Copyright fool
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at 5 p.m. ET CALL PARTICIPANTS Chief Executive Officer — Julie Iskow Chief Financial Officer — Jill Klindt Chief Strategy Officer — Mike Rost Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email [email protected] Total Revenue -- Total revenue was $224 million for Q3 2025, up 21% year-over-year, exceeding the high end of guidance by $4 million. Subscription Revenue -- Subscription revenue was $210 million for Q3 2025, up 23% from Q3 2024, with new customers from the past twelve months contributing 40% of the increase. Customers -- 6,541 at quarter-end, a net increase of 304 from Q3 2024. Customer Retention -- Gross retention rate was 97%, above the 96% target; Net retention rate reached 114%, up from 111% in Q3 2024, with a 1% positive impact from foreign currency. Large Contracts -- Contracts with annual value over $100,000 increased 23% to 2,372 as of the end of Q2 2025; Contracts over $300,000 rose 41% to 541, up from Q3 2024; Contracts over $500,000 grew 42% to 236, up from Q3 2024. Non-GAAP Operating Margin -- Non-GAAP operating margin was 12.7% for Q3 2025, beating the high end of guidance by 470 basis points and an improvement of 860 basis points compared to Q3 2024. Professional Services Revenue -- Professional services revenue was $15 million for Q3 2025, flat year-over-year versus Q3 2024, with lower setup and consulting services offset by higher XBRL services. Cash, Equivalents, and Marketable Securities -- $857 million as of September 30, 2025, up $43 million from the prior quarter-end. Share Repurchase -- 126,000 shares were repurchased for $10 million in Q3 2025, leaving $40 million remaining under the $100 million authorization as of September 30, 2025. Remaining Performance Obligations -- $701 million expected to be recognized in the next twelve months, up 21% year-over-year for Q3 2025. Multi-Solution Adoption -- 73% of subscription revenue was generated from customers using multiple solutions, up from 68% a year ago. International Revenue -- Revenue outside the Americas represented over 19% of total revenue year to date, up from 17% year-to-date in 2024. Full Year 2025 Guidance Raised -- Non-GAAP operating margin is now projected at 9.2%-9.4% (a 200 basis point increase at the midpoint) for the full year; Subscription growth is expected to be at least 21% year-over-year for FY2025; Free cash flow margin guidance for FY2025 increased to approximately 12%. Q4 2025 Guidance -- Total revenue is expected in the range of $234 million to $236 million for Q4 2025; Non-GAAP operating margin guidance is set at 16.7%-17.4% for Q4 2025; services revenue expected to decline from Q4 2024. Leadership Changes -- Michael Hawkins has stepped down as executive vice president and chief sales officer; Michael Pinto appointed as executive vice president and chief revenue officer to lead global sales, partnerships, and commercial operations. AI-powered Platform -- Company launched AgenTik AI extensions and introduced intelligent finance, intelligent sustainability, and intelligent GRC capabilities during its Amplify conference. Workiva Inc. (WK +0.29%) delivered total and subscription revenue growth above guidance for Q3 2025, driven by customer expansion and a notable increase in larger contract wins. The company highlighted new product capabilities and the broad adoption of its AI-powered platform across major international and industry segments. The raised financial guidance for full year 2025 reflects both sustained topline momentum and improved operating leverage. Leadership transitioned with the appointment of a new chief revenue officer to support the next phase of growth, while succession planning for the CFO position remains in process. CEO Iskow emphasized the company's competitive differentiation in consolidating financial and nonfinancial reporting, citing customer momentum in adopting unified platform solutions. Financial services and GRC sectors experienced substantial expansion activity, including multi-solution and partner-led deals with several large global clients. Despite leadership transitions, management stated, "our disciplined execution and our operating rigor position us to deliver additional leverage over time." Announced and executed organizational productivity measures span sales structure, process automation, and fiscal discipline, with the intent to sustain durable margin expansion. INDUSTRY GLOSSARY GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance): An integrated approach to managing governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance, often delivered through specialized software solutions. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language): A global standard for exchanging business information, widely used in financial and regulatory reporting. CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive): European Union regulation mandating detailed sustainability reporting from certain large companies. ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board): An organization that develops international standards for sustainability-related disclosures. SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act): U.S. legislation establishing requirements for financial reporting and internal controls at public companies. AgenTik AI: Proprietary AI technology extensions launched by Workiva to enhance automation and intelligence in their platform solutions. Full Conference Call Transcript Katie White: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Workiva's Q3 2025 Conference Call. During today's call, we will review our third quarter results and discuss our guidance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Today's call will include comments from our Chief Executive Officer, Julie Iskow, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Jill Klindt. We will then open up the call for a Q&A session where we will be joined by Mike Rost, our Chief Strategy Officer. After market close today, we issued a press release which is available on our Investor Relations website along with supplemental materials. This conference call is being webcast live. Following the call, an audio replay will be available on our website. During today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events and financial