServiceNow, Inc. (NOW)

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

This section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K discusses our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023 in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). A discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022 that is not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, filed on January 25, 2024.

Our free cash flow and non-GAAP consolidated income from operations measures included in the section entitled “—Key Business Metrics—Free Cash Flow” and “—Key Business Metrics—Non-GAAP Consolidated Income from Operations” are not in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. These measures may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparison purposes. We encourage investors to carefully consider our results under GAAP, as well as our supplemental non-GAAP results, to more fully understand our business.

Overview

ServiceNow was founded on a simple premise: to make work flow better. Our intelligent platform, the Now Platform, is a cloud-based solution that helps enterprises and organizations across public and private sectors digitize workflows, in line with our purpose of making the world work better for everyone. Our workflow applications built on the Now Platform are organized along four primary areas: Technology, Customer and Industry, Employee and Creator. The Now Platform is the AI platform for digital transformation. Transformations enabled by the Now Platform rapidly automate business processes across an entire enterprise by seamlessly connecting disparate departments, systems and silos to unlock productivity and improve experiences for both employees and customers.

We are closely monitoring the ongoing conflicts in Russia/Ukraine and the Middle East. While these events are still evolving and the outcomes remain highly uncertain, we do not believe these conflicts will have a material impact on our business and results of operations. However, if the conflicts continue or worsen, leading to greater global economic disruptions and uncertainty, our business and results of operations could be materially impacted. Our customers in these regions represented an immaterial portion of our net assets and total consolidated revenues both as of and for the years ended December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023.

Additionally, other macroeconomic events, including higher interest rates, global inflation and bank failures, have led to economic uncertainty in the global economy. To mitigate risk, our cash and cash equivalents are distributed across several large financial institutions and are not concentrated in one financial institution. We have not experienced any impact to our liquidity or to our current and projected business operations and financial condition due to recent macroeconomic events. Further, we have policy restrictions on the types of securities that can be purchased as part of our available-for-sale debt securities portfolio. These restrictions take industry and company concentration limits into consideration among other things. Furthermore, the majority of our non-marketable equity investments do not have material relationships with any one financial institution, and therefore, we believe that our exposure to loss as a result of bank failure is immaterial. We will continue to monitor the direct and indirect impact of macroeconomic events on our business and financial results.

See the “Risk Factors” section in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report for further discussion of the possible impact of conflicts and macroeconomic events on our business and financial results.

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Key Business Metrics

Remaining performance obligations. Transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations (“RPO”) represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes deferred revenue and non-cancellable amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. RPO excludes contracts that are billed in arrears, such as certain time and materials contracts, as we apply the “right to invoice” practical expedient under relevant accounting guidance. Current remaining performance obligations (“cRPO”) represents RPO that will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months.

As of December 31, 2024, our RPO was $22.3 billion, of which 46% represented cRPO. RPO and cRPO increased by 23% and 19%, respectively, compared to December 31, 2023. Factors that may cause our RPO to vary from period to period include the following:

•Foreign currency exchange rates. While a majority of our contracts have historically been in U.S. Dollars, an increasing percentage of our contracts in recent periods has been in foreign currencies, particularly the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates as of the balance sheet date will cause variability in our RPO.

•Mix of offerings. In a minority of cases, we allow our customers to host our software by themselves or through a third-party service provider. In self-hosted offerings, we recognize a portion of the revenue upfront upon the delivery of the software and as a result, such revenue is excluded from RPO.

•Subscription start date. From time to time, we enter into contracts with a subscription start date in the future and these amounts are included in RPO if such contracts are signed by the balance sheet date.

•Timing of contract renewals. While customers typically renew their contracts at the end of the contract term, from time to time, customers may do so either before or after the scheduled expiration date. For example, in cases where we are successful in selling additional products or services to an existing customer, a customer may decide to renew its existing contract early to ensure that all its contracts expire on the same date. In other cases, prolonged negotiations or other factors may result in a contract not being renewed until after it has expired.

•Contract duration. While we typically enter into multi-year subscription services, the duration of our contracts varies. Further, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the quarter ended September 30, driven primarily by timing of their annual budget expenditures. We sometimes also enter into contracts with durations that have a 12-month or shorter term to enable the contracts to co-terminate with the existing contract. The contract duration will cause variability in our RPO.

Number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We count the total number of customers with annual contract value (“ACV”) greater than $1 million as of the end of the period. We had 2,109, 1,885, and 1,626 customers with ACV greater than $1 million as of December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. For purposes of customer count, a customer is defined as an entity that has a unique Dunn & Bradstreet Global Ultimate (“GULT”) Data Universal Numbering System (“DUNS”) number and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date. The DUNS number is a global standard for business identification and tracking. We make exceptions for holding companies, government entities and other organizations for which the GULT, in our judgment, does not accurately represent the ServiceNow customer. For example, while all U.S. government agencies roll up to “Government of the United States” under the GULT, we count each government agency that we contract with as a separate customer. Our customer count is subject to adjustments for acquisitions, spin-offs and other market activity; accordingly, we restate previously disclosed number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million calculations to allow for comparability. ACV is calculated based on the foreign exchange rate in effect at the time the contract was signed. Foreign exchange rate fluctuations could cause some variability in the number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We believe information regarding the total number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of our growing customer base and demonstrates the value customers are receiving from the Now Platform.

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Free cash flow. We define free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP net cash provided by operating activities plus cash outflows for legal settlements, repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount and business combination and other related costs including compensation expense, reduced by purchases of property and equipment. Purchases of property and equipment are otherwise included in cash used in investing activities under GAAP. We believe information regarding free cash flow provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of the strength and performance of our business operations. However, our calculation of free cash flow may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. A calculation of free cash flow is provided below:

We have historically seen higher collections in the quarter ended March 31 due to seasonality in timing of entering into customer contracts, which is significantly higher in the quarter ended December 31. Additionally, we have historically seen higher disbursements in the quarters ended March 31 and September 30 due to payouts under our annual commission plans, purchases under our employee stock purchase plan, payouts under our bonus plans and coupon payments related to our 2030 Notes.

Non-GAAP consolidated income from operations. Non-GAAP consolidated income from operations is identified as an additional measure of profit or loss. This non-GAAP measure is used by the chief operating decision maker to allocate resources and assess performance. We define non-GAAP consolidated income from operations as income from operations excluding certain non-cash or non-recurring items, including stock-based compensation expense, amortization of purchased intangibles, legal settlements and business combination and other related costs. We believe these adjustments provide useful supplemental information to investors and facilitate the analysis of our operating results and comparison of those results across reporting periods. The following table shows the reconciliation of our reported consolidated income from operations to non-GAAP consolidated income from operations.

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Renewal rate. We calculate our renewal rate by subtracting our attrition rate from 100%. Our attrition rate for a period is equal to the ACV from customers lost during the period, divided by the sum of (i) the total ACV from all customers that renewed during the period, excluding changes in price or users, and (ii) the total ACV from all customers lost during the period. Accordingly, our renewal rate is calculated based on ACV and is not based on the number of customers that have renewed. Further, our renewal rate does not reflect increased or decreased purchases from our customers to the extent such customers are not lost customers or lapsed renewals. A lost customer is a customer that did not renew an expiring contract and that, in our judgment, will not be renewed. Typically, a customer that reduces its subscription upon renewal is not considered a lost customer. However, in instances where the subscription decrease represents the majority of the customer’s ACV, we may deem the renewal as a lost customer. For our renewal rate calculation, we define a customer as an entity with a separate production instance of our service and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date, instead of an entity with a unique GULT or DUNS number. We adjust our renewal rate for acquisitions, consolidations and other customer events that cause the merging of two or more accounts occurring at the time of renewal. Our renewal rate was 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022. As our renewal rate is impacted by the timing of renewals, which could occur in advance of, or subsequent to the original contract end date, period-to-period comparison of renewal rates may not be meaningful.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations is based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements, as well as the reported revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. These items are monitored and analyzed by us for changes in facts and circumstances, and material changes in these estimates could occur in the future. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Changes in estimates are reflected in reported results for the period in which they become known. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and such differences could be material.

While our significant accounting policies are more fully described in Note 2 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we believe that the following accounting policies are critical to the process of making significant judgments and estimates in the preparation of our audited consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenues predominately from subscription revenues, which are primarily comprised of subscription fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service, related support and updates, if any, to the subscribed service during the subscription term. For our cloud services, we recognize subscription revenues ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, the date we make our services available to our customers. Our contracts with customers typically include a fixed amount of consideration and are generally non-cancellable and without any refund-type provisions.

Subscription revenues also include revenues from self-hosted offerings in which customers deploy, or we grant customers the option to deploy without significant penalty, our subscription service internally or contract with a third party to host the software. For these contracts, we account for the software element separately from the related support and updates as they are distinct performance obligations. The transaction price is allocated to separate performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. The transaction price allocated to the software element is recognized when transfer of control of the software to the customer is complete. The transaction price allocated to the related support and updates are recognized ratably over the contract term.

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We enter into contracts that can include various combinations of products and services, which are generally capable of being distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations. For these contracts, the transaction price is allocated to the separate performance obligations on a relative SSP basis. Evaluating the terms and conditions included within our customer contracts for appropriate revenue recognition and determining whether products and services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately versus together may require significant judgment.

Deferred Commissions

Deferred commissions are the incremental selling costs that are associated with acquiring customer contracts and consist primarily of sales commissions paid to our sales organization and referral fees paid to independent third parties. Commissions and referral fees earned upon the execution of initial and expansion contracts are primarily deferred and amortized over a period of benefit that we have determined to be five years consistent with prior year. Commissions earned upon the renewal of customer contracts are deferred and amortized over the average renewal term. Additionally, for self-hosted offerings, consistent with the recognition of subscription revenues for self-hosted offerings, a portion of the commission cost is expensed upfront when the self-hosted offering is made available. Determining the period of benefit, including average renewal term, requires judgment for which we take into consideration our customer contracts, our technology life cycle and other factors.

Business Combinations

The allocation of the purchase price in a business combination requires management to make significant estimates in determining the fair value of acquired assets and assumed liabilities, especially with respect to intangible assets. The excess of the purchase price in a business combination over the fair value of these tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recorded as goodwill. Critical estimates in valuing certain intangible assets include, but are not limited to, future expected cash flows, discount rates, revenue growth rates, the time and expense to recreate the assets and profit margin a market participant would receive. These estimates are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and, as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. We evaluate these estimates and assumptions as new information is obtained and may record adjustments to the fair value of the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed but not later than one year from the acquisition date.

Income Taxes

Our annual tax rate is based on our income, statutory tax rates and tax planning opportunities available to us in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Tax laws are complex and subject to different interpretations by the taxpayer and respective government taxing authorities. Significant judgment is required in determining our tax expense (benefit) and in evaluating our tax positions, including evaluating uncertainties and the complexity of taxes on foreign earnings. We review our tax positions quarterly and adjust the balances as new information becomes available.

Deferred tax assets represent amounts available to reduce income taxes payable on taxable income in future years. Such assets arise because of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, as well as from net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards. We evaluate the recoverability of these future tax deductions and credits by assessing the adequacy of future expected taxable income from all sources, including future growth, forecasted earnings, future taxable income, the mix of earnings in the jurisdictions in which we operate, historical earnings, taxable income in prior years, if carryback is permitted under the law, carryforward periods and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies. A valuation allowance is established if it is more likely than not that all or a portion of the deferred tax asset will not be realized. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

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We regularly assess the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. In making that assessment, we consider both positive and negative evidence related to the likelihood of realization of the deferred tax assets to determine, based on the weight of available evidence, whether it is more likely than not that some or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. As of June 30, 2023, we achieved cumulative U.S. income during the prior twelve quarters when considering pre-tax income adjusted for permanent differences and other comprehensive losses. Based on all available positive and negative evidence, having demonstrated sustained profitability which is objective and verifiable, and taking into account anticipated future earnings, we concluded it is more likely than not that our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets will be realizable, with the exception of California. We released $1.05 billion of our valuation allowance during the year ended December 31, 2023. As of December 31, 2024 and 2023, we maintained a valuation allowance of $220 million and $196 million, respectively, against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years. We will continue to monitor the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets on a quarterly basis. Refer to Note 16 “Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes,” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on our valuation allowance.

Our tax positions are subject to income tax audits by multiple tax jurisdictions throughout the world. We recognize the tax benefit of an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not the position is sustainable upon examination by the taxing authority based on the technical merits. We measure the tax benefit recognized as the largest amount of benefit which is more likely than not to be realized upon settlement with the taxing authority. We recognize interest accrued and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in our tax provision. Significant judgment is required to evaluate uncertain tax positions. Our evaluations are based upon a number of factors, including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law or guidance, correspondence with tax authorities during the course of audits and effective settlement of audit issues. Changes in the recognition or measurement of uncertain tax positions could result in material increases or decreases in our income tax expense in the period in which we make the change, which could have a material impact on our effective tax rate and operating results.

We calculate the current and deferred income tax provision based on estimates and assumptions that could differ from the actual results reflected in income tax returns filed in subsequent years and record adjustments based on filed income tax returns when identified. The amount of income taxes paid is subject to examination by U.S. federal, state and foreign tax authorities. The estimate of the potential outcome of any uncertain tax issue is subject to management’s assessment of relevant risks, facts and circumstances existing at that time. To the extent the assessment of such tax position changes, we record the change in estimate in the period in which we make the determination.

Change in Accounting Estimate

In January 2024, we completed an assessment of the useful life of our data center equipment and determined we should increase the estimated useful life of data center equipment from four to five years. This change in accounting estimate was effective beginning fiscal year 2024. Refer to Note 2 “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on our change in estimated useful life of our data center equipment during 2024.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenues

Subscription revenues. Subscription revenues are primarily comprised of fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service for both self-hosted offerings and cloud-based subscription offerings, and related standard and enhanced support and updates, if any, to the subscription service during the subscription term. For our cloud-based offerings, we recognize revenue ratably over the subscription term. For self-hosted offerings, a substantial portion of the sales price is recognized upon delivery of the software, which may cause greater variability in our subscription revenues and subscription gross margin. Pricing includes multiple instances, hosting and support services, data backup and disaster recovery services, as well as future updates, when and if available, offered during the subscription term. We typically invoice our customers for subscription fees in annual increments upon execution of the initial contract or subsequent renewal. Our contracts are generally non-cancellable during the subscription term, though a customer can terminate for breach if we materially fail to perform.

