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Release: Australia · Updated: 2026-03-12 · Official documentation · View source

Types of subscriptions in Subscription Management

Subscriptions to ServiceNow applications come in different types. The type of subscription determines the allocation of users, access to applications, and custom application and table entitlements.

Each type of product subscription is measured according to a meter. For details on the different types of meters and what they measure see KB0727967.

Subscription typeAssociated meter typesUsage allocation methodDescription
Capacity- Devices - Subscription Units - TransactionsNo manual steps are required. Usage is automatically calculated and shown in your instance.Automatically tracks measured units, and counts of transactions, records created, or resources managed such as devices, software, or nodes.
Display OnlyNoneAllocation isn't measuredDisplays information. This type of subscription doesn't support allocation.
Per-User- Rights-based user: measure of Fulfiller Users and Business Stakeholder Users - Application user: measure of users with any level of access to a product; includes Creator UsersManually allocatedProvides entitlements to users according to their assigned roles and associated access rights. You allocate per-user subscriptions manually by adding groups with measured roles or access rights to a product subscription. Subscription Management helps you with the allocation process by recommending groups based on their role assignments.
UnlimitedUnlimited: No measurement limitAutomatically allocated by your instanceProvides entitlements to users, with no limit to the number of users that can be allocated.
Unrestricted UserUnrestricted user: Instance-wide measure of all active usersAutomatically allocated by your instanceProvides entitlements for an organization's number of active users regardless of their role assignments. An active user is any user whose record in the Users [sys_user] table has a value in the User ID field and has the Active field set to true.

Parent Topic:Subscription Management reference