ServiceNow is a public company with no controlling owner. Its only holders above 5% are BlackRock (8.8%) and Vanguard (8.7%); founder Fred Luddy and CEO Bill McDermott each own under 1%, per ServiceNow’s 2026 proxy statement.
Correction (10 Oct 2026): earlier versions of this page showed undated or unsourced ownership figures. Ownership now comes from ServiceNow’s ServiceNow 2026 proxy statement; the rest of the article is kept as it was.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q, prospectus and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number; outside estimates appear only labelled, with their source and date. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
ServiceNow’s 2026 proxy statement lists BlackRock (91,252,660 shares, 8.8%) and The Vanguard Group (90,591,730, 8.7%) as its only 5% holders. CEO William McDermott owns 2,212,904 shares and founder Frederic Luddy 768,565, each under 1%.
The Business Engineer view
ServiceNow is a professionally managed company owned by index funds. Its founder stepped back years ago, and today its AI-agent strategy is sold to shareholders through growth and margin targets rather than founder conviction.
ServiceNow is an American cloud-computing platform that manages digital workflows for enterprise operations. The company is primarily owned by institutional investors, like Vanguard Group (8.4% ownership), BlackRock (7.8% ownership), and T. Rowe Price Associates (7.4% ownership). The top individual investor is Fred Luddy, the company’s founder. He stepped down as CEO of ServiceNow in 2011 and now has an advisory role within the company. By 2023, he owned 164,777 company stocks.
ServiceNow is an American cloud-computing platform that manages digital workflows for enterprise operations. The company is primarily owned by institutional investors, like Vanguard Group (8.4% ownership), BlackRock (7.8% ownership), and T. Rowe Price Associates (7.4% ownership). The top individual investor is Fred Luddy, the company’s founder. He stepped down as CEO of ServiceNow in 2011 and now has an advisory role within the company. By 2023, he owned 164,777 company stocks.
ServiceNow is an American cloud-computing platform designed to manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. The company was founded as Glidesoft in 2003 by Fred Luddy. ServiceNow makes approximately 97% of its revenue through subscription fees, with the exact fee a client has to pay dependent upon the features they require and the level of customization. ServiceNow makes money from professional services, defined as any activity the company performs to help clients maximize platform value. ServiceNow also makes money by offering customer training.
ServiceNow generates most of its revenue from subscriptions. In 2023 the company generated $8.68 billion in revenue in 2023, $6.89 in 2022, and $5.57 billion in 2021.
In 2023 ServiceNow generated $8.68 billion in subscription revenues, of which $7.68 billion in Digital workflow products and a billion dollars in ITOM products.
Gross margins from subscription services were reported to be over 81%, thus making its subscriptionbusiness critical to sustaining the ServiveNow businessmodel. While gross margins from professional services are negative, the professional services segment is instrumental from a retention standpoint, as it is an enabler of the subscriptionbusiness.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
