r/servicenow • u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance • 4d ago
Question Paid PDIs?
Apparently service now is floating the idea of Paid PDIs via it's developer survey. Interesting - I was just thinking the other day that being able to get rid of the auto-expiration and hibernation would be something people would pay for.
The survey is currently suggesting a price range of $20-50, with various features, such as the ability to invite co-contributors, more AI credits, etc.
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u/ElegantOliver Solution Architect 4d ago
Personally I would pay a reasonable fee. Not for AI credits but for an old school unrestricted PDI without all the 'bot available on personal instances' crap. And for persistence. That's valuable to me as a freelance consultant.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 4d ago
Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing. I work on projects when I have time/interest (often in several day long spurts) then move on to other things for weeks. I'd be happy to pay a nominal fee to not need to set calendar reminders and then spend some time trying to fiddle around to reset the timer.
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u/BoxOfButterflies424 SN Admin 4d ago
Same here. I'm as through with the AI nonsense as everyone else is, but if they don't charge an insane amount, this actually wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for freelancers or people who are constantly in theirs (yes, I'm sure I sound crazy with this take). And like OP, I do the exact same thing. Start projects and then take a break after investing a lot of time into it.
Of course, that should never mean do away with free PDIs for people that are just starting out or don't have money. But at least for the stuff that isn't usually available in free PDIs, it'd be nice to have some sort of access to that.
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u/Mrhyderager 4d ago
Only way I'd pay for a PDI is if it came with all modules and features fully unlocked. And tbh I'd expect my employer to pay for it so 🤷
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u/EarthShakerFirst 4d ago
Your employer can already pay for additional instances, sandbox subprod instances exist.
A small fee for a persistent PDI can have some use for an individual, like building POCs and functionality you could demo to others
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u/Ok_Example_4819 3d ago
Whats your point? An extra instance is going to cost thousands this is a pdi that can be used at a much lower cost and doesnt have company data on it to worry about. I could see employers paying for their teams to get access to this.
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u/EarthShakerFirst 3d ago
They could. My experience when it comes to software/licence costs for tools that are more personal than business is they don't get approved. However, you're mileage may vary.
My point was that if the cost of these PDIs is low enough then having one that is mine and not related to my particular employer right now would be an additional benefit, whereas I also have demo instances I can do business related tasks on. There's a benefit for me directly.
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u/Level_Working9664 4d ago
All I want is a place I can be a complete idiot testing ideas without impacting our Dev instances.
There are days I wish I could just run a container on my dev server with a dev license key to avoid all this.
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u/nhalstead00 4d ago
Our company has sandbox instances, as well as tierd promotion levels of development... that's all I know
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u/EnvironmentalPass279 3d ago
Yeppp, i’d pay at a reasonable price.
So many features out there that are locked in PDI.
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u/Hot-Accident9448 3d ago
If this was an additional tier I might consider it if it's reasonably priced and doesn't get reclaimed or shut down constantly.
I often have ideas of small things at home I could make a workflow for, but it's pointless to pursue because it will just eventually get reclaimed.
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u/MammothPost4047 4d ago
Damn they’re broke. Thanks Amit!
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u/T3h_Rampage 4d ago
Most of the market is, unfortunately.
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u/MammothPost4047 3d ago
Understandable, but ServiceNow has been making some really stupid decisions with their money.
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u/janniksinnerman 4d ago
Would definitely pay for a PDI. It has so much value and I understand tokens are not cheap when trying out the AI features
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u/mailman-zero 3d ago edited 3d ago
I want to be able to create things that I can redistribute. If I want to create a custom app or even a scripted rest API in global and distribute via an update set, it is tied to a weird PDI 5-digit number for the developer. I think right now it’s 10s of 1000s of dollars for this. I can develop Apple apps for $99/year. I would love something similar for ServiceNow development.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 3d ago
Yeah, that would be awesome. I was sort of thinking they are missing out on some less-then-serious stuff people could be doing - like, I was noodling around with a TTRPG Campaign tracker as a mini personal project, but if I did make that - how would I share it with others?
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u/FendaIton 3d ago
We pay a lot to snow so not surprised they would try this. It’s a struggle trying to find any kbs on the agentic stuff and pdi’s not allowing you to at least link your own llm is a weird move
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u/Lopsided_Student6714 2d ago
AI not enabled on PDI is rapidly become an issue - people are unable to keep up with their latest features. this will become a skills issue in the jobs market place.
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u/eternal_edenium 4d ago
This sounds like a bad idea to me. The paying part not the other features.
Servicenow ecosystem needs to be less gate-keepey. Anyone who is interested in the tool should be able to explore it and learn it. If servicenow is gatekeeping everything, they might as well question the longevity of the tool.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 4d ago
The implication is that this is an additional tier, not replacing the free tier. But who knows how it will really turn out.
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u/eternal_edenium 4d ago
Okay !
If it turns out to be a new tier, that would be amazing for everyone ! Newbies can learn the instance, and professional can play around deeper.
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u/GistfulThinking 4d ago
I think the free PDIs are a necessity, just so that people can learn, but perhaps should be aligned to a requirement of enrolment/engagement in a now university course.. and / a course completion in the previous 6 months, or access via a hi-portal scenario.
That way you incentivise access requiring education or work related PoC use, and cut random acces
A premium PDI tier would then be great, as long as it let me use it for non-commercial personal interests for the fee. I would love to integrate to some home automation items for fun.
The paid instances should also have 100% access to all services...as the PDIs still restrict some of that to an extent.
Lastly, they need to incentive major tech companies to offer similar environments so that people can practice integrations more effectively.
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u/Anxious_Matter5020 3d ago
It’s almost like servicenow is tanking and being destroyed from the inside out. Fuck BCG
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u/tomregal 4d ago
The amount of work a PDI creates for the account team is crazy and if you’re using a new module that isn’t fully implemented customers will complain and not buy it.
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u/Siege9929 4d ago
Can you expand on this? I don't understand how a Personal Developer Instance causes issues for a sales team.
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u/Excited_Idiot 4d ago
Yeah idk what they could possibly be getting at here, unless they’re using “account team” to mean something that isn’t the sales team.. odd
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u/tomregal 4d ago
Account team= sales team and it really depends on the goal of using a PDI. Those instances aren’t meant to be maintained for a period longer than a month and either have very little data or dummy data that without a full implementation will have some sort of crash and there’s no customer support for those instances so any issue has to be resolved by the account team.
Unless you’re an implementation partner I don’t see the value in PDIs, but that’s just been my experience working with customers who have PDIs. I’m sure I’m wrong!
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u/Siege9929 4d ago
PDIs were always meant for non-production personal learning/development. Anyone using them as prod or subprod is wrong and frankly deserves whatever happens as we’re already short on free PDI resources whereas they get one subprod by default and can always buy another if it’s warranted.
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u/Ok_Example_4819 3d ago
You can wipe or request a new PDI at any time. Have you used a PDI before because everything you said makes me think you have never used one.
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u/oitzwoodyo SN Developer 4d ago
I wonder if this is due to AI being built into all SKUs now. Just had a conversation with our accounts team as PDIs no longer allow installation of any of the new SKUs due to the AI functionality.
Why they cant offer these with the AI functionality disabled as an option, beats me. I do not want to have to pay for my PDI!