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Professional services and other revenues. Our arrangements for professional services are primarily on a time-and-materials basis, and we generally invoice our customers monthly in arrears for the professional services based on actual hours and expenses incurred. Some of our professional services arrangements are on a fixed-fee basis. Professional services revenues are recognized as services are delivered. Other revenues primarily consist of fees from customer training delivered on-site or through publicly available classes. Typical payment terms require our customers to pay us within 30 days of invoice.

We sell our subscription services primarily through our direct sales organization. We also sell services through managed service providers and resale partners. We also generate revenues from certain professional services and from training of customers and partner personnel, through both our direct team and indirect sales channel. Revenues from our direct sales organization represented 78% of our total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024 and 79% of our total revenues for each of the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022. For purposes of calculating revenues from our direct sales organization, revenues from systems integrators and managed services providers are included as part of the direct sales organization.

Seasonality. We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into customer agreements. We sign a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as expansion with existing customers, in the fourth quarter of each year. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is primarily a result of both large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry, which are driven primarily by the expiration of annual authorized budgeted expenditures, and the terms of our commission plans, which incentivize our direct sales organization to meet their annual quotas by December 31. Furthermore, we usually sign a significant portion of these agreements during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. This seasonality of entering into customer agreements is sometimes not immediately apparent in our revenues, due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenues from our cloud offering contracts over the term of the subscription agreement, which is generally 12 to 36 months. In addition, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the third quarter, driven primarily by the timing of their annual budget expenditures. This larger mix of contracts with 12-month renewal terms in the third quarter will generally cause variability in our RPO and cRPO in subsequent quarters until they are renewed. Although these seasonal factors may be common in the technology industry, historical patterns should not be considered a reliable indicator of our future sales activity or performance.

Cost of Revenues

Cost of subscription revenues. Cost of subscription revenues consists primarily of expenses related to hosting our services and providing support to our customers. These expenses are comprised of data center capacity costs, which include colocation costs associated with our data centers as well as interconnectivity between data centers, depreciation related to our infrastructure hardware equipment dedicated for customer use, amortization of intangible assets, expenses associated with software, public cloud service costs, IT services and dedicated customer support, personnel-related costs directly associated with data center operations and customer support, including salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation and allocated overhead.

Cost of professional services and other revenues. Cost of professional services and other revenues consists primarily of personnel-related costs directly associated with our professional services and training departments, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, the costs of contracted third-party partners, travel expenses and allocated overhead.

Professional services are performed directly by our services team, as well as by contracted third-party partners. Fees paid by us to third-party partners are primarily recognized as cost of revenues as the professional services are delivered. Cost of revenues associated with our professional services engagements contracted with third-party partners as a percentage of professional services and other revenues was 24%, 10% and 12% for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

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Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our sales and marketing staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing expenses also include the amortization of commissions paid to our sales employees, including related payroll taxes and fringe benefits. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include branding expenses, marketing program expenses, which include events such as Knowledge, and costs associated with purchasing advertising and marketing data, software and subscription services dedicated for sales and marketing use and allocated overhead.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our research and development staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation and allocated overhead. Research and development expenses also include data center capacity costs, costs associated with outside services contracted for research and development purposes and depreciation of infrastructure hardware equipment that is used solely for research and development purposes.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for our executive, finance, legal, human resources, facilities and administrative personnel, including salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock-based compensation, external legal, accounting and other professional services fees, other corporate expenses, amortization of intangible assets and allocated overhead.

Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes

Provision for (benefit from) income taxes consists of federal, state and foreign income taxes. Our income tax provision for the year ended December 31, 2024 is primarily attributable to the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, offset by excess tax benefits of stock-based compensation. We continue to maintain a valuation allowance against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years.

Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023

Revenues

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Subscription revenues increased by $2.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by increased purchases by new and existing customers. Included in subscription revenues is $409 million and $322 million of revenues recognized upfront from the delivery of software associated with self-hosted offerings during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

We expect subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2025 to increase in absolute dollars and remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue as we continue to add new customers and existing customers increase their usage of our products compared to the year ended December 31, 2024.

Our expectations for revenues, cost of revenues and operating expenses for the year ending December 31, 2025 are based on the 31-day average of foreign exchange rates for December 31, 2024.

Subscription revenues consist of the following:

Our digital workflow products include most of our product offerings and are generally priced on a per user basis. Our remaining product offerings, primarily comprised of our IT Operations Management (“ITOM”) products, are predominantly priced on a subscription unit basis.

Professional services and other revenues increased by $47 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in services and trainings provided to new and existing customers.

We expect professional services and other revenues for the year ending December 31, 2025 to remain relatively flat both in absolute dollars and as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024.

Cost of Revenues and Gross Profit Percentage

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Cost of subscription revenues increased by $336 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount and increased costs to support the growth of our subscription offerings including costs to support customers in regulated markets. Personnel-related costs, including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses, increased by $230 million as compared to prior year. Expenses associated with software, maintenance, and other costs to support the expansion of our data center capacity increased by $85 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, as compared to prior year.

We expect our cost of subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2025 to increase in absolute dollars as we provide subscription services to more customers and increase usage within our customer instances and increase slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. We will continue to incur incremental costs to attract customers in regulated markets by adopting public cloud offerings as well as increased support for customers impacted by new and evolving data residency requirements. To the extent future acquisitions are consummated, our cost of subscription revenues may increase due to additional non-cash charges associated with the amortization of intangible assets acquired.

Our subscription gross profit percentage was 82% for each of the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023. We expect our subscription gross profit percentage to decrease slightly for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the year ended December 31, 2024.

Cost of professional services and other revenues increased by $30 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 as compared to the prior year, primarily due to an increase in partner ecosystem investments to further accelerate customer value realization, partially offset by a decrease in fixed personnel-related costs, including stock-based compensation, due to decreased internal headcount.

Our professional services and other gross loss percentage improved to 2% for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to 8% in the prior year, primarily due to an increase in revenue and a decrease in fixed personnel-related costs, including stock-based compensation, as we execute our strategy to shift a portion of professional services to variable spending with strategic third-party partners. We expect our professional services and other gross loss percentage to increase for the year ending December 31, 2025 compared to the year ended December 31, 2024.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $553 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $330 million, compared to the prior year. Amortization expenses associated with deferred commissions increased by $90 million, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in contracts with new customers, expansion and renewal contracts. Other sales and marketing program expenses, which include branding, costs associated with purchasing advertising, marketing events and market data, increased by $95 million compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased program costs and travel for our annual Sales Kickoff and Knowledge user conference.

We expect sales and marketing expenses for the year ending December 31, 2025 to increase in absolute dollars and to decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, as we continue to see leverage from increased sales productivity and marketing efficiencies.

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Research and Development

Research and development expenses (“R&D”) increased by $419 million during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $350 million compared to prior year. Outside services increased by $48 million during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year. The remaining increase was primarily due to expenses associated with software, maintenance and other costs to support the expansion of our data center capacity of $27 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year. These costs were partially offset by a decrease in program spend of $12 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year.

We expect R&D expenses for the year ending December 31, 2025 to increase in absolute dollars but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, as we continue to improve the existing functionality of our services, develop new applications to fill market needs and enhance our core platform.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses (“G&A”) increased by $73 million during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs, excluding stock-based compensation, of $37 million. The remaining increase was primarily due to an increase in other corporate expenses and outside services of $67 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year. These costs were partially offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation of $36 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to the requisite service period of certain performance awards being met.

We expect G&A expenses for the year ending December 31, 2025 to increase in absolute dollars but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, as we continue to see leverage from continued G&A productivity.

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Stock-based Compensation

Stock-based compensation increased by $142 million during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to additional grants to current and new employees.

Stock-based compensation is inherently difficult to forecast due to fluctuations in our stock price. Based upon our stock price as of December 31, 2024, we expect stock-based compensation to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the year ending December 31, 2025 as we continue to issue stock-based awards to our employees but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. We expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue to decline over time as we continue to grow.

Foreign Currency Exchange

Our international operations have provided and will continue to provide a significant portion of our total revenues. Revenues outside North America represented 37% and 36% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

We primarily transact in certain foreign currencies for sales outside of the United States. The movement of the U.S. Dollar had an immaterial impact on our revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024.

In addition, we primarily transact in several foreign currencies for cost of revenues and operating expenses outside of the United States. The movement of the U.S. Dollar had an immaterial impact on our expenses for the year ended December 31, 2024.

Interest Income

Interest income increased during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by an increase in investment income from our managed portfolio resulting from higher portfolio balances with higher interest rates.

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Other Expense, net

Other expense, net decreased by $11 million during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to a decrease in net losses on equity investments.

To mitigate our risks associated with fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, we enter into foreign currency forward contracts with maturities of 12 months or less to hedge a portion of our net outstanding monetary assets and liabilities. These hedging contracts may reduce, but cannot entirely eliminate, the impact of adverse currency exchange rate movements. The gains (losses) recognized for these foreign currency forward contracts in other expense, net, were immaterial for each of the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023.

Provision for (benefit from) Income Taxes

NM - Not meaningful

The income tax provision was $313 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. The income tax provision was primarily attributable to the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, offset by excess tax benefits of stock-based compensation.

The income tax benefit was $723 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. The income tax benefit was primarily attributable to the release of the valuation allowance of certain U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets. We regularly assess the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. In making that assessment, we consider both positive and negative evidence related to the likelihood of realization of the deferred tax assets to determine, based on the weight of available evidence, whether it is more likely than not that some or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. As of June 30, 2023, we achieved cumulative U.S. income during the prior twelve quarters when considering pre-tax income adjusted for permanent differences and other comprehensive losses. Based on all available positive and negative evidence, having demonstrated sustained profitability which is objective and verifiable, and taking into account anticipated future earnings, we concluded it is more likely than not that our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets will be realizable, with the exception of California. We released $1.05 billion of our valuation allowance during the year ended December 31, 2023. As of December 31, 2024, we continue to maintain a valuation allowance against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years. We will continue to monitor the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets on a quarterly basis.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

We generate cash inflows from operations primarily from selling subscription services which are generally paid in advance of provisioning services, and expend cash outflows to develop new services and core technologies that further enhance the Now Platform, engage our customers and enhance their experience, and enable and transform our business operations. Subscription services arrangements typically have a three-year duration, and we have experienced a renewal rate of 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022. Cash outflows from operations are principally comprised of the salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits for our workforce, licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations and data centers and operating lease arrangements that underlie our facilities. We have generated positive operating cash flows for more than ten years as we continue to grow our business in pursuit of our business strategy, and we expect to grow our business and generate positive cash flows from operations during 2025. When assessing sources of liquidity, we also include cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and long-term investments totaling $9.9 billion as of December 31, 2024.

Our capital requirements are principally comprised of capital expenditures to support data center capacity expansion, non-contract workforce salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits and, to a lesser extent, cancellable and non-cancellable licenses, operating leases and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations. We also acquire technology and businesses to expand our service offerings and functionality. Our capital expenditures are under cancellable and non-cancellable arrangements. Non-cancellable purchase commitments for business operations total $4.1 billion as of December 31, 2024, due primarily over the next five years. Operating lease obligations totaling $924 million are principally associated with leased facilities and have varying maturities with $558 million due over the next five years.

We may repurchase our shares of common stock in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions or by other means, with the objective to return value to our stockholders and manage the dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs. In May 2023, our board of directors authorized a program to repurchase up to $1.5 billion of our common stock. During the year ended December 31, 2024, the Company repurchased 0.8 million shares of our common stock for $696 million. All repurchases were made in open market transactions. Repurchases of common stock are recognized as treasury stock and held for future issuance. As of December 31, 2024, approximately $266 million of the originally authorized amount under the share repurchase program remained available for future repurchases. In January 2025, our board of directors authorized an additional $3.0 billion in repurchases under the share repurchase program. Refer to Note 13 “Stockholders’ Equity” to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information.

We have also issued long-term debt to finance our business. In August 2020, we issued 1.40% fixed rate ten-year notes with an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion due on September 1, 2030 (the “2030 Notes”).

Our free cash flows, together with our other sources of liquidity, are available to service our liabilities as well as our cancellable and non-cancellable arrangements. We anticipate cash flows generated from operations, cash, cash equivalents and investments will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs for at least the next 12 months. As we look beyond the next 12 months, we seek to continue to grow free cash flows necessary to fund our operations and grow our business. If we require additional capital resources, we may seek to finance our operations from the current funds available or additional equity or debt financing.

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Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities was $4.3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2024 compared to $3.4 billion for the prior year. The net increase in operating cash flows was primarily due to higher collections driven by revenue growth.

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2024 was $2.5 billion compared to $2.2 billion for the prior year. The net increase in cash used in investing activities was primarily due to a $167 million increase in net purchases of investments, a $158 million increase in purchases of property and equipment, a $106 million increase in purchases of non-marketable investments and a $37 million increase in purchases of other intangible assets, partially offset by a $166 million decrease in cash used in business combinations.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2024 was $1,343 million compared to $803 million for the prior year. The net increase in cash used in financing activities is primarily due to a $241 million increase in taxes paid related to net share settlement of equity awards, a $184 million increase in business combination related to the second installment payment in the acquisition of G2K Group GmbH and a $158 million increase in repurchases of common stock, offset by a $43 million increase in proceeds from employee stock plans.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

Our estimated future obligations consist of leases, various non-cancellable agreements with cloud service providers and an information technology equipment provider, purchase obligations, debt and unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2024. Refer to Note 17 “Commitments and Contingencies,” and Note 16 “Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes” to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

This section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K discusses our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022 in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). A discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021 that is not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, filed on January 31, 2023.

Our free cash flow measure included in the section entitled “—Key Business Metrics—Free Cash Flow,” is not in accordance with GAAP. This non-GAAP financial measure is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. This measure may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting its usefulness for comparison purposes. We encourage investors to carefully consider our results under GAAP, as well as our supplemental non-GAAP results, to more fully understand our business.

Overview

ServiceNow was founded on a simple premise: to make work flow better. Our purpose is to make the world work better for everyone. Our intelligent platform, the Now Platform, is a cloud-based solution with embedded artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities that helps global enterprises across industries, universities and governments unify and digitize their workflows. The Now Platform automates workflows across an entire enterprise by connecting disparate departments, systems and silos in a seamless way to unlock productivity and improve experiences for both employees and customers. Our workflow applications built on the Now Platform are organized along four primary areas: Technology, Customer and Industry, Employee and Creator. The transformation to digital operations, enabled by the Now Platform, increases our customers’ resiliency and security and delivers great experiences and additional value to their C-suite, employees and consumers.

