question Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined? in Community Central forum

Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Sreeram Nair — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 22:13:51 GMT

Hi everyone,

I’ve noticed something interesting about the ranking system in the ServiceNow Community and wanted to get some clarity on how user levels are actually determined.

When comparing two community profiles, I saw that a user with a very high number of posts, solutions, and helpfuls has a lower level, while another user with far fewer visible contributions has reached a much higher level.
Example:

This made me wonder:

What factors determine overall community levels?

It seems that the level does not depend only on the visible stats such as:

Number of posts
Number of solutions
Helpfuls received
Helpfuls given
Badges displayed

So, I’m curious to understand:

1. What activities contribute most to leveling up?

2. Why do some users with fewer visible contributions reach higher levels?

3. Is there any official documentation or guidance on how levels are calculated?

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

GlideFather — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 23:12:08 GMT

Hi @Sreeram Nair,

https://www.servicenow.com/community/recognition-rewards/ct-p/rewards

There's explained everything that you asked

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Sreeram Nair — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 23:50:33 GMT

I saw that but did you see the example. very less solutions and helpful give but still Giga Sage. I have seen profiles with 100 times more contributions but still may be Mega Sage or lower.

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Simon Hendery — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 03:10:16 GMT

Yeah, there's definitely some secret sauce in there somewhere, and none of us will ever see the recipe. 😆 😆

While we're on the subject: a couple of things that annoy me:

1. It's a 'fail upwards' model. This means, if you keep pumping out stuff, regardless of the good/mediocre/garbage ratio, you'll keep leveling up.

2. The 'current Ranks and number of the Community members who have achieved each ranking' info on the page @GlideFather referenced is about 3 years out of date!

ServiceNow is a database solutions company. How hard would it be for someone to make this info display live??

@Dan Bruhn - I'm looking at you, buddy. I was in a Rising Star webinar two years ago when this question was raised and you said you'd look into it. Still waiting 😁 😁. But seriously, please at least update the 3-year-old info that's sitting there.

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Sreeram Nair — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:31:21 GMT

Even if we assume it's a 'fail upwards' model. It still doesn't explain that someone with just 1 post and 50 odd replies getting 'Giga Sage'

Quite strange. I have also seen people jump 4-5 levels directly and Ta-Da 😂

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Simon Hendery — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:51:22 GMT

Yes, that's definitely suspicious.

I recall 2-3 years ago there was some kind of data migration that impacted a lot of users. Maybe this is related to the ongoing fallout?

To be blunt, it would be nice if people like @Dan Bruhn engaged a bit more with the Community because they're the only ones that can answer this type of question.

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Sreeram Nair — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 23:27:38 GMT

Ya, I already saw a ton of questions regarding Community Points and Levels But, sadly not much interaction with the comments from @Dan Bruhn

Re: Community Levels: How Are User Levels Determined?

Simon Hendery — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 23:34:32 GMT

There's a tiny, tiny minority of ServiceNow staff who are excellent expert contributors to the Community. The rest are nowhere to be seen.

Then again, let's be honest. The whole purpose of the Community is to deflect work away from ServiceNow staff. Why pay people to answer technical questions about your products when you can set up a forum and volunteers will do that job for free?! 😆 😆