Clarification on Business Stakeholder licensing vs approvals (individual vs group, portal/email)

[KarlM2028925969]

Hi ServiceNow Community,

We’re looking for clarification on how Business Stakeholder licensing applies in approval scenarios, as the distinction is not entirely clear to us.

Specifically, we are trying to understand what actions actually require a Business Stakeholder license, and whether changing approval design (individual vs group) has any licensing impact.

Our scenario:

We have approval workflows built using Flow Designer / approvals.

Today, some approvals are assigned to individual users.

We are considering switching to group-based approvals for better maintainability.

Ideally, approvals would be handled via email notifications or simple approval actions, without requiring approvers to actively work records.

Our key questions:

Does assigning a user to an approval group require a Business Stakeholder license?

If a user:

approves via email only, or

approves via a simple portal / approval UI,
does that alone require a Business Stakeholder license?

Is the Business Stakeholder license required based on:

the approval action itself, or

the user’s broader platform access (e.g. dashboards, lists, reports, record visibility)?

Can an organization safely use group approvals without assigning Business Stakeholder licenses to every group member, assuming those users are approval-only?

Are there any limitations or blockers when using group approvals in an email-only approval scenario from a licensing perspective?

What’s unclear to us

We understand that Business Stakeholder is a paid, named-user license, but it’s not fully clear where the line is drawn between:

approval-only users (email / lightweight approval), and

users who require Business Stakeholder licenses due to platform access or visibility.

Any clarification, official references, or real-world examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[AndersBGS]

Hi @KarlM2028925969 ,

Such a question should be brought forward to your ServiceNow sales representative to get the complete and correct understanding. From my own understanding of the roles, then business stakeholder license is required if the approver will approve through the employee center / portals. If the approver only approves through emails, then I don't believe the stakeholder license is required. 

Above is just from top of mind, but again, better ask your ServiceNow sales representative.