performance, including guidance for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025. These forward-looking statements are based on our assumptions as to the macroeconomic, political, and regulatory environment as of today, reflect our best judgment based on factors currently known to us, and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Workiva cautions that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements. If the call is reviewed after today, the information presented during this call may not contain current or accurate information. Please refer to the company's annual report on Form 10-Ks and subsequent filings with the SEC for factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements. Also, during the course of today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included in today's press release. With that, we'll begin by turning the call over to Workiva's CEO, Julie Iskow. Julie Iskow: Thank you, Katie. Thank you all for joining us today. In 2025, we delivered another quarter of strong financial performance powered by the continued demand for our broad portfolio of solutions and our AI-powered platform. We beat the high end of our revenue guidance with 23% growth in subscription revenue and 21% growth in total revenue. On a year-to-date basis, we've delivered 22% subscription growth and 20% total revenue growth. This performance underscores the resilience of our business and the focused execution by our team at Workiva and our partners. As a result of the Q3 revenue beat, we're increasing our full year 2025 revenue guidance. We continue to deliver value to the market because we focus on customer needs. Our customers need to trust the numbers they're disclosing. They need to provide transparency across their business, both financial and nonfinancial information. And, yes, they must be accountable with assurance as a requirement every step of the way. So our customers are looking to us and our platform to solve their most challenging problems. This value we deliver to our customers is highlighted by the continued growth in our large contract cohorts. In Q3, the number of contracts valued over $100,000 increased 23%. Those over $300,000 increased 41%, and contracts valued over $500,000 increased 42%, all compared to 2024. This large contract growth was driven by both additional solution sales within our existing customer base and the landing of larger new logo deals. At the same time, we delivered a non-GAAP operating margin of 12.7%. This is a 470 basis point beat on the high end of our guide. It's also an 860 basis point improvement compared to 2024. With this margin beat, we're raising our full year 2025 non-GAAP operating margin guide by 200 basis points at the midpoint. These results reflect our continued focus on durable growth and meaningful margin improvement. They also demonstrate tangible progress toward our medium and our long-term operating margin targets. We believe that our disciplined execution and our operating rigor position us to deliver additional leverage over time. I'll move on now to provide some representative Q3 deals. These customer wins provide meaningful insight into our business. They highlight the breadth of our solution portfolio, the location and the types of customers that we're selling to, and the role that our partners play in the adoption and the of our platform in the market. I'd like to start off with a few deals that demonstrate our continued success as a global platform company. First, a top five global pharmaceutical company signed a mid-figure two solution account expansion deal for sustainability reporting and policy management. Already a thirteen-year loyal SEC reporting customer, they nearly tripled their spend with a platform expansion into the GRC and sustainability solution categories. This global organization invested in the Workiva platform to support their sustainability roadmap. The roadmap includes requirements across CSRD, ISSB, and other local requirements in some of the 100 plus countries in which they operate. The deal was sourced and will be delivered by a big four firm. Second, a North American and media company signed a mid-6 figure account expansion deal for four solutions. The deal included audit management, controls management, operational risk, and sustainability. This nine-year loyal SEC customer more than doubled their spend with this account expansion and now uses six solutions on the platform. There were several business drivers behind this deal. They included replacing multiple GRC solutions and consolidating on a single platform to drive efficiency and cost savings. Enabling risk mitigation across sustainability and operations, and providing support for an integrated annual report combining both financial and nonfinancial information. Workiva was the only solution evaluated that could address all three of these requirements on a single platform. The deal was sourced and will be implemented by a big four firm. And third, closed a high 6 figure expansion deal with a European-based energy services company. The deal covers six solutions, sustainability reporting, controls management, enterprise risk management, policy management, compliance, and operational risk management. The customer first adopted Workiva back in 2022 for e-reporting. It has since increased its annual spend more than eightfold now exceeding $1,000,000 in annual subscription revenue. This was a competitive win over multiple GRC solution providers and multiple sustainability reporting solutions. The deal was sourced, and will be delivered by a big four firm. Our deal momentum extends beyond platform-wide wins. We continue to land and expand with the financial reporting category which remains a durable growth area for us. A key financial reporting driver is our multi-entity reporting solution purpose-built for multinational organizations managing complex global structures, and operations. A strong Q3 example of a multi-entity reporting deal is a 7 figure expansion with a leading global oil and gas company. This customer more than doubled its spend and now leverages a six Workiva solutions. As part of a multiyear financial transformation, tied to ERP consolidation and an s four HANA migration, Workiva will enable the modernization of their local statutory reporting across 