ServiceNow allegedly says salesman 'overachieved' and is not entitled to comp
- Reference: 1774968912
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/31/servicenow_says_salesman_overachieved_and/
- Source link:
Jorge Costa, who is still employed by ServiceNow as the public sector sales leader in Washington, D.C., is demanding a jury trial and payment of $761,974, double the $380,987 in commissions he says he is owed for closing two massive federal contracts: one in 2024 and another in 2025, according to [1]the suit [PDF] filed last month in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
In its own [2]filing [PDF], ServiceNow has denied all of Costa's claims. It wants a federal judge to move the legal fight out of the courts and to arbitration, citing Costa's 2012 employment agreement.
[3]
ServiceNow did not reply to an email from The Register seeking comment. A lawyer for ServiceNow told The Register that she could not immediately discuss the suit. Neither Costa nor his lawyers replied to The Register .
[4]
[5]
Costa writes in the complaint that, for the first 12 years of his job, ServiceNow consistently paid his commissions, but all that changed in September 2024 when he closed a $7.3 million deal with a federal customer.
"(Costa's) then-manager told (him) that (ServiceNow) would not pay this commission because the Sales Compensation Department had concluded that (Costa) had 'overachieved to a degree that was outside normal' in relation to his sales quota. In other words, (ServiceNow) believed (Costa) had made too much money," the suit states. "Notwithstanding that (Costa's) commission was only a small percentage of the revenue recognized and received by (ServiceNow)."
[6]
Rather than pay the $236,845 that Costa was owed on that deal, Costa says his supervisor asked him to sign paperwork that would retroactively raise his quota to a higher dollar figure, which would eliminate many of the incentives that had fattened the commission he would otherwise be entitled.
Costa refused.
In August 2025, Costa again closed a massive federal deal, this time for $20 million, which under the terms of his compensation plan for 2025 would have entitled him to $144,142 and he was again told the commission was too large, the lawsuit states.
[7]
The sales operations manager placed a hold on his payment telling Costa's supervisor via email that he had "overperformed" and should sign a retroactive deal that doubled his target in order to reduce the amount of the commission.
Costa refused to sign the paperwork both times and, as a result, ServiceNow has now "nullified" his commissions for those deals, according to the filing.
"The 2024 Plan and 2025 Plan both provide 'that earned commissions shall not be adversely affected retroactively.'" Costa's lawsuit states. "Despite this, (ServiceNow) retroactively nullified (Costa's) two commissions after he had earned them."
Costa said that, to calculate the value of the commissions, the deals were entered in Varicent, which he said is the internal system that ServiceNow uses to tally how much its salespeople are owed on the deals they close.
[8]ServiceNow boasts its AI bot is resolving 90% of its own help desk tickets
[9]ServiceNow boss warns AI could push grad unemployment past 30%
[10]AIOps is so powerful, vendors are building tools to clean up after agents break your infrastructure
[11]ServiceNow can't seem to keep its wallet closed, snaps up small AI analytics company
The amount that is calculated is paid at the end of the month, Costa says, which had always been the case until he “overachieved.”
“(ServiceNow) promised to pay (Costa) commissions earned on the September 24, 2024 and August 15, 2025 sales by (i) issuing (ServiceNow’s) 2024 and 2025 Sales Compensation Plans; (ii) approving the commissions; and (iii) entering the commission amounts into Varicent,” Costa’s lawsuit states.
Varicent has [12]written about its work tracking and streamlining ServiceNow’s sales commission process, and ServiceNow’s vice president of global sales compensation Rick Butler provided the company with a [13]video testimonial .
“The team has done a great job of making sure that it is flexible for our needs. Making sure it has the ability to handle what we might need in the future. Plus, the services and support that we’ve gotten from Varicent have been exceptional,” Butler stated in the video.
The parties are awaiting a ruling on whether the case must move to arbitration or will continue in court. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2026/03/30/servicenowsalesmancomplaint.pdf
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2026/03/30/servicenowanswersalesmancomplaint.pdf
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2acvvo26g2RvR1Zy6bgvwuwAAAgc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44acvvo26g2RvR1Zy6bgvwuwAAAgc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33acvvo26g2RvR1Zy6bgvwuwAAAgc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44acvvo26g2RvR1Zy6bgvwuwAAAgc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33acvvo26g2RvR1Zy6bgvwuwAAAgc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/26/servicenow_ai_bot_helpdesk_tickets/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/16/servicenow_grad_jobs_ai/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/10/agentic_ai_rollback_recovery_cohesity/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/14/servicenow_buys_pyramid_analytics_to/
[12] https://www.varicent.com/customers/servicenow
[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86wNL7PwnA8&t=46s
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The Oracle gambit
Perhaps the lower-middle management are feeling threatened by someone below them overachieving?
Wouldn't want to come under pressure from the middle-middle management to maybe match that sort of performance.
Better to just shit on the sales dudes excellent performance and pretend like nothing happened, and nobody will know a thing. Well, that worked out well!
ServiceNow have achieved the impossible
They have made me feel sympathy for someone in sales.