We are closely monitoring the unfolding events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the current armed conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip. While these events are still evolving and the outcome remains highly uncertain, we do not believe the conflicts will have a material impact on our business and results of operations. However, if the conflicts continue or worsen, leading to greater global economic disruptions and uncertainty, our business and results of operations could be materially impacted. Our customers in these regions represented an immaterial portion of our net assets and total consolidated revenues both as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022.

Additionally, other macroeconomic events, including rising interest rates, global inflation and bank failures, have led to economic uncertainty in the global economy. To mitigate risk, our cash and cash equivalents are distributed across several large financial institutions and are not concentrated in one financial institution. We have not experienced any impact to our liquidity or to our current and projected business operations and financial condition due to recent bank failures. Further, we have policy restrictions on the types of securities that can be purchased as part of our available-for-sale debt securities portfolio. These restrictions take industry and company concentration limits into consideration among other things. Furthermore, the majority of our non-marketable equity investments do not have material relationships with any one financial institution, and therefore, we believe that our exposure to loss is immaterial. We will continue to monitor the direct and indirect impact of macroeconomic events on our business and financial results.

See the “Risk Factors” section in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report for further discussion of the possible impact of the above conflicts and macroeconomic events on our business and financial results.

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Key Business Metrics

Remaining performance obligations. Transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations (“RPO”) represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes deferred revenue and non-cancellable amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. RPO excludes contracts that are billed in arrears, such as certain time and materials contracts, as we apply the “right to invoice” practical expedient under relevant accounting guidance. Current remaining performance obligations (“cRPO”) represents RPO that will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months.

As of December 31, 2023, our RPO was $18.0 billion, of which 48% represented cRPO. RPO and cRPO increased by 29% and 24%, respectively, compared to December 31, 2022. Factors that may cause our RPO to vary from period to period include the following:

•Foreign currency exchange rates. While a majority of our contracts have historically been in U.S. Dollars, an increasing percentage of our contracts in recent periods has been in foreign currencies, particularly the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates as of the balance sheet date will cause variability in our RPO.

•Mix of offerings. In a minority of cases, we allow our customers to host our software by themselves or through a third-party service provider. In self-hosted offerings, we recognize a portion of the revenue upfront upon the delivery of the software and as a result, such revenue is excluded from RPO.

•Subscription start date. From time to time, we enter into contracts with a subscription start date in the future and these amounts are included in RPO if such contracts are signed by the balance sheet date.

•Timing of contract renewals. While customers typically renew their contracts at the end of the contract term, from time to time, customers may do so either before or after the scheduled expiration date. For example, in cases where we are successful in selling additional products or services to an existing customer, a customer may decide to renew its existing contract early to ensure that all its contracts expire on the same date. In other cases, prolonged negotiations or other factors may result in a contract not being renewed until after it has expired.

•Contract duration. While we typically enter into multi-year subscription services, the duration of our contracts varies. Further, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the quarter ended September 30, driven primarily by timing of their annual budget expenditures. We sometimes also enter into contracts with durations that have a 12-month or shorter term to enable the contracts to co-terminate with the existing contract. The contract duration will cause variability in our RPO.

Number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We count the total number of customers with annual contract value (“ACV”) greater than $1 million as of the end of the period. We had 1,897, 1,643, and 1,350 customers with ACV greater than $1 million as of December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. For purposes of customer count, a customer is defined as an entity that has a unique Dunn & Bradstreet Global Ultimate (“GULT”) Data Universal Numbering System (“DUNS”) number and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date. The DUNS number is a global standard for business identification and tracking. We make exceptions for holding companies, government entities and other organizations for which the GULT, in our judgment, does not accurately represent the ServiceNow customer. For example, while all U.S. government agencies roll up to “Government of the United States” under the GULT, we count each government agency that we contract with as a separate customer. Our customer count is subject to adjustments for acquisitions, spin-offs and other market activity; accordingly, we restate previously disclosed number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million calculations to allow for comparability. ACV is calculated based on the foreign exchange rate in effect at the time the contract was signed. Foreign exchange rate fluctuations could cause some variability in the number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We believe information regarding the total number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of our growing customer base and demonstrates the value customers are receiving from the Now Platform.

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Free cash flow. We define free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP net cash provided by operating activities plus cash outflows for legal settlements, repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount and business combination and other related costs including compensation expense, reduced by purchases of property and equipment. Purchases of property and equipment are otherwise included in cash used in investing activities under GAAP. We believe information regarding free cash flow provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of the strength and performance of our business operations. However, our calculation of free cash flow may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. A calculation of free cash flow is provided below:

We have historically seen higher collections in the quarter ended March 31 due to seasonality in timing of entering into customer contracts, which is significantly higher in the quarter ended December 31. Additionally, we have historically seen higher disbursements in the quarters ended March 31 and September 30 due to payouts under our annual commission plans, purchases under our employee stock purchase plan, payouts under our bonus plans and coupon payments related to our 2030 Notes beginning in 2021.

Renewal rate. We calculate our renewal rate by subtracting our attrition rate from 100%. Our attrition rate for a period is equal to the ACV from customers lost during the period, divided by the sum of (i) the total ACV from all customers that renewed during the period, excluding changes in price or users, and (ii) the total ACV from all customers lost during the period. Accordingly, our renewal rate is calculated based on ACV and is not based on the number of customers that have renewed. Further, our renewal rate does not reflect increased or decreased purchases from our customers to the extent such customers are not lost customers or lapsed renewals. A lost customer is a customer that did not renew an expiring contract and that, in our judgment, will not be renewed. Typically, a customer that reduces its subscription upon renewal is not considered a lost customer. However, in instances where the subscription decrease represents the majority of the customer’s ACV, we may deem the renewal as a lost customer. For our renewal rate calculation, we define a customer as an entity with a separate production instance of our service and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date, instead of an entity with a unique GULT or DUNS number. We adjust our renewal rate for acquisitions, consolidations and other customer events that cause the merging of two or more accounts occurring at the time of renewal. Our renewal rate was 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021. As our renewal rate is impacted by the timing of renewals, which could occur in advance of, or subsequent to the original contract end date, period-to-period comparison of renewal rates may not be meaningful.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations is based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements, as well as the reported revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. These items are monitored and analyzed by us for changes in facts and circumstances, and material changes in these estimates could occur in the future. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Changes in estimates are reflected in reported results for the period in which they become known. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and such differences could be material.

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While our significant accounting policies are more fully described in Note 2 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we believe that the following accounting policies are critical to the process of making significant judgments and estimates in the preparation of our audited consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenues predominately from subscription revenues, which are primarily comprised of subscription fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service, related support and updates, if any, to the subscribed service during the subscription term. For our cloud services, we recognize subscription revenues ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, the date we make our services available to our customers. Our contracts with customers typically include a fixed amount of consideration and are generally non-cancellable and without any refund-type provisions.

Subscription revenues also include revenues from self-hosted offerings in which customers deploy, or we grant customers the option to deploy without significant penalty, our subscription service internally or contract with a third party to host the software. For these contracts, we account for the software element separately from the related support and updates as they are distinct performance obligations. The transaction price is allocated to separate performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. The transaction price allocated to the software element is recognized when transfer of control of the software to the customer is complete. The transaction price allocated to the related support and updates are recognized ratably over the contract term.

We enter into contracts that can include various combinations of products and services, which are generally capable of being distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations. For these contracts, the transaction price is allocated to the separate performance obligations on a relative SSP basis. Evaluating the terms and conditions included within our customer contracts for appropriate revenue recognition and determining whether products and services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately versus together may require significant judgment.

Deferred Commissions

Deferred commissions are the incremental selling costs that are associated with acquiring customer contracts and consist primarily of sales commissions paid to our sales organization and referral fees paid to independent third parties. Commissions and referral fees earned upon the execution of initial and expansion contracts are primarily deferred and amortized over a period of benefit that we have determined to be five years consistent with prior year. Commissions earned upon the renewal of customer contracts are deferred and amortized over the average renewal term. Additionally, for self-hosted offerings, consistent with the recognition of subscription revenues for self-hosted offerings, a portion of the commission cost is expensed upfront when the self-hosted offering is made available. Determining the period of benefit, including average renewal term, requires judgment for which we take into consideration our customer contracts, our technology life cycle and other factors.

Business Combinations

The allocation of the purchase price in a business combination requires management to make significant estimates in determining the fair value of acquired assets and assumed liabilities, especially with respect to intangible assets. The excess of the purchase price in a business combination over the fair value of these tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recorded as goodwill. Critical estimates in valuing certain intangible assets include, but are not limited to, future expected cash flows, discount rates, revenue growth rates, the time and expense to recreate the assets and profit margin a market participant would receive. These estimates are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and, as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. We evaluate these estimates and assumptions as new information is obtained and may record adjustments to the fair value of the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed but not later than one year from the acquisition date.

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Income Taxes

Our annual tax rate is based on our income, statutory tax rates and tax planning opportunities available to us in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Tax laws are complex and subject to different interpretations by the taxpayer and respective government taxing authorities. Significant judgment is required in determining our tax expense (benefit) and in evaluating our tax positions, including evaluating uncertainties and the complexity of taxes on foreign earnings. We review our tax positions quarterly and adjust the balances as new information becomes available.

Deferred tax assets represent amounts available to reduce income taxes payable on taxable income in future years. Such assets arise because of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, as well as from net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards. We evaluate the recoverability of these future tax deductions and credits by assessing the adequacy of future expected taxable income from all sources, including future growth, forecasted earnings, future taxable income, the mix of earnings in the jurisdictions in which we operate, historical earnings, taxable income in prior years, if carryback is permitted under the law, carryforward periods and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies. A valuation allowance is established if it is more likely than not that all or a portion of the deferred tax asset will not be realized. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

We regularly assess the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. In making that assessment, we consider both positive and negative evidence related to the likelihood of realization of the deferred tax assets to determine, based on the weight of available evidence, whether it is more likely than not that some or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. As of June 30, 2023, we achieved cumulative U.S. income during the prior twelve quarters when considering pre-tax income adjusted for permanent differences and other comprehensive losses. Based on all available positive and negative evidence, having demonstrated sustained profitability which is objective and verifiable, and taking into account anticipated future earnings, we concluded it is more likely than not that our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets will be realizable, with the exception of California. We continue to maintain a valuation allowance against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years. Of the $1.2 billion valuation allowance as of December 31, 2022, we released $1.05 billion of our valuation allowance during the year ended December 31, 2023. We maintained a valuation allowance of $196 million against our California deferred tax assets. We will continue to monitor the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets on a quarterly basis. See Note 16 – Income Taxes, in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on discussion on valuation allowance.

Our tax positions are subject to income tax audits by multiple tax jurisdictions throughout the world. We recognize the tax benefit of an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not the position is sustainable upon examination by the taxing authority based on the technical merits. We measure the tax benefit recognized as the largest amount of benefit which is more likely than not to be realized upon settlement with the taxing authority. We recognize interest accrued and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in our tax provision. Significant judgment is required to evaluate uncertain tax positions. Our evaluations are based upon a number of factors, including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law or guidance, correspondence with tax authorities during the course of audits and effective settlement of audit issues. Changes in the recognition or measurement of uncertain tax positions could result in material increases or decreases in our income tax expense in the period in which we make the change, which could have a material impact on our effective tax rate and operating results.

We calculate the current and deferred income tax provision based on estimates and assumptions that could differ from the actual results reflected in income tax returns filed in subsequent years and record adjustments based on filed income tax returns when identified. The amount of income taxes paid is subject to examination by U.S. federal, state and foreign tax authorities. The estimate of the potential outcome of any uncertain tax issue is subject to management’s assessment of relevant risks, facts and circumstances existing at that time. To the extent the assessment of such tax position changes, we record the change in estimate in the period in which we make the determination.

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Change in Accounting Estimate

In January 2024, we completed an assessment of the useful life of our data center equipment and determined we should increase the estimated useful life of data center equipment from four to five years. This change in accounting estimate will be effective beginning fiscal year 2024. Based on the carrying amount of data center equipment included in property and equipment, net that are in-service as of December 31, 2023, it is estimated this change will increase our fiscal year 2024 operating income by approximately $100 million.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenues

Subscription revenues. Subscription revenues are primarily comprised of fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service for both self-hosted offerings and cloud-based subscription offerings, and related standard and enhanced support and updates, if any, to the subscription service during the subscription term. For our cloud-based offerings, we recognize revenue ratably over the subscription term. For self-hosted offerings, a substantial portion of the sales price is recognized upon delivery of the software, which may cause greater variability in our subscription revenues and subscription gross margin. Pricing includes multiple instances, hosting and support services, data backup and disaster recovery services, as well as future updates, when and if available, offered during the subscription term. We typically invoice our customers for subscription fees in annual increments upon execution of the initial contract or subsequent renewal. Our contracts are generally non-cancellable during the subscription term, though a customer can terminate for breach if we materially fail to perform.

Professional services and other revenues. Our arrangements for professional services are primarily on a time-and-materials basis, and we generally invoice our customers monthly in arrears for the professional services based on actual hours and expenses incurred. Some of our professional services arrangements are on a fixed fee. Professional services revenues are recognized as services are delivered. Other revenues primarily consist of fees from customer training delivered on-site or through publicly available classes. Typical payment terms require our customers to pay us within 30 days of invoice.

We sell our subscription services primarily through our direct sales organization. We also sell services through managed service providers and resale partners. We also generate revenues from certain professional services and from training of customers and partner personnel, through both our direct team and indirect channel sales. Revenues from our direct sales organization represented 79% of our total revenues for each of the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021. For purposes of calculating revenues from our direct sales organization, revenues from systems integrators and managed services providers are included as part of the direct sales organization.

Seasonality. We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into customer agreements. We sign a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as expansion with existing customers, in the fourth quarter of each year. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is primarily a result of both large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry, which are driven primarily by the expiration of annual authorized budgeted expenditures, and the terms of our commission plans, which incentivize our direct sales organization to meet their annual quotas by December 31. Furthermore, we usually sign a significant portion of these agreements during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. This seasonality of entering into customer agreements is sometimes not immediately apparent in our revenues, due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenues from our cloud offering contracts over the term of the subscription agreement, which is generally 12 to 36 months. In addition, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the third quarter, driven primarily by the timing of their annual budget expenditures. This larger mix of contracts with 12-month renewal terms in the third quarter will generally cause variability in our RPO and cRPO in subsequent quarters until they are renewed. Although these seasonal factors may be common in the technology industry, historical patterns should not be considered a reliable indicator of our future sales activity or performance.