300 legal entities. This deal was sourced will be delivered by a regional consulting firm. Another example of our multi-entity reporting deal momentum is a mid-6 figure account expansion with a US-based global manufacturing company who's been a Workiva customer for fourteen years. The deal adds two financial reporting solutions, multi-entity reporting and regulated financial reporting. And it increases the customer's annual spend nearly fourfold. Both solutions replace legacy manual processes previously managed through desktop tools. The deal was sourced and will be delivered by a regional consulting firm. Expansion deals aren't the only driver of financial reporting growth. A strong new logo win in Q3 was a four solution deal with a European export credit corporation. The customer adopted Workiva for SEC reporting ECEF reporting, bank regulatory reporting, and sustainability. They're pursuing two major initiatives, standardizing SEC and ESIF reporting on a single platform and preparing for CSRD compliance as a wave one filer. Workiva was the only solution evaluated that could support their integrated reporting requirements across both sustainability and financial reporting. This deal was a co-sell will be delivered by a big four firm. I'd like to move on now to one of our vertical-specific solution categories. Financial services. And I'll highlight just a few of our Q3 wins in this vertical. First, we secured a mid-6 figure new logo with one of Europe's top 10 banks. The customer adopted five solutions SEC reporting, ESEF reporting, sustainability reporting, multi-entity reporting, and bank regulatory reporting. The deal replaces multiple on-premise systems and manual spreadsheet-driven processes. Multiple big four and global consulting firms participated in the co-sell effort. Delivery is to be executed through several Workiva partners. Second, we closed a 7 figure new logo with a European fund services administrator. This was for fund reporting. This was a competitive win over the incumbent on-premise software solution. The customer selected Workiva for two key reasons. Our ability to scale reporting across 2,500 funds, and our platform's clear differentiation from legacy technology. The deal was sourced and will be implemented by a big four firm. Turning to sustainability. Demand remains steady as organizations respond to expanding stakeholder and evolving regulatory mandates. First, a top five global payments provider signed a 6 figure expansion for Workiva Carbon. They purchased our carbon solution to support multiple regulatory frameworks as well as the California climate disclosure rules. The deal replaced a legacy carbon accounting system and represented a competitive win over four alternative solutions. The customer has been publishing a global impact report for seven years. Aligning its disclosures with GRI, SASB, UNGC, and the UN SDGs. But it found that its prior carbon accounting system was insufficient to meet the evolving requirements. This deal was a co-sell and will be delivered by a big four firm. Second, a top five Australian bank signed a 6 figure expansion for sustainability reporting. It was to meet the new Australian sustainability reporting standards AASB s one and s two. These standards require sustainability disclosures within annual filings, and they cover governance, strategy, risk management, and scope one, two, and three emissions. Australia's approach demonstrates how regulators are embedding sustainability into financial reporting through ISSB alignment. Approximately 1,000 organizations qualify as group one filers with the first mandatory reports due June 30, 2026, for June year-end entities. This deal was sourced and will be implemented by a big four firm. Let's move on now to GRC. Which in Q3 included several notable wins. First, a US financial holding company signed a mid-6 figure expansion for enterprise risk management. A Workiva SEC reporting customer since 2012 this firm has expanded into seven solutions across the platform, including multi-entity reporting, living will, stress testing, bank regulatory reporting, sustainability reporting, and now enterprise risk management. This most recent expansion increased annual spend by 25%. The new solution will centralize 45 internal enterprise risk reports covering risk metrics categories, subcategories, and risk statements. The deal was a co-sell and will be implemented by a big four firm. Second, a US-based regional community bank signed a multi-6 figure expansion for three GRC solutions. Controls management, operational risk management, and policy management. A thirteen-year SEC reporting customer, the bank now uses five Workiva solutions. This expansion more than tripled its annual spend. The deal was sourced and will be delivered by a regional consulting firm. Wrapping up our solutions section, here are a few highlights on capital markets. Q3 saw a notable uptick in IPO activity. Workiva supported several high-profile IPO listings, including Figma, Klarna, HeartFlow, and Shoulder Innovations. For Workiva, an improving capital markets environment extends well beyond the s one filings. First, we engage with private companies years before they go public through our private company reporting and internal control solutions. We believe that a stronger IPO outlook increases the incentive for companies to invest early in scalable reporting processes. And second, more SEC registrants expand the addressable market for additional Workiva solutions including SEC and SOX reporting, even in instances where we're not directly involved in the s one. We are encouraged by Q3 IPO activity and the economic environment supporting the rebound. We're optimistic that the IPO momentum will continue into Q4 once the US government shutdown ends. Let's shift focus to discuss innovation. In September, we hosted Amplify, our annual user conference. We welcomed over 2,300 customers, partners, and in Washington DC. We showcased our commitment to innovation, and we launched product enhancements to continue to meet and exceed our customers' growing expectations. During the event, we now several AgenTik AI extensions, and we launched intelligent finance, intelligent sustainability, and intelligent GRC. In Each delivers specialized fit for purpose capabilities that enhance customer