I may even be taking his side.
And I suspect I'm not alone.
What evil is this, that it can move us so unnaturally? Shall we see it vanquished, or will we be forced to ally with salespeople evermore? Ye gods, I hope not... we live in such strange and desperate times!
Bill Lumbergh unavailable for comment
Initech ServiceNow should be asking itself whether screwing a motivated employee out of an earned paycheck was worth demotivating every other employee who will now wonder if they're next.
Might as well just fix the payroll "glitch" and start moving employees down to the basement. Sales might actually go up if everyone at Initech ServiceNow has to work from home for a while and not put up with these shitty managers.
Management Bonuses
I assume the problem for "ServiceNow" is that the bonus of this salesperson will come out of the bonuses of his management team. Or worse, he might get a bigger bonus than his bosses!
That is not how this is supposed to go.
The sums involved are not even that high for high performance sales roles.
This seems really penny pinching from ServiceNow, but we know they like to penny pinch when it comes to things like UX and UI design too.
I presume his base salary reflected his targets as well. If they want to raise his target, they need to accept that means he needs a higher base salary to reflect that.
I suspect that he will win this in the end. In the meantime I expect record low sales for the company due to motivation issues.
Penny wise and pound foolish.
Wonder how much HR spends on recruiting and corporate team building exercises. In manager speak, it would seem the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing -- except in this case, it seems the left hand picked up a hammer and started smashing the right hand's fingers.
SAP has a more upto date and easier-to-develop/customize product that they've pitched DIRECTLY against Servicenow.
They need to snaffle this guy with a big sign-up bonus, as well as all the other "over performers" in Servicenow.
Obviously Servicenow will be happy to see these nasty terrible salespeople who CONSTANTLY keep selling a metric shit-ton of product on vast lucrative contracts go out the door ASAP.....
SAP has a big opportunity to essentially cripple Servicenow. Steal their marketing, salespeople, even tech support who if THEY overperform will also be punished.....
Take the cream of the crop from them whilst the chance presents itself and watch Servicenow crash n burn.
So work hard and you'll be rewawded, they said ...
Seems that rewards are only for the C-Suite, not for the working plebs.
Sign a contract, work hard, acheive stellar levels ... get stiffed. I can see that a deal with Salesforce can be basically changed whenever they like. Thus, I'm making a mental note to put them in the same bin as Oracle.
"Let them eat cake", indeed.
Disgusted, but not surprised
A long time ago in $BIG_CORP it was announced with much fanfare that salaries below the relevant paybands would be raised to the minimum of said paybands. I was happy to hear that as it meant I could give one of my guys (a hard worker, produced results - and this wasn't even someone who made gazillions) a 15% raise so I swiftly entered that in the HR system.
It didn't take long for my manager and then HR (both had to finally approve before it would be processed) to call me and ask if I had lost my mind. "Give him 5% now and next year we'll see what we can do". My protests concerning following the process were ignored.
Plus ça change...
well that took me 5mins of checking.
Someone high-up in Servicenow is trying to dash the company against the rocks, lower its value and buy it out. Two guesses who it is!!!!!!!
So they're driving their top salespeople away, are about to instigate a MASSIVE (and possibly illegal) Fire & Rehire, lowering a vast number of employees salaries by 22%.
Triggering a brain drain so the company can be subject to a cheap and very illegal takeover.
IRS and SEC need to become involved as this is direct shareprice manipulation AND Insider Trading.
> IRS and SEC need to become involved as this is direct shareprice manipulation AND Insider Trading.
I'm sure they'll get right on that after they nail the bigger crooks.
[1]The Hill: Murphy on ‘$1.5 BILLION’ stock trade before Trump Iran announcement: ‘Mind blowing corruption’
"Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Monday drew attention to an unusually large oil stock trade that occurred moments before President Trump announced a five-day pause on previously threatened energy infrastructure strikes in Iran, indicating it appeared be a case of insider trading."
"In an X post highlighted by Murphy, a stock market watcher said, 'In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold.'”
"'$1.5 BILLION. Let me say it again – a $1.5 BILLION BET. Bigger than any futures purchases made at the time. 5 minutes before Trump’s post,' Murphy wrote in his own post."
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5798756-murphy-trump-oil-iran-insider-trading/
Time to move on?
'overachieved to a degree that was outside normal' in relation to his sales quota.
So what is the problem?
Do those dullards in higher management not realise that the more this salesman sells the more money Servicenow will ultimately make?
Surely the very act of closing such deals will be self-financing, if it is not why have incentives in the first place?
Of course it could be insecurity in the higher management or just plain jealousy.
Oh, why is the man still working for such a bunch of arseholes?
The Oracle gambit
I normally associate these tactics with Oracle, but I'm not surprised to see them here since they seem endemic to the tech industry. I don't understand, at all, the thinking behind these decisions by management to screw over the sales team. Keeping one's contractual agreements with staff ought to be a simple enough matter of ethics, good business, and law, but time and time again, I read stories like this. I would also think the company would *want* the sales team to overachieve and reward them proportionally since that means more revenue for the company.