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Cost of Revenues

Cost of subscription revenues. Cost of subscription revenues consists primarily of expenses related to hosting our services and providing support to our customers. These expenses are comprised of data center capacity costs, which include colocation costs associated with our data centers as well as interconnectivity between data centers, depreciation related to our infrastructure hardware equipment dedicated for customer use, amortization of intangible assets, expenses associated with software, public cloud service costs, IT services and dedicated customer support, personnel-related costs directly associated with data center operations and customer support, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead.

Cost of professional services and other revenues. Cost of professional services and other revenues consists primarily of personnel-related costs directly associated with our professional services and training departments, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, the costs of contracted third-party partners, travel expenses and allocated overhead.

Professional services are performed directly by our services team, as well as by contracted third-party partners. Fees paid by us to third-party partners are primarily recognized as cost of revenues as the professional services are delivered. Cost of revenues associated with our professional services engagements contracted with third-party partners as a percentage of professional services and other revenues was 10%, 12% and 14% for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our sales and marketing staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing expenses also include the amortization of commissions paid to our sales employees, including related payroll taxes and fringe benefits. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include branding expenses, marketing program expenses, which include events such as Knowledge, and costs associated with purchasing advertising and marketing data, software and subscription services dedicated for sales and marketing use and allocated overhead.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our research and development staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead. Research and development expenses also include data center capacity costs, costs associated with outside services contracted for research and development purposes and depreciation of infrastructure hardware equipment that is used solely for research and development purposes.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for our executive, finance, legal, human resources, facilities and administrative personnel, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, external legal, accounting and other professional services fees, other corporate expenses, amortization of intangible assets and allocated overhead.

(Benefit from) Provision for Income Taxes

(Benefit from) provision for income taxes consists of federal, state and foreign income taxes. Our income tax benefit for the year ended December 31, 2023 is primarily attributable to the release of the valuation allowance against certain U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets, excluding California. We continue to maintain a valuation allowance against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years.

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Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022

Revenues

Subscription revenues increased by $1.8 billion for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by increased purchases by new and existing customers. Included in subscription revenues is $322 million and $253 million of revenues recognized upfront from the delivery of software associated with self-hosted offerings during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

We expect subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars and remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue as we continue to add new customers and existing customers increase their usage of our products compared to the year ended December 31, 2023.

Our expectations for revenues, cost of revenues and operating expenses for the year ending December 31, 2024 are based on the 31-day average of foreign exchange rates for December 31, 2023.

Subscription revenues consist of the following:

Our digital workflow products include most of our product offerings and are generally priced on a per user basis. Our remaining product offerings, primarily comprised of our IT Operations Management (“ITOM”) products are predominantly priced on a subscription unit basis.

Professional services and other revenues decreased by $63 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, due to a decrease in services and trainings provided to new and existing customers as we focused on deploying our internal professional services organization as a strategic resource and worked with our partner ecosystem to contract directly with customers for implementation services delivery.

We expect professional services and other revenues for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars and to remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023 as we continue to execute our professional services strategy.

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Cost of Revenues and Gross Profit Percentage

Cost of subscription revenues increased by $419 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount and increased costs to support the growth of our subscription offerings including costs to support customers in regulated markets. Personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses increased by $229 million as compared to prior year. Depreciation expense related to infrastructure hardware equipment dedicated for customer use increased by $97 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to prior year and maintenance costs to support the expansion of our data center capacity, including public cloud service costs, increased by $77 million, as compared to prior year.

We expect our cost of subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars as we provide subscription services to more customers and increase usage within our customer instances but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023. We will continue to incur incremental costs to attract customers in regulated markets by adopting public cloud offerings as well as increased support for customers impacted by new and evolving data residency requirements. To the extent future acquisitions are consummated, our cost of subscription revenues may increase due to additional non-cash charges associated with the amortization of intangible assets acquired. Our subscription gross profit percentage was 82% and 83% for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. We expect our subscription gross profit percentage to remain relatively flat for the year ending December 31, 2024 compared to the year ended December 31, 2023.

Cost of professional services and other revenues decreased by $71 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to a decrease in contracted third-party partners spend and decreased headcount resulting in a decrease in personnel-related costs, including stock-based compensation.

Our professional services and other gross loss percentage improved to 8% for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to 9% in the prior year, primarily due to decreased headcount resulting in a decrease in personnel-related costs and a decrease in contracted third-party partners spend. We expect our professional services and other gross loss percentage to improve for the year ending December 31, 2024 compared to the year ended December 31, 2023.

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Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $487 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $334 million, compared to the prior year. Amortization expenses associated with deferred commissions increased by $99 million, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in contracts with new customers, expansion and renewal contracts. Other sales and marketing program expenses, which include branding, costs associated with purchasing advertising, marketing events and market data, increased by $44 million compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased program costs and travel for our annual Sales Kickoff.

We expect sales and marketing expenses for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars and to decrease as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023, as we continue to see leverage from increased sales productivity and marketing efficiencies in 2024.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses (“R&D”) increased by $356 million during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $312 million compared to prior year. The remaining increase was primarily due to an increase in data center capacity costs and depreciation of infrastructure hardware equipment that is used solely for R&D purposes of $27 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year.

We expect R&D expenses for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023, as we continue to improve the existing functionality of our services, develop new applications to fill market needs and enhance our core platform.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses (“G&A”) increased by $128 million during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $83 million. Non-personnel-related costs and outside services increased by $32 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the prior year.

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We expect G&A expenses for the year ending December 31, 2024 to increase in absolute dollars but decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023, as we continue to see leverage from continued G&A productivity.

Stock-based Compensation

Stock-based compensation increased by $203 million during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily due to additional grants to current and new employees.

Stock-based compensation is inherently difficult to forecast due to fluctuations in our stock price. Based upon our stock price as of December 31, 2023, we expect stock-based compensation to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the year ending December 31, 2024 as we continue to issue stock-based awards to our employees but decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2023. We expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue to decline over time as we continue to grow.

Foreign Currency Exchange

Our international operations have provided and will continue to provide a significant portion of our total revenues. Revenues outside North America represented 36% and 35% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for sales outside of the United States, the general weakening of the U.S. Dollar relative to certain major foreign currencies (primarily the Euro and British Pound Sterling) during the year ended December 31, 2023 had a favorable impact on our revenues. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2023 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2022 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported subscription revenues would have been $34 million lower for the year ended December 31, 2023. The impact from the foreign currency movements from the year ended December 31, 2022 to the year ended December 31, 2023 was not material to professional services and other revenues.

In addition, because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for cost of revenues and operating expenses outside of the United States, the general strengthening of the U.S. Dollar relative to other major foreign currencies had a favorable impact on our R&D expenses during the year ended December 31, 2023. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2023 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2022 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported R&D expenses would have been $12 million higher for the year ended December 31, 2023. The impact from the foreign currency movements from the year ended December 31, 2022 to the year ended December 31, 2023 was not material to cost of revenues, sales and marketing and G&A expenses.

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Interest Income

Interest income increased during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year primarily driven by an increase in investment income from our managed portfolio resulting from higher portfolio balances and an increase in interest rates.

Other Expense, net

Other expense, net increased by $18 million during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by higher unrealized losses on foreign currency forward contracts.

To mitigate our risks associated with fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, we enter into foreign currency derivative contracts with maturities of 12 months or less to hedge a portion of our net outstanding monetary assets and liabilities. These hedging contracts may reduce, but cannot entirely eliminate, the impact of adverse currency exchange rate movements. The gains (losses) recognized for these foreign currency forward contracts in other expense, net, were immaterial for each of the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

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(Benefit from) provision for Income Taxes

NM - Not meaningful

Our effective tax rate was (72%) and 19% for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022. The difference in rates was primarily attributable to the release of the valuation allowance against certain U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets, excluding California in the year ended December 31, 2023.

The income tax benefit was $723 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. The income tax benefit was primarily attributable to the release of the valuation allowance of certain U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets. We regularly assess the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. In making that assessment, we consider both positive and negative evidence related to the likelihood of realization of the deferred tax assets to determine, based on the weight of available evidence, whether it is more likely than not that some or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. As of June 30, 2023, we achieved cumulative U.S. income during the prior twelve quarters when considering pre-tax income adjusted for permanent differences and other comprehensive losses. Based on all available positive and negative evidence, having demonstrated sustained profitability which is objective and verifiable, and taking into account anticipated future earnings, we concluded it is more likely than not that our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets will be realizable, with the exception of California. We continue to maintain a valuation allowance against our California deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty regarding realizability of these deferred tax assets as they have not met the “more likely than not” realization criteria, particularly as we expect research and development tax credit generation to exceed our ability to use the credits in future years. Of the $1.2 billion valuation allowance as of December 31, 2022, we released $1.05 billion of our valuation allowance during the year ended December 31, 2023. We maintained a valuation allowance of $196 million against our California deferred tax assets. We will continue to monitor the need for a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets on a quarterly basis.

In December 2021, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development adopted model rules for a 15% global minimum tax (Pillar 2) and has continued to issue administrative guidance and interpretations. Approximately 20 countries have enacted the rules into their domestic tax legislation. The United States has not enacted the rules. Due to the uncertainty of whether the United States and other countries will enact the rules, the timing of individual country legislative action and the underlying complexity of the rules, the impact, if any, on the Company is not reasonably estimable.

See Note 16– Income Taxes, in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for our reconciliation of income taxes at the statutory federal rate to the provision for income taxes.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

We generate cash inflows from operations primarily from selling subscription services which are generally paid in advance of provisioning services, and cash outflows to develop new services and core technologies that further enhance the Now Platform, engage our customer and enhance their experience, and enable and transform our business operations. Subscription services arrangements typically have a three-year duration, and we have experienced a renewal rate of 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021. Cash outflows from operations are principally comprised of the salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits for our workforce, licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations and data centers and operating lease arrangements that underlie our facilities. We have generated positive operating cash flows for more than ten years as we continue to grow our business in pursuit of our business strategy, and we expect to grow our business and generate positive cash flows from operations during 2024. When assessing sources of liquidity, we also include cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and long-term investments totaling $8.1 billion as of December 31, 2023.

Our working capital requirements are principally comprised of non-contract workforce salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits and, to a lesser extent, cancellable and non-cancellable licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations, and operating lease obligations. Non-cancellable purchase commitments for business operations total $1.6 billion as of December 31, 2023, due primarily over the next five years. Operating lease obligations totaling $937 million are principally associated with leased facilities and have varying maturities with $515 million due over the next five years.

We may repurchase our shares of common stock in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions or by other means, with the objective to return value to our stockholders and manage the dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs. In May 2023, our board of directors authorized a program to repurchase up to $1.5 billion of our common stock. During the year ended December 31, 2023, we repurchased 0.9 million shares of our common stock for $538 million. All repurchases were made in open market transactions. Repurchases of common stock are recognized as treasury stock and held for future issuance. As of December 31, 2023, $962 million of the originally authorized amount under the Share Repurchase Program remained available for future repurchases.

To grow our business, we also invest in capital and other resources to expand our data centers and enable our workforce, and we acquire technology and businesses to supplement our technology portfolio. Our capital expenditures are typically under cancellable arrangements primarily used to support the installed base and growth of our hosted business. We have also issued long-term debt to finance our business. In August 2020, we issued 1.40% fixed rate ten-year notes with an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion due on September 1, 2030 (the “2030 Notes”).

Our free cash flows, together with our other sources of liquidity, are available to service our liabilities as well as our cancellable and non-cancellable arrangements. We anticipate cash flows generated from operations, cash, cash equivalents and investments will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs for at least the next 12 months. As we look beyond the next 12 months, we seek to continue to grow free cash flows necessary to fund our operations and grow our business. If we require additional capital resources, we may seek to finance our operations from the current funds available or additional equity or debt financing.

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities was $3.4 billion for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to $2.7 billion for the prior year. The net increase in operating cash flow was primarily due to higher collections driven by revenue growth.

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Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $2.2 billion compared to $2.6 billion for the prior year. The net decrease in cash used in investing activities was primarily due to a $681 million decrease in net purchases of investments, a $92 million decrease in purchases of non-marketable investments, offset by a $191 million increase in business combinations and a $144 million increase in purchases of property and equipment.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $803 million compared to $344 million for the prior year. The net increase in cash used in financing activities is primarily due to repurchases of common stock for $538 million, a $32 million increase in taxes paid related to net share settlement of equity awards, offset by a $17 million increase in proceeds from employee stock plans and a $94 million decrease in repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to principal.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

Our estimated future obligations consist of leases, a non-cancellable $500 million agreement with Microsoft to purchase cloud services over five years for accelerating the Azure adoption for mutual customers, the second installment of the consideration for the G2K acquisition to be paid in February 2024, purchase obligations, debt and unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2023. Refer to Note 17 “Commitments and Contingencies,” Note 5 “Business Combinations” and Note 16 “(Benefit from) Provision for Income Taxes” to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

This section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K discusses our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021 in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). A discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020 that is not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, filed on February 3, 2022.

Our free cash flow measure included in the section entitled “—Key Business Metrics—Free Cash Flow,” is not in accordance with GAAP. This non-GAAP financial measure is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. This measure may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting its usefulness for comparison purposes. We encourage investors to carefully consider our results under GAAP, as well as our supplemental non-GAAP results, to more fully understand our business.

Overview

ServiceNow was founded on a simple premise: a better technology platform will help work flow better. Our purpose is to make the world work better for everyone. We help global enterprises across industries, universities and governments to digitize their workflows. The Now Platform, seamlessly connects workflows across siloed organizations and systems in a way that unlocks productivity, improves experiences for both employees and customers and delivers real business outcomes. We organize our workflow applications along four primary areas: Technology, Customer and Industry, Employee and Creator. The Now Platform enables our customers’ digital transformation from non-integrated enterprise technology solutions with manual and disconnected processes and activities, to integrated enterprise technology solutions with automation and connected processes and activities. The transformation to digital operations, enabled by the Now Platform, increases our customers’ resiliency and security and delivers great experiences and additional value to their employees and consumers.

We are closely monitoring the unfolding events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the Russia-Ukraine conflict is still evolving and the outcome remains highly uncertain, we do not believe the Russia-Ukraine conflict will have a material impact on our business and results of operations. However, if the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues or worsens, leading to greater global economic disruptions and uncertainty, our business and results of operations could be materially impacted. Our customers in Russia represented an immaterial portion of our net assets and total consolidated revenues both as of and for the year ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021.

See the “Risk Factors” section in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report for further discussion of the possible impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our business.

Key Business Metrics

Remaining performance obligations. Transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations (“RPO”) represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes deferred revenue and non-cancelable amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. RPO excludes contracts that are billed in arrears, such as certain time and materials contracts, as we apply the “right to invoice” practical expedient under relevant accounting guidance. Current remaining performance obligations (“cRPO”) represents RPO that will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months.

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As of December 31, 2022, our RPO was $14 billion, of which 49% represented cRPO. RPO and cRPO increased by 22%, respectively, compared to December 31, 2021. Factors that may cause our RPO to vary from period to period include the following:

•Foreign currency exchange rates. While a majority of our contracts have historically been in U.S. Dollars, an increasing percentage of our contracts in recent periods has been in foreign currencies, particularly the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates as of the balance sheet date will cause variability in our RPO.

•Mix of offerings. In a minority of cases, we allow our customers to host our software by themselves or through a third-party service provider. In self-hosted offerings, we recognize a portion of the revenue upfront upon the delivery of the software and as a result, such revenue is excluded from RPO.

•Subscription start date. From time to time, we enter into contracts with a subscription start date in the future and these amounts are included in RPO if such contracts are signed by the balance sheet date.

•Timing of contract renewals. While customers typically renew their contracts at the end of the contract term, from time to time, customers may do so either before or after the scheduled expiration date. For example, in cases where we are successful in selling additional products or services to an existing customer, a customer may decide to renew its existing contract early to ensure that all its contracts expire on the same date. In other cases, prolonged negotiations or other factors may result in a contract not being renewed until after it has expired.

•Contract duration. While we typically enter into multi-year subscription services, the duration of our contracts varies. Further, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the quarter ended September 30, driven primarily by timing of their annual budget expenditures. We sometimes also enter into contracts with durations that have a 12-month or shorter term to enable the contracts to co-terminate with the existing contract. The contract duration will cause variability in our RPO.

Number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We count the total number of customers with annual contract value (“ACV”) greater than $1 million as of the end of the period. We had 1,637, 1,346, and 1,082 customers with ACV greater than $1 million as of December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. For purposes of customer count, a customer is defined as an entity that has a unique Dunn & Bradstreet Global Ultimate (“GULT”) Data Universal Numbering System (“DUNS”) number and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date. The DUNS number is a global standard for business identification and tracking. We make exceptions for holding companies, government entities and other organizations for which the GULT, in our judgment, does not accurately represent the ServiceNow customer. For example, while all U.S. government agencies roll up to “Government of the United States” under the GULT, we count each government agency that we contract with as a separate customer. Our customer count is subject to adjustments for acquisitions, spin-offs and other market activity; accordingly, we restate previously disclosed number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million calculations to allow for comparability. ACV is calculated based on the foreign exchange rate in effect at the time the contract was signed. Foreign exchange rate fluctuations could cause some variability in the number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We believe information regarding the total number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of our growing customer base and demonstrates the value customers are receiving from the Now Platform.

Free cash flow. We define free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP net cash provided by operating activities reduced by purchases of property and equipment. Purchases of property and equipment are otherwise included in cash used in investing activities under GAAP. We believe information regarding free cash flow provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of the strength and performance of our business operations. However, our calculation of free cash flow may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. A calculation of free cash flow is provided below:

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(1)Free cash flow for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 include the effect of $15 million and $82 million, respectively, relating to the repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount. Refer to Note 11 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further details.

We have historically seen higher collections in the quarter ended March 31 due to seasonality in timing of entering into customer contracts, which is significantly higher in the quarter ended December 31. Additionally, we have historically seen higher disbursements in the quarters ended March 31 and September 30 due to payouts under our annual commission plans, purchases under our employee stock purchase plan, payouts under our bonus plans and coupon payments related to our 2030 Notes beginning in 2021.

Renewal rate. We calculate our renewal rate by subtracting our attrition rate from 100%. Our attrition rate for a period is equal to the ACV from customers lost during the period, divided by the sum of (i) the total ACV from all customers that renewed during the period, excluding changes in price or users, and (ii) the total ACV from all customers lost during the period. Accordingly, our renewal rate is calculated based on ACV and is not based on the number of customers that have renewed. Further, our renewal rate does not reflect increased or decreased purchases from our customers to the extent such customers are not lost customers or lapsed renewals. A lost customer is a customer that did not renew an expiring contract and that, in our judgment, will not be renewed. Typically, a customer that reduces its subscription upon renewal is not considered a lost customer. However, in instances where the subscription decrease represents the majority of the customer’s ACV, we may deem the renewal as a lost customer. For our renewal rate calculation, we define a customer as an entity with a separate production instance of our service and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date, instead of an entity with a unique GULT or DUNS number. We adjust our renewal rate for acquisitions, consolidations and other customer events that cause the merging of two or more accounts occurring at the time of renewal. Our renewal rate was 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020. As our renewal rate is impacted by the timing of renewals, which could occur in advance of, or subsequent to the original contract end date, period-to-period comparison of renewal rates may not be meaningful.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations is based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements, as well as the reported revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. These items are monitored and analyzed by us for changes in facts and circumstances, and material changes in these estimates could occur in the future. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Changes in estimates are reflected in reported results for the period in which they become known. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and such differences could be material.

While our significant accounting policies are more fully described in Note 2 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we believe that the following accounting policies are critical to the process of making significant judgments and estimates in the preparation of our audited consolidated financial statements.

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Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenues predominately from subscription revenues, which are primarily comprised of subscription fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service, related support and updates, if any, to the subscribed service during the subscription term. For our cloud services, we recognize subscription revenues ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, the date we make our services available to our customers. Our contracts with customers typically include a fixed amount of consideration and are generally non-cancelable and without any refund-type provisions.

Subscription revenues also include revenues from self-hosted offerings in which customers deploy, or we grant customers the option to deploy without significant penalty, our subscription service internally or contract with a third party to host the software. For these contracts, we account for the software element separately from the related support and updates as they are distinct performance obligations. The transaction price is allocated to separate performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. The transaction price allocated to the software element is recognized when transfer of control of the software to the customer is complete. The transaction price allocated to the related support and updates are recognized ratably over the contract term.

We enter into contracts that can include various combinations of products and services, which are generally capable of being distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations. For these contracts, the transaction price is allocated to the separate performance obligations on a relative SSP basis. Evaluating the terms and conditions included within our customer contracts for appropriate revenue recognition and determining whether products and services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately versus together may require significant judgment.

Deferred Commissions

Deferred commissions are the incremental selling costs that are associated with acquiring customer contracts and consist primarily of sales commissions paid to our sales organization and referral fees paid to independent third parties. Commissions and referral fees earned upon the execution of initial and expansion contracts are primarily deferred and amortized over a period of benefit that we have determined to be five years consistent with prior year. Commissions earned upon the renewal of customer contracts are deferred and amortized over the average renewal term. Additionally, for self-hosted offerings, consistent with the recognition of subscription revenues for self-hosted offerings, a portion of the commission cost is expensed upfront when the self-hosted offering is made available. Determining the period of benefit, including average renewal term, requires judgment for which we take into consideration our customer contracts, our technology life cycle and other factors.

Business Combinations

The allocation of the purchase price in a business combination requires management to make significant estimates in determining the fair value of acquired assets and assumed liabilities, especially with respect to intangible assets. The excess of the purchase price in a business combination over the fair value of these tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recorded as goodwill. Critical estimates in valuing certain intangible assets include, but are not limited to, future expected cash flows, discount rates, the time and expense to recreate the assets and profit margin a market participant would receive. These estimates are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and, as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. The Company evaluates these estimates and assumptions as new information is obtained and may record adjustments to the fair value of the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed but not later than one year from the acquisition date.

Income Taxes

Our annual tax rate is based on our income, statutory tax rates and tax planning opportunities available to us in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Tax laws are complex and subject to different interpretations by the taxpayer and respective government taxing authorities. Significant judgment is required in determining our tax expense (benefit) and in evaluating our tax positions, including evaluating uncertainties and the complexity of taxes on foreign earnings. We review our tax positions quarterly and adjust the balances as new information becomes available.

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Deferred tax assets represent amounts available to reduce income taxes payable on taxable income in future years. Such assets arise because of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, as well as from net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards. We evaluate the recoverability of these future tax deductions and credits by assessing the adequacy of future expected taxable income from all sources, including future growth, forecasted earnings, future taxable income, the mix of earnings in the jurisdictions in which we operate, historical earnings, taxable income in prior years, if carryback is permitted under the law, carryforward periods and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies. A valuation allowance is established if it is more likely than not that all or a portion of the deferred tax asset will not be realized. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

Due to cumulative losses, including tax deductible stock compensation, and based on all available positive and negative evidence, we have determined that it is more likely than not that our U.S. deferred tax assets will not be realizable as of December 31, 2022. Management applied significant judgment in assessing the positive and negative evidence available in the determination of the amount of deferred tax assets that were more likely than not to be realized in the future. In determining the need, or continued need, for a valuation allowance, we considered the weighting of the positive and negative evidence which includes, among other things, cumulative losses including tax deductible stock compensation expense, future growth, forecasted earnings and future taxable income. However, given our current earnings, anticipated future earnings and future taxable income, we believe there is a reasonable possibility that within the next 12 months, sufficient positive evidence may become available to allow us to reach a conclusion that the U.S. valuation allowance will no longer be needed. The exact timing and amount of the valuation allowance release are subject to change on the basis of the level of sustained U.S. profitability that the Company is able to actually achieve, as well as the amount of tax deductible stock compensation dependent upon our publicly traded share price, foreign currency movements and macroeconomic conditions, among other factors. See Note 16 – Income Taxes, in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on discussion on valuation allowance.

Our tax positions are subject to income tax audits by multiple tax jurisdictions throughout the world. We recognize the tax benefit of an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not the position is sustainable upon examination by the taxing authority based on the technical merits. We measure the tax benefit recognized as the largest amount of benefit which is more likely than not to be realized upon settlement with the taxing authority. We recognize interest accrued and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in our tax provision. Significant judgment is required to evaluate uncertain tax positions. Our evaluations are based upon a number of factors, including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law or guidance, correspondence with tax authorities during the course of audits and effective settlement of audit issues. Changes in the recognition or measurement of uncertain tax positions could result in material increases or decreases in our income tax expense in the period in which we make the change, which could have a material impact on our effective tax rate and operating results.

We calculate the current and deferred income tax provision based on estimates and assumptions that could differ from the actual results reflected in income tax returns filed in subsequent years and record adjustments based on filed income tax returns when identified. The amount of income taxes paid is subject to examination by U.S. federal, state and foreign tax authorities. The estimate of the potential outcome of any uncertain tax issue is subject to management’s assessment of relevant risks, facts and circumstances existing at that time. To the extent the assessment of such tax position changes, we record the change in estimate in the period in which we make the determination.

Change in Accounting Estimate

See Note 2 —Summary of Significant Accounting Policies — Use of Estimates, of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on our change in estimated useful life of our data center equipment during 2022.

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Components of Results of Operations

Revenues

Subscription revenues. Subscription revenues are primarily comprised of fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service for both self-hosted offerings and cloud-based subscription offerings, and related standard and enhanced support and updates, if any, to the subscription service during the subscription term. For our cloud-based offerings, we recognize revenue ratably over the subscription term. For self-hosted offerings, a substantial portion of the sales price is recognized upon delivery of the software, which may cause greater variability in our subscription revenues and subscription gross margin. Pricing includes multiple instances, hosting and support services, data backup and disaster recovery services, as well as future updates, when and if available, offered during the subscription term. We typically invoice our customers for subscription fees in annual increments upon execution of the initial contract or subsequent renewal. Our contracts are generally non-cancelable during the subscription term, though a customer can terminate for breach if we materially fail to perform.

Professional services and other revenues. Our arrangements for professional services are primarily on a time-and-materials basis, and we generally invoice our customers monthly in arrears for the professional services based on actual hours and expenses incurred. Some of our professional services arrangements are on a fixed fee. Professional services revenues are recognized as services are delivered. Other revenues primarily consist of fees from customer training delivered on-site or through publicly available classes. Typical payment terms require our customers to pay us within 30 days of invoice.

We sell our subscription services primarily through our direct sales organization. We also sell services through managed service providers and resale partners. We also generate revenues from certain professional services and from training of customers and partner personnel, through both our direct team and indirect channel sales. Revenues from our direct sales organization represented 79%, 79% and 81% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. For purposes of calculating revenues from our direct sales organization, revenues from systems integrators and managed services providers are included as part of the direct sales organization.

Seasonality. We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into customer agreements. We sign a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as expansion with existing customers, in the fourth quarter of each year. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is primarily a result of both large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry, which are driven primarily by the expiration of annual authorized budgeted expenditures, and the terms of our commission plans, which incentivize our direct sales organization to meet their annual quotas by December 31. Furthermore, we usually sign a significant portion of these agreements during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. This seasonality of entering into customer agreements is sometimes not immediately apparent in our revenues, due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenues from our cloud offering contracts over the term of the subscription agreement, which is generally 12 to 36 months, leading to a higher RPO in the fourth quarter. Although these seasonal factors are common in the technology industry, historical patterns should not be considered a reliable indicator of our future sales activity or performance.

Cost of Revenues

Cost of subscription revenues. Cost of subscription revenues consists primarily of expenses related to hosting our services and providing support to our customers. These expenses are comprised of data center capacity costs, which include colocation costs associated with our data centers as well as interconnectivity between data centers, depreciation related to our infrastructure hardware equipment dedicated for customer use, amortization of intangible assets, expenses associated with software, public cloud service costs, IT services and dedicated customer support, personnel-related costs directly associated with data center operations and customer support, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead.

Cost of professional services and other revenues. Cost of professional services and other revenues consists primarily of personnel-related costs directly associated with our professional services and training departments, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, the costs of contracted third-party partners, travel expenses and allocated overhead.

Professional services are performed directly by our services team, as well as by contracted third-party partners. Fees paid by us to third-party partners are primarily recognized as cost of revenues as the professional services are delivered. Cost of revenues associated with our professional services engagements contracted with third-party partners as a percentage of professional services and other revenues was 12%, 14% and 10% for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

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Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our sales and marketing staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing expenses also include the amortization of commissions paid to our sales employees, including related payroll taxes and fringe benefits. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include branding expenses, marketing program expenses, which include events such as Knowledge, and costs associated with purchasing advertising and marketing data, software and subscription services dedicated for sales and marketing use and allocated overhead.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our research and development staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead. Research and development expenses also include data center capacity costs, costs associated with outside services contracted for research and development purposes and depreciation of infrastructure hardware equipment that is used solely for research and development purposes.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for our executive, finance, legal, human resources, facilities and administrative personnel, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, external legal, accounting and other professional services fees, other corporate expenses, amortization of intangible assets and allocated overhead.

Provision for Income Taxes

Provision for income taxes consist of federal, state and foreign income taxes. Due to cumulative losses, we maintain a valuation allowance against our U.S. deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2022 and 2021. We consider all available evidence, both positive and negative, including but not limited to earnings history, projected future outcomes, industry and market trends and the nature of each of the deferred tax assets in assessing the extent to which a valuation allowance should be applied against our U.S. and foreign deferred tax assets.

Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021

Revenues

Subscription revenues increased by $1.3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by increased purchases by new and existing customers. Included in subscription revenues is $253 million and $241 million of revenues recognized upfront from the delivery of software associated with self-hosted offerings during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

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We expect subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2023 to increase in absolute dollars and increase slightly as a percentage of revenue as we continue to add new customers and existing customers increase their usage of our products compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Our expectations for revenues, cost of revenues and operating expenses for the year ending December 31, 2023 are based on the 31-day average of foreign exchange rates for December 31, 2022.

Subscription revenues consist of the following:

Our digital workflow products include the Now Platform, IT Service Management, Strategic Portfolio Management (formerly known as IT Business Management), IT Asset Management and Enterprise Management, Security Operations, Integrated Risk Management (formerly, Governance, Risk and Compliance), ESG Management, HR Service Delivery, Workplace Service Delivery, Legal Service Delivery, Customer Service Management, Field Service Management, Industry Solutions, App Engine, Automation Engine, Platform Privacy and Security, Procurement Operation Management and Impact are generally priced on a per user basis. Our IT Operations Management (“ITOM”) products are generally priced on a subscription unit basis, which allows us to measure customers’ management of various IT resources, and decreasingly on a per node (physical or virtual server) basis.

Professional services and other revenues increased by $31 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in services and trainings provided to new and existing customers. We expect professional services and other revenues for the year ending December 31, 2023 to decrease in absolute dollars and to decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. We continue to be focused on deploying our internal professional services organization as a strategic resource and working with our partner ecosystem to contract directly with customers for implementation services delivery.

Cost of Revenues and Gross Profit Percentage

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Cost of subscription revenues increased by $165 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount and increased costs to support the growth of our subscription offerings including costs to support customers in regulated markets. Personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses increased by $142 million as compared to prior year. Maintenance costs to support the expansion of our data center capacity, including public cloud service costs, increased by $46 million and amortization of intangible assets increased by $8 million as a result of recent acquisitions as compared to the prior year. Depreciation expense related to data center hardware and software decreased by $45 million, primarily due to the change in estimated useful life of data center equipment from three years to four years, for the year ended December 31, 2022, as compared to prior year.

We expect our cost of subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2023 to increase in absolute dollars as we provide subscription services to more customers and increase usage within our customer instances and to increase slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. We will continue to incur incremental costs to attract customers in regulated markets by adopting public cloud offerings as well as increased support for customers impacted by new and evolving data residency requirements. To the extent future acquisitions are consummated, our cost of subscription revenues may increase due to additional non-cash charges associated with the amortization of intangible assets acquired. Our subscription gross profit percentage was 83% and 82% for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. We expect our subscription gross profit percentage to decrease slightly for the year ending December 31, 2023 compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Cost of professional services and other revenues increased by $55 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount to support growth resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation, travel and overhead expenses.

Our professional services and other gross loss percentage increased to 9% for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to 2% in the prior year, primarily driven by planned increase in headcount costs to support the business growth, increase in travel expense for customer implementations and investment in strategic initiatives. We expect our professional services and other gross loss percentage to increase for the year ending December 31, 2023 compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $522 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $411 million, compared to the prior year. Amortization expenses associated with deferred commissions increased by $68 million, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in contracts with new customers, expansion and renewal contracts. Other sales and marketing program expenses, which include branding, costs associated with purchasing advertising, marketing events and market data, increased by $33 million compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased program costs and travel for our annual Knowledge user conference.

We expect sales and marketing expenses for the year ending December 31, 2023 to increase in absolute dollars and to decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, as we continue to see leverage from increased sales productivity and marketing efficiencies offset by growth in our international operations in 2023.

Research and Development

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Research and development expenses (“R&D”) increased by $371 million during the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $363 million compared to prior year.

We expect R&D expenses for the year ending December 31, 2023 to increase in absolute dollars, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, as we continue to improve the existing functionality of our services, develop new applications to fill market needs and enhance our core platform.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses (“G&A”) increased by $138 million during the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $142 million.

We expect G&A expenses for the year ending December 31, 2023 to increase in absolute dollars but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, as we continue to see leverage from continued G&A productivity.

Stock-based Compensation

Stock-based compensation increased by $270 million during the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily due to additional grants to current and new employees.

Stock-based compensation is inherently difficult to forecast due to fluctuations in our stock price. Based upon our stock price as of December 31, 2022, we expect stock-based compensation to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the year ending December 31, 2023 as we continue to issue stock-based awards to our employees, but decrease slightly as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. We expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue to decline over time as we continue to grow.

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Foreign Currency Exchange

Our international operations have provided and will continue to provide a significant portion of our total revenues. Revenues outside North America represented 35% and 36% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for sales outside of the United States, the general strengthening of the U.S. Dollar relative to other major foreign currencies (primarily the Euro and British Pound Sterling) during the year ended December 31, 2022 had an unfavorable impact on our revenues. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2022 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2021 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported subscription revenues and professional services and other revenues would have been $274 million and $19 million higher for the year ended December 31, 2022, respectively.

In addition, because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for cost of revenues and operating expenses outside of the United States, the general strengthening of the U.S. Dollar relative to other major foreign currencies had a favorable impact on our cost of revenue, sales and marketing expense and R&D expenses during the year ended December 31, 2022. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2022 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2021 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported cost of revenues, sales and marketing and R&D expenses would have been $48 million, $78 million and $19 million higher for the year ended December 31, 2022, respectively. The impact from the foreign currency movements from the year ended December 31, 2021 to the year ended December 31, 2022 was not material to G&A expenses.

Interest Expense

Interest expense decreased during the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year. For the year ending December 31, 2023, we expect to incur approximately $23 million of interest expense related to the 2030 Notes.

Other Income (Expense), net

NM - Not meaningful

Other income (expense), net increased by $51 million during the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by an increase in investment income from our managed portfolio resulting from the increase in interest rates.

To mitigate our risks associated with fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, we enter into foreign currency derivative contracts with maturities of 12 months or less to hedge a portion of our net outstanding monetary assets and liabilities. These hedging contracts may reduce, but cannot entirely eliminate, the impact of adverse currency exchange rate movements. The gains (losses) recognized for these foreign currency forward contracts in other income (expense), net were immaterial for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021.

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Provision for Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate was 19% and 8% for the year ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021. The difference in rates was primarily attributable to revaluation of our deferred taxes to account for a change in United Kingdom tax rate and a partial valuation allowance related to acquired Lightstep, Inc. deferred tax liabilities in the year ended December 31, 2021. The income tax provision for the year ended December 31, 2022 was primarily attributable to the mix of earnings and losses in foreign jurisdictions with differing tax rates, state tax expense and the valuation allowance in the United States.

We continue to maintain a full valuation allowance on our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets and the significant components of the tax expense recorded are current cash taxes payable in various jurisdictions. The cash tax expenses are impacted by each jurisdiction’s individual tax rates, laws on timing of recognition of income and deductions, and availability of net operating losses and tax credits. Given the full valuation allowance on our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets, sensitivity of current cash taxes to local rules and our foreign structuring, we expect that our effective tax rate could fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis and could be adversely affected to the extent earnings are lower than anticipated in countries that have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries that have higher statutory rates. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

See Note 16– Income Taxes, in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for our reconciliation of income taxes at the statutory federal rate to the provision for income taxes.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

We generate cash inflows from operations primarily from selling subscription services which are generally paid in advance of provisioning services, and cash outflows to develop new services and core technologies that further enhance the Now Platform, engage our customer and enhance their experience, and enable and transform our business operations. Subscription services arrangements typically have a three-year duration, and we have experienced a renewal rate of 98% for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020. Cash outflows from operations are principally comprised of the salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits for our workforce; licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations and data centers; and operating lease arrangements that underlie our facilities. We have generated positive operating cash flows for more than ten years as we continue to grow our business in pursuit of our business strategy, and we expect to grow our business and generate positive cash flows from operations during 2023. When assessing sources of liquidity, we also include cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and long-term investments totaling $6.4 billion as of December 31, 2022.

Our working capital requirements are principally comprised of non-contract workforce salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits and, to a lesser extent, cancellable and non-cancelable licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations, and operating lease obligations. In addition, we made the payment for the investment in Celonis SE of $100 million during the year ended December 31, 2022. Non-cancelable purchase commitments for business operations total $1,271 million as of December 31, 2022, due primarily over the next five years. Operating lease obligations totaling $895 million are principally associated with leased facilities and have varying maturities with $467 million due over the next five years.

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To grow our business, we also invest in capital and other resources to expand our data centers and enable our workforce, and we acquire technology and businesses to supplement our technology portfolio. Our capital expenditures are typically under cancelable arrangements primarily used to support the installed base and growth of our hosted business. We have also issued long-term debt to finance our business. In August 2020, we issued 1.40% fixed rate ten-year notes with an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion due on September 1, 2030 (the “2030 Notes”). In May and June 2017, we issued the 2022 Notes with an aggregate principal amount of $782.5 million. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we paid cash to settle $94 million in principal of the 2022 Notes, which was comprised of early conversions of $6 million and remaining principal of $88 million for final settlement on June 1, 2022, the maturity date of our 2022 Notes.

Our free cash flows, together with our other sources of liquidity, are available to service our liabilities as well as our cancellable and non-cancellable arrangements. We anticipate cash flows generated from operations, cash, cash equivalents and investments will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs for at least the next 12 months. As we look beyond the next 12 months, we seek to continue to grow free cash flows necessary to fund our operations and grow our business. If we require additional capital resources, we may seek to finance our operations from the current funds available or additional equity or debt financing.

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities was $2.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022 compared to $2.2 billion for the prior year. The net increase in operating cash flow was primarily due to higher collections driven by revenue growth.

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $2.6 billion compared to $1.6 billion for the prior year. The net increase in cash used in investing activities was primarily due to a $1,427 million increase in net purchases of investments, a $96 million increase in non-marketable investments mainly in Celonis SE and a $158 million increase in purchases of property and equipment, offset by a $694 million decrease in business combinations.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $344 million compared to $506 million for the prior year. The net decrease in cash used in financing activities is primarily due to a $185 million decrease in taxes paid related to net share settlement of equity awards, a $10 million increase in proceeds from employee stock plans, offset by a $33 million increase in repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to principal.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

Our estimated future obligations consist of leases, a non-cancelable $500 million agreement with Microsoft to purchase cloud services over five years for accelerating the Azure adoption for mutual customers, purchase obligations, debt and unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2022. Refer to Note 17 “Commitments and Contingencies” to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

This section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K discusses our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020 in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). A discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 and year-to-year comparisons between fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2019 that is not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, filed on February 12, 2021.

Our free cash flow and billings measures included in the sections entitled “—Key Business Metrics—Free Cash Flow” and “—Key Business Metrics—Billings” are not in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. These measures may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparison purposes. We encourage investors to carefully consider our results under GAAP, as well as our supplemental non-GAAP results, to more fully understand our business.

Overview

ServiceNow was founded on a simple premise: a better technology platform will help work flow better. The company’s purpose is to make the world work better for everyone. We help global enterprises across industries, universities and governments to digitize their workflows. The Now Platform enables us to connect systems, silos, departments and processes with digital workflows that are simple and easy to use. We categorize the workflows we provide into four primary areas: IT, Employee, Customer and Creator. The products under each of our workflows are helping customers connect work across systems and silos to enable great experiences for people. The Now Platform is uniquely positioned to enable our customers’ digital transformation from non-integrated enterprise technology solutions with manual and disconnected processes and activities, to integrated enterprise technology solutions with automation and connected processes and activities. The transformation to digital operations, enabled by the Now Platform, increases our customers’ resiliency and security and delivers great experiences and additional value to their employees and consumers.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to focus on maintaining business continuity, helping our employees, customers and communities, and preparing for the future and the long-term success of our business. We are continuing to monitor the actual and potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across our business. The extent and continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business will depend on certain developments including the duration and spread of the outbreak and new variant strains of the virus; the availability and distribution of effective vaccines; the severity of the economic decline attributable to the pandemic and timing, nature and sustainability of economic recovery; and government responses, including vaccination or testing mandates, all of which are highly uncertain and unpredictable. Starting late 2021, many employees began to return to our offices for at least part of the week. Our return to work approach may vary among geographies depending on appropriate health protocols, and may change at any time depending on the severity of or spikes in COVID-19. The impact, if any, of these and any additional operational changes we may implement is uncertain but changes we have implemented have not affected and are not expected to affect our ability to maintain operations, including financial reporting systems, internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. See the section “Risk Factors” in Part 1, Item 1A of this Annual Report for further discussion of the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business.

Key Business Metrics

Remaining performance obligations. Transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations (“RPO”) represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes deferred revenue and non-cancelable amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. RPO excludes contracts that are billed in arrears, such as certain time and materials contracts, as we apply the “right to invoice” practical expedient under relevant accounting guidance. Current remaining performance obligations (“cRPO”) represents RPO that will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months.

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As of December 31, 2021, our RPO was $11.5 billion, of which 49% represented cRPO. RPO and cRPO increased by 29%, respectively, compared to December 31, 2020. Factors that may cause our RPO to vary from period to period include the following:

•Foreign currency exchange rates. While a majority of our contracts have historically been in U.S. Dollars, an increasing percentage of our contracts in recent periods has been in foreign currencies, particularly the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates as of the balance sheet date will cause variability in our RPO.

•Mix of offerings. In a minority of cases, we allow our customers to host our software by themselves or through a third-party service provider. In self-hosted offerings, we recognize a portion of the revenue upfront upon the delivery of the software and as a result, such revenue is excluded from RPO.

•Subscription start date. From time to time, we enter into contracts with a subscription start date in the future and these amounts are included in RPO if such contracts are signed by the balance sheet date.

•Timing of contract renewals. While customers typically renew their contracts at the end of the contract term, from time to time, customers may do so either before or after the scheduled expiration date. For example, in cases where we are successful in selling additional products or services to an existing customer, a customer may decide to renew its existing contract early to ensure that all its contracts expire on the same date. In other cases, prolonged negotiations or other factors may result in a contract not being renewed until after it has expired.

•Contract duration. While we typically enter into multi-year subscription services, the duration of our contracts varies. Further, we continue to see an increase in the number of 12-month agreements entered into with the U.S. Federal government throughout the year, with the highest number of agreements entered into in the quarter ended September 30, driven primarily by timing of their annual budget expenditures. We sometimes also enter into contracts with durations that have a 12-month or shorter term to enable the contracts to co-terminate with the existing contract. The contract duration will cause variability in our RPO.

Number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We count the total number of customers with annual contract value (“ACV”) greater than $1 million as of the end of the period. We had 1,359, 1,085, and 882 customers with ACV greater than $1 million as of December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. For purposes of customer count, a customer is defined as an entity that has a unique Dunn & Bradstreet Global Ultimate (“GULT”) Data Universal Numbering System (“DUNS”) number and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date. The DUNS number is a global standard for business identification and tracking. We make exceptions for holding companies, government entities and other organizations for which the GULT, in our judgment, does not accurately represent the ServiceNow customer. For example, while all U.S. government agencies roll up to “Government of the United States” under the GULT, we count each government agency that we contract with as a separate customer. Our customer count is subject to adjustments for acquisitions, spin-offs and other market activity; accordingly, we restate previously disclosed number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million calculations to allow for comparability. ACV is calculated based on the foreign exchange rate in effect at the time the contract was signed. Foreign exchange rate fluctuations could cause some variability in the number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million. We believe information regarding the total number of customers with ACV greater than $1 million provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of our growing customer base and demonstrates the value customers are receiving from the Now Platform.

Free cash flow. We define free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP net cash provided by operating activities reduced by purchases of property and equipment. Purchases of property and equipment are otherwise included in cash used in investing activities under GAAP. We believe information regarding free cash flow provides useful information to investors because it is an indicator of the strength and performance of our business operations. However, our calculation of free cash flow may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. A calculation of free cash flow is provided below:

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(1)Free cash flow for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 include the effect of $15 million and $82 million, respectively relating to the repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount. Refer to Note 11 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further details.

We have historically seen higher collections in the quarter ended March 31 due to seasonality in timing of entering into customer contracts which is significantly higher in the quarter ended December 31. Additionally, we have historically seen higher disbursements in the quarters ended March 31 and September 30 due to payouts under our annual commission plans, purchases under our employee stock purchase plan, payouts under our bonus plans and coupon payments related to our 2030 Notes beginning in 2021.

Renewal rate. We calculate our renewal rate by subtracting our attrition rate from 100%. Our attrition rate for a period is equal to the ACV from customers lost during the period, divided by the sum of (i) the total ACV from all customers that renewed during the period, excluding changes in price or users, and (ii) the total ACV from all customers lost during the period. Accordingly, our renewal rate is calculated based on ACV and is not based on the number of customers that have renewed. Further, our renewal rate does not reflect increased or decreased purchases from our customers to the extent such customers are not lost customers or lapsed renewal. A lost customer is a customer that did not renew an expiring contract and that, in our judgment, will not be renewed. Typically, a customer that reduces its subscription upon renewal is not considered a lost customer. However, in instances where the subscription decrease represents the majority of the customer’s ACV, we may deem the renewal as a lost customer. For our renewal rate calculation, we define a customer as an entity with a separate production instance of our service and an active subscription contract as of the measurement date, instead of an entity with a unique GULT or DUNS number. We adjust our renewal rate for acquisitions, consolidations and other customer events that cause the merging of two or more accounts occurring at the time of renewal. Additionally, starting in 2020, we simplified our methodology related to contracts less than 12 months to derive ACV used to calculate renewal rate. Previously disclosed renewal rates may be restated to reflect such adjustments or methodology simplification to allow for comparability. However, there were no material changes to such previously disclosed renewal rates. Our renewal rate was 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019. As our renewal rate is impacted by the timing of renewals, which could occur in advance of, or subsequent to the original contract end date, period-to-period comparison of renewal rates may not be meaningful.

Billings. We define billings, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP revenues recognized plus the change in total GAAP unbilled receivables, deferred revenue and customer deposits as presented on the consolidated statements of cash flows. The calculation of billings is provided below:

(1)As presented on or derived from our consolidated statements of cash flows.

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Billings consists of amounts invoiced for subscription contracts with existing customers, renewal contracts, expansion contracts, contracts with new customers, and contracts for professional services and training. Factors that may cause our billings results to vary from period to period include the following:

•Billings duration. While we typically bill customers annually in advance for our subscription services, customers sometimes request, and we accommodate, billings with durations less than or greater than the typical 12-month term. Changes in billings duration had a favorable impact of $38 million and an immaterial impact on billings for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

•Contract start date. From time to time, we enter into contracts with a contract start date in the future, and we exclude these amounts from billings as these amounts are not included in our consolidated balance sheets, unless such amounts have been paid as of the balance sheet date.

•Foreign currency exchange rates. While a majority of our billings have historically been in U.S. Dollars, an increasing percentage of our billings in recent periods has been in foreign currencies, particularly the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates will cause variability in our billings. Foreign currency rate fluctuations had a favorable impact of $74 million and $21 million for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

•Timing of contract renewals. While customers typically renew their contracts at the end of the contract term, from time to time customers may do so either before or after the scheduled expiration date. For example, in cases where we are successful in selling additional products or services to an existing customer, a customer may decide to renew its existing contract early to ensure that all its contracts expire on the same date. In other cases, prolonged negotiations or other factors may result in a contract not being renewed until after it has expired.

•Seasonality. We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into customer agreements for our services. We sign a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as expansion with existing customers, in the fourth quarter of each year. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is primarily a result of both large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry, which are driven primarily by the expiration of annual authorized budgeted expenditures, and the terms of our commission plans which incentivize our direct sales organization to meet their annual quotas by December 31. Furthermore, we usually sign a significant portion of these agreements during the last month, and often the last two weeks, of each quarter. This seasonality in the timing of entering into customer contracts is sometimes not immediately apparent in our billings, due to the fact that we typically exclude cloud-offering contracts with a future start date from our billings, unless such amounts have been paid as of the balance sheet date. Similarly, this seasonality is reflected to a much lesser extent, and sometimes is not immediately apparent in our revenues, due to the fact that we recognize subscription revenues from our cloud offering contracts over the term of the subscription agreement, which is generally 12 to 36 months. Although these seasonal factors are common in the technology industry, historical patterns should not be considered a reliable indicator of our future sales activity or performance. Further, the seasonal factors could be heightened due to the impact of a gross domestic product contraction and other impacts unknown on our customers and sales cycles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To facilitate greater year-over-year comparability in our billings results, we disclose the impact that foreign currency rate fluctuations and fluctuations in billings duration had on our billings. The impact of foreign currency rate fluctuations is calculated by translating the current period results for entities reporting in currencies other than U.S. Dollars into U.S. Dollars at the exchange rates in effect during the prior period presented, rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the current period. The impact of fluctuations in billings duration is calculated by replacing the portion of multi-year billings in excess of 12 months during the current period with the portion of multi-year billings in excess of 12 months during the prior period presented. Notwithstanding the adjustments described above, the comparability of billings results from period to period remains subject to the impact of variations in the dollar value of contracts with future start dates and the timing of contract renewals, for which no adjustments have been presented.

While we believe billings is one indicator of the performance of our business, due to the factors described above, an increase or decrease in billings may not reflect the actual performance for that reporting period. As a result, our billings metric has become less indicative of the actual performance of our business over time and we do not plan to disclose this metric in future filings.

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Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations is based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements, as well as the reported revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. These items are monitored and analyzed by us for changes in facts and circumstances, and material changes in these estimates could occur in the future. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Changes in estimates are reflected in reported results for the period in which they become known. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and such differences could be material.

While our significant accounting policies are more fully described in Note 2 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we believe that the following accounting policies are critical to the process of making significant judgments and estimates in the preparation of our audited consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

We derive our revenues predominately from subscription revenues which are primarily comprised of subscription fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service, related support and updates, if any, to the subscribed service during the subscription term. For our cloud services, we recognize subscription revenues ratably over the contract term beginning on the commencement date of each contract, the date we make our services available to our customers. Our contracts with customers typically include a fixed amount of consideration and are generally non-cancelable and without any refund-type provisions.

Subscription revenues also include revenues from self-hosted offerings in which customers deploy, or we grant customers the option to deploy without significant penalty, our subscription service internally or contract with a third party to host the software. For these contracts, we account for the software element separately from the related support and updates as they are distinct performance obligations. The transaction price is allocated to separate performance obligations on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. The transaction price allocated to the software element is recognized when transfer of control of the software to the customer is complete. The transaction price allocated to the related support and updates are recognized ratably over the contract term.

We enter into contracts that can include various combinations of products and services, which are generally capable of being distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations. For these contracts, the transaction price is allocated to the separate performance obligations on a relative SSP basis. Evaluating the terms and conditions included within our customer contracts for appropriate revenue recognition and determining whether products and services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately versus together may require significant judgment.

Deferred Commissions

Deferred commissions are the incremental selling costs that are associated with acquiring customer contracts and consist primarily of sales commissions paid to our sales organization and referral fees paid to independent third parties. Commissions and referral fees earned upon the execution of initial and expansion contracts are primarily deferred and amortized over a period of benefit that we have determined to be five years consistent with prior year. Commissions earned upon the renewal of customer contracts are deferred and amortized over the average renewal term. Additionally, for self-hosted offerings, consistent with the recognition of subscription revenues for self-hosted offerings, a portion of the commission cost is expensed upfront when the self-hosted offering is made available. Determining the period of benefit including average renewal term requires judgment for which we take into consideration our customer contracts, our technology life cycle and other factors.

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Business combinations

The allocation of the purchase price in a business combination requires management to make significant estimates in determining the fair value of acquired assets and assumed liabilities, especially with respect to intangible assets. The excess of the purchase price in a business combination over the fair value of these tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recorded as goodwill. Critical estimates in valuing certain intangible assets include, but are not limited to, future expected cash flows, discount rates, the time and expense to recreate the assets and profit margin a market participant would receive. These estimates are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and, as a result, actual results may differ from estimates. The Company evaluates these estimates and assumptions as new information is obtained and may record adjustments to the fair value of the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed but not later than one year from the acquisition date.

Income Taxes

Our annual tax rate is based on our income, statutory tax rates and tax planning opportunities available to us in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Tax laws are complex and subject to different interpretations by the taxpayer and respective government taxing authorities. Significant judgment is required in determining our tax expense (benefit) and in evaluating our tax positions, including evaluating uncertainties and the complexity of taxes on foreign earnings. We review our tax positions quarterly and adjust the balances as new information becomes available.

Deferred tax assets represent amounts available to reduce income taxes payable on taxable income in future years. Such assets arise because of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, as well as from net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards. We evaluate the recoverability of these future tax deductions and credits by assessing the adequacy of future expected taxable income from all sources, including future growth, forecasted earnings, future taxable income, the mix of earnings in the jurisdictions in which we operate, historical earnings, taxable income in prior years, if carryback is permitted under the law, carryforward periods and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies. A valuation allowance is established if it is more likely than not that all or a portion of the deferred tax asset will not be realized. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

Due to cumulative losses including tax deductible stock compensation and based on all available positive and negative evidence, we have determined that it is more likely than not that our U.S. deferred tax assets will not be realizable as of December 31, 2021. Management applied significant judgment in assessing the positive and negative evidence available in the determination of the amount of deferred tax assets that were more likely than not to be realized in the future. In determining the need, or continued need, for a valuation allowance, we considered the weighting of the positive and negative evidence which includes, among other things, cumulative losses including tax deductible stock compensation expense , future growth, forecasted earnings, and future taxable income.

Our tax positions are subject to income tax audits by multiple tax jurisdictions throughout the world. We recognize the tax benefit of an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not the position is sustainable upon examination by the taxing authority based on the technical merits. We measure the tax benefit recognized as the largest amount of benefit which is more likely than not to be realized upon settlement with the taxing authority. We recognize interest accrued and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in our tax provision. Significant judgment is required to evaluate uncertain tax positions. Our evaluations are based upon a number of factors, including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law or guidance, correspondence with tax authorities during the course of audits and effective settlement of audit issues. Changes in the recognition or measurement of uncertain tax positions could result in material increases or decreases in our income tax expense in the period in which we make the change, which could have a material impact on our effective tax rate and operating results.

We calculate the current and deferred income tax provision based on estimates and assumptions that could differ from the actual results reflected in income tax returns filed in subsequent years and record adjustments based on filed income tax returns when identified. The amount of income taxes paid is subject to examination by U.S. federal, state and foreign tax authorities. The estimate of the potential outcome of any uncertain tax issue is subject to management’s assessment of relevant risks, facts and circumstances existing at that time. To the extent the assessment of such tax position changes, we record the change in estimate in the period in which we make the determination.

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Change in Accounting Estimate

In January 2022, we completed an assessment of the useful life of our data center equipment and determined we should increase the estimated useful life of data center equipment from three to four years. This change in accounting estimate will be effective beginning fiscal year 2022. Based on the carrying amount of data center equipment included in property and equipment, net that are in-service as of December 31, 2021, it is estimated this change will increase our fiscal year 2022 operating income by approximately $80 million.

New Accounting Pronouncements Pending Adoption

The impact of recently issued accounting standards is set forth in Note 2, Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenues

Subscription revenues. Subscription revenues are primarily comprised of fees that give customers access to the ordered subscription service for both self-hosted offerings and cloud-based subscription offerings, and related standard and enhanced support and updates, if any, to the subscription service during the subscription term. For our cloud-based offerings, we recognize revenue ratably over the subscription term. For self-hosted offerings, a substantial portion of the sales price is recognized upon delivery of the software, which may cause greater variability in our subscription revenues and subscription gross margin. Pricing includes multiple instances, hosting and support services, data backup and disaster recovery services, as well as future updates, when and if available, offered during the subscription term. We typically invoice our customers for subscription fees in annual increments upon execution of the initial contract or subsequent renewal. Our contracts are generally non-cancelable during the subscription term, though a customer can terminate for breach if we materially fail to perform.

Professional services and other revenues. Our arrangements for professional services are primarily on a time-and-materials basis, and we generally invoice our customers monthly in arrears for the professional services based on actual hours and expenses incurred. Some of our professional services arrangements are on a fixed fee or subscription basis. Professional services revenues are recognized as services are delivered. Other revenues primarily consist of fees from customer training delivered on-site or through publicly available classes. Typical payment terms require our customers to pay us within 30 days of invoice.

We sell our subscription services primarily through our direct sales organization. We also sell services through managed service providers and resale partners. We also generate revenues from certain professional services and from training of customers and partner personnel, through both our direct team and indirect channel sales. Revenues from our direct sales organization represented 79%, 81% and 82% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. For purposes of calculating revenues from our direct sales organization, revenues from systems integrators and managed services providers are included as part of the direct sales organization.

Cost of Revenues

Cost of subscription revenues. Cost of subscription revenues consists primarily of expenses related to hosting our services and providing support to our customers. These expenses are comprised of data center capacity costs, which include colocation costs associated with our data centers as well as interconnectivity between data centers, depreciation related to our infrastructure hardware equipment dedicated for customer use, amortization of intangible assets, expenses associated with software, public cloud service costs, IT services and dedicated customer support, personnel-related costs directly associated with data center operations and customer support, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead.

Cost of professional services and other revenues. Cost of professional services and other revenues consists primarily of personnel-related costs directly associated with our professional services and training departments, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, the costs of contracted third-party partners, travel expenses and allocated overhead.

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Professional services are performed directly by our services team, as well as by contracted third-party partners. Fees paid by us to third-party partners are primarily recognized as cost of revenues as the professional services are delivered. Cost of revenues associated with our professional services engagements contracted with third-party partners as a percentage of professional services and other revenues was 14%, 10% and 15% for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our sales and marketing staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation. Sales and marketing expenses also include the amortization of commissions paid to our sales employees, including related payroll taxes and fringe benefits. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include branding expenses, marketing program expenses, which include events such as Knowledge, and costs associated with purchasing advertising and marketing data, software and subscription services dedicated for sales and marketing use and allocated overhead.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses directly associated with our research and development staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and allocated overhead. Research and development expenses also include data center capacity costs, costs associated with outside services contracted for research and development purposes and depreciation of infrastructure hardware equipment that is used solely for research and development purposes.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for our executive, finance, legal, human resources, facilities and administrative personnel, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, external legal, accounting and other professional services fees, other corporate expenses, amortization of intangible assets and allocated overhead.

Provision for (benefit from) Income Taxes

Provision for (benefit from) income taxes consist of federal, state and foreign income taxes. Due to cumulative losses, we maintain a valuation allowance against our U.S. deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2021 and 2020. We consider all available evidence, both positive and negative, including but not limited to earnings history, projected future outcomes, industry and market trends and the nature of each of the deferred tax assets in assessing the extent to which a valuation allowance should be applied against our U.S. and foreign deferred tax assets.

Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020

Revenues

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Subscription revenues increased by $1.3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, driven by increased purchases by existing customers and an increase in customer count. Included in subscription revenues is $241 million and $205 million of revenues recognized upfront from the delivery of software associated with self-hosted offerings during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

We expect subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to add new customers and existing customers increase their usage of our products, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 and its impact on customer acquisition and renewal rates.

Our expectations for revenues, cost of revenues and operating expenses for the year ending December 31, 2022 are based on the 31-day average of foreign exchange rates for December 2021.

Subscription revenues consist of the following:

Our digital workflow products include the Now Platform, IT Service Management, IT Business Management, IT Asset Management, Security Operations, Governance, Risk and Compliance, HR Service Delivery, Safe Workplace Suite of applications, Workplace Service Delivery, Legal Service Delivery, Customer Service Management, Field Service Management, Industry Solutions, App Engine and IntegrationHub, and are generally priced on a per user basis. Our ITOM products are generally priced on a per node (physical or virtual server) basis and increasingly on a subscription unit basis which allows us to measure customers’ management of physical IT resources.

Professional services and other revenues increased by $90 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in services and trainings provided to new and existing customers. We expect professional services and other revenues for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. We are increasingly focused on deploying our internal professional services organization as a strategic resource and relying on our partner ecosystem to contract directly with customers for implementation services delivery.

Cost of Revenues and Gross Profit Percentage

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Cost of subscription revenues increased by $291 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount and increased costs to support the growth of our subscription offerings including costs to support customers in regulated markets. Personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses increased by $123 million as compared to prior year. Depreciation expense related to data center hardware and software and maintenance costs to support the expansion of our data center capacity including public cloud service costs increased by $141 million and amortization of intangibles increased by $29 million as a result of acquisitions as compared to the prior year.

We expect our cost of subscription revenues for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars as we provide subscription services to more customers and increase usage within our customer instances but slightly decrease as a percentage of revenue resulting from the change in estimated useful life of data center equipment from three to four years beginning in 2022.

Our subscription gross profit percentage was 82% and 83% for each of the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We expect our subscription gross profit percentage to slightly increase for the year ended December 31, 2022 compared to the year ended December 31, 2021 driven by the change in estimated useful life of data center equipment from three to four years beginning in 2022. However, we will continue to incur incremental costs to attract customers in regulated markets by adopting public cloud offerings as well as increased support for customers impacted by new and evolving data residency requirements. To the extent future acquisitions are consummated, our cost of subscription revenues may increase due to additional non-cash charges associated with the amortization of intangible assets acquired.

Cost of professional services and other revenues increased by $75 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount to support growth resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses by $55 million and an increase in outside service costs by $20 million compared to prior period.

Our professional services and other gross loss percentage improved to 2% for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to 10% in the prior year, primarily driven by the increased utilization of our internal professional services organization and the reduction in certain travel expenses. However, we expect our professional services and other gross loss percentage to worsen for the year ending December 31, 2022 as we expect additional cost to support business growth and increases in travel expenses compared to the year ended December 31, 2021.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses increased by $437 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $329 million, compared to the prior year. Amortization of deferred commissions and third-party referral fees increased by $79 million, compared to the prior year, due to an increase in contracts with new customers, expansion and renewal contracts. Other sales and marketing program expenses, which include branding, purchase of advertising and market data and outside services, increased by $29 million compared to the prior year. We converted certain in-person events to digital events in the first half of 2021 amid COVID-19 travel restrictions which resulted in certain savings for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the same period in the prior year.

We expect sales and marketing expenses for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021, as we continue to see leverage from increased sales productivity and marketing efficiencies offset by growth in our international operations and increases in travel expenses in 2022.

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Research and Development

Research and development expenses increased by $373 million during the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $346 million compared to prior year. The remaining increase was primarily due to $22 million increase in outside services and hosting costs and data center related depreciation costs to support research and development activities.

We expect research and development expenses for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021, as we continue to improve the existing functionality of our services, develop new applications to fill market needs and enhance our core platform.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses increased by $143 million during the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount resulting in an increase in personnel-related costs including stock-based compensation and overhead expenses of $113 million. The remaining increase was primarily due to $21 million of outside service costs to support digital transformation projects across functions to improve processes as we scale as well as incremental investment in environmental, social and corporate governance initiatives (“ESG”).

We expect general and administrative expenses for the year ending December 31, 2022 to increase in absolute dollars but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021, as we continue to see leverage from continued G&A productivity, offset by higher stock-based compensation related to the 2021 Performance Awards, increased investment in cyber security and our ESG efforts.

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Stock-based Compensation

Stock-based compensation increased by $261 million during the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, primarily due to additional grants to current and new employees and increased weighted-average grant date fair value of stock awards.

Stock-based compensation is inherently difficult to forecast due to fluctuations in our stock price. Based upon our stock price as of December 31, 2021, we expect stock-based compensation to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the year ending December 31, 2022 as we continue to issue stock-based awards to our employees, but remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. We expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue to decline over time as we continue to grow.

Foreign Currency Exchange

Our international operations have provided and will continue to provide a significant portion of our total revenues. Revenues outside North America represented 36% and 35% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for sales outside of the United States, the general weakening of the U.S. Dollar relative to other major foreign currencies (primarily the Euro and British Pound Sterling) during the year ended December 31, 2021 had a favorable impact on our revenues. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2021 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2020 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported subscription revenues would have been $77 million lower. The impact from the foreign currency movements was not material for professional services and other revenues for the year ended December 31, 2021.

In addition, because we primarily transact in foreign currencies for cost of revenues and operating expenses outside of the United States, the general weakening of the U.S. Dollar relative to other major foreign currencies had an unfavorable impact on our cost of revenue and sales and marketing expense during the year ended December 31, 2021. For entities reporting in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, if we had translated our results for the year ended December 31, 2021 at the exchange rates in effect for the year ended December 31, 2020 rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the period, our reported cost of revenues and sales and marketing expenses would have been $22 million and $25 million lower for the year ended December 31, 2021, respectively. The impact from the foreign currency movements from the year ended December 31, 2020 to the year ended December 31, 2021 was not material to research and development and general and administrative expenses.

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Interest Expense

Interest expense decreased during the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, due to the decrease in amortization expense of debt discount and issuance costs as a result of lower outstanding principal balance of the 2022 Notes. For the year ending December 31, 2022, we expect to incur approximately $25 million related to the 2030 Notes and 2022 Notes.

Other Income (Expense), net

Other income (expense), net increased by $36 million during the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by the lower loss on extinguishment of the 2022 Notes due primarily to the 2022 Notes Repurchase which occurred in 2020 and a larger amount of early conversions of the 2022 Notes and lower foreign currency exchange losses, mainly offset by a decrease in interest income resulting from the decline in interest rates.

To mitigate our risks associated with fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, we enter into foreign currency derivative contracts with maturities of 12 months or less to hedge a portion of our net outstanding monetary assets and liabilities. These hedging contracts may reduce, but cannot entirely eliminate, the impact of adverse currency exchange rate movements.

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Provision for (benefit from) Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate was 8% and 21% for the years ended December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020. The difference in rates was primarily attributable to the mix of earnings and losses in foreign jurisdictions with differing tax rates, including a revaluation of our deferred taxes to account for a change in the United Kingdom tax rate, and a partial valuation allowance release related to acquired Lightstep, Inc. deferred tax liabilities. See Note 16 in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for our reconciliation of income taxes at the statutory federal rate to the provision for (benefit from) income taxes.

We maintained a full valuation allowance on our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The significant components of the tax expense recorded are current cash taxes payable in various jurisdictions. The cash tax expenses are impacted by each jurisdiction’s individual tax rates, laws on timing of recognition of income and deductions, and availability of net operating losses and tax credits. Given the full valuation allowance on our U.S. federal and state deferred tax assets, sensitivity of current cash taxes to local rules and our foreign structuring, we expect that our effective tax rate could fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis and could be adversely affected to the extent earnings are lower than anticipated in countries that have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries that have higher statutory rates. To the extent sufficient positive evidence becomes available, we may release all or a portion of our valuation allowance in one or more future periods. A release of the valuation allowance, if any, would result in the recognition of certain deferred tax assets and a material income tax benefit for the period in which such release is recorded.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

We generate cash inflows from operations primarily from selling subscription services which are generally paid in advance of provisioning services, and cash outflows to develop new services and core technologies that further enhance the Now Platform, engage our customer and enhance their experience, and enable and transform our business operations. Subscription services arrangements typically have a three-year duration, and we have experienced a renewal rate of 98% over the last three years. Cash outflows from operations are principally comprised of the salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits for our workforce; licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations and data centers; and operating lease arrangements that underlie our facilities. We have generated positive operating cash flows over the last ten years as we continue to grow our business in pursuit of our business strategy, and we expect to grow our business and generate positive cash flows from operations during 2022. When assessing sources of liquidity, we also include cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and long-term investments totaling $4.9 billion as of December 31, 2021.

Our working capital requirements are principally comprised of non-contract workforce salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits and, to a lesser extent, cancellable and non-cancelable licenses and services arrangements that are integral to our business operations, and operating lease obligations. Non-cancelable purchase commitments for business operations total $383 million as of December 31, 2021, due primarily over the next five years. In addition. we expect payment for the investment in Celonis SE of $100 million in the first quarter of 2022. Operating lease obligations totaling $741 million are principally associated with leased facilities and have varying maturities with $418 million due over the next five years.

To grow our business, we also invest in capital and expand our facilities to enable our data centers and workforce and consider strategic acquisitions of technology and businesses to supplement our technology portfolio. Our capital expenditures are typically under cancelable arrangements primarily used to support the installed base and growth of our hosted business. We have also issued long-term debt to finance our business. In August 2020, we issued 1.40% fixed rate ten-year notes with an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion due on September 1, 2030 (the “2030 Notes”). In May and June 2017, we issued the 2022 Notes with an aggregate principal amount of $782.5 million. The remaining principal amount of the 2022 Notes, totaling $92 million, will be settled in cash during the first half of 2022.

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Our free cash flows, together with our other sources of liquidity, are available to service our liabilities as well as our cancellable and non-cancellable arrangements. We anticipate cash flows generated from operations, cash, cash equivalents and investments will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs for at least the next 12 months. As we look beyond the next 12 months, we seek to continue to grow free cash flows necessary to fund our operations and grow our business. If we require additional capital resources, we may seek to finance our operations from the current funds available or additional equity or debt financing.

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities was $2.2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $1.8 billion for the prior year. The net increase in operating cash flow was primarily due to increase in operating income and higher collections driven by revenue growth compared to settlement of payables. In addition, we benefited from a reduction in repayments of 2022 Notes attributable to debt discount.

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2021 was $1.6 billion compared to $1.5 billion for the prior year. The net increase in cash used in investing activities was primarily due to $678 million increase in business combinations, net of cash and restricted cash acquired, and $59 million purchase of new strategic investments offset by $586 million decrease in net purchases of investments.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2021 was $506 million compared to net provided by financing activities of $597 million for the prior year. The change was primarily driven by the $1.5 billion proceeds from the issuance of 2030 Notes in the year ended December 31, 2020, offset by the 2022 Notes Repurchase of $1.6 billion which was funded in part by the proceeds received from the partial unwind of the 2022 Note hedge of $1.1 billion. The remaining change was due to $103 million increase in taxes paid related to net share settlement of equity awards offset by $21 million increase in proceeds from employee equity plans primarily driven by higher share price compared to prior year.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

Our estimated future obligations consist of leases, an agreement to purchase $100 million of common and preferred shares in Celonis SE, purchase obligations, debt and unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2021. Refer to Note 17 “Commitments and Contingencies” and Note 19 “Subsequent Events” to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

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