speed, agility, and confidence. These offerings leverage the fact that the work platform is intelligence ready. Being intelligence ready means that all data and narratives are structured, consistent, traceable, interpretable, machine-readable, and built with context not just content. This is what differentiates Workiva. Our reports are structured, validated data products. Not static documents. They allow AI and automation to read, reconcile, and publish with full lineage, embedded controls, regulator-grade assurance. We also embed global frameworks and taxonomies directly into the platform, transforming every into a machine interpretable data product. As a result, AI can operate without guessing what's material how metrics are defined, or how to compare them. With Workiva AI at the core of our unified platform, we're delivering an intelligent companion that enables customers to achieve their most critical outcomes faster, and with confidence. A great example of how our AI capabilities are driving value to our customers is a q 3 multi-6 figure new logo win with a rapidly growing privately held defense contractor. The customer purchased four solutions, controls management, policy management, compliance management, private company financial reporting. It was our AI-powered GRC capabilities that differentiated us from the competition. This company is building their first controls management framework. They're creating company policies and building a compliance program for the cybersecurity maturity model certification. This is a prerequisite for doing business with the US military. By leveraging Workiva AI, including the AI-powered control creator, the customer will author and implement policy control and compliance in-house. Reducing reliance on third-party consulting spend. At Amplify, we also hosted our annual investor day. We detailed our commitment to both durable growth and improved operating leverage. Our recent margin progress in 2025 reflects the disciplined approach we've been taking to achieve greater operating leverage in the business. Since the start of the year across every function, every department, and every team, we've been focused on four themes. First, organizational and operating model redesign. We're simplifying span of control and reducing layers, evolving the operating model across sales, customer success, and r and d. And we're putting a greater emphasis on performance management. These ongoing efforts will provide a structure that reduces duplication and strengthens execution. Second, process streamlining and automation. This includes both single and cross-functional initiatives. We're streamlining and improving workflows and leveraging technology where it brings value. And, yes, that includes the automation of routine tasks and the use of AI. Third, optimizing product and go-to-market resources. We're sharpening our investment discipline so that we can direct resources towards initiatives with the highest likelihood of success, and the greatest customer value. And finally, more focus on fiscal discipline. We're exercising greater financial discipline across all functions. Together, these focus areas are designed to increase productivity as we grow and scale, and drive greater operating leverage across the business. By functional area, here's a quick summary of our productivity initiatives. For cost of sales, we're scaling digital support optimizing cloud computing costs, and shifting low-margin setup and consulting services to our partners to get greater leverage. For r and d, we're focused on workforce diversification, engineering productivity, and scaling our operating model. Finally, we do recognize sales and is where we have the largest opportunity to drive additional efficiency and productivity. Our approach is practical, to minimize the risk of disrupting growth as we continue to focus on capturing our large and expanding TAM. We've targeted three areas to improve sales productivity. First, transitioning to a more efficient sales structure and creating better alignment of sellers to territories. Second, a focus on staff which includes up-leveling our seller expectations and bringing in new hires that have seen scale, sold platforms, and know how to win with strategic partners. And third, we're bringing even more precision to where and what we sell. Optimizing our coverage models to improve efficiency, drive focused new logo growth, and achieve greater account expansion. We're committed to staying in the lead and going after our growth opportunity. While at the same time improving productivity within and across our organization. Finally, I'd like to share an important leadership update. After over fifteen years with Workiva, Michael Hawkins is stepping down from his role as executive vice president and chief sales officer. Effective today, November 5. Mike has been part of Workiva since our early days and he's helped to shape the company that we've become. Mike has played a key role in our evolution from a single solution company in The US to a trusted global platform serving thousands of customers. I'd like to thank Mike for his years of leadership his dedication to our mission, and his many contributions to our success. His impact on our people, our customers, and our growth will be felt long after his departure. We also announced today the appointment of Michael Pinto as our new executive vice president and chief revenue officer. Michael's career spans more than twenty-five years driving rapid growth for some of the world's largest technology companies. Most recently, he was the senior vice president and general manager for The Americas at Databricks. A $4 billion revenue run rate data and AI company, Prior to Databricks, he held senior sales leadership roles at Amazon Web Services, Medidata, and SAP. Michael will oversee Workiva's global sales, partnerships and alliances, and commercial operations. He'll focus on scaling and accelerating profitable growth, modernizing go-to-market strategies, strengthening customer engagement, and advancing global expansion. We believe that his leadership experience his track record of guiding multiple companies to scale, and his deep understanding of enterprise SaaS strongly aligned to what's required for our next phase of growth. Finally, a brief update on our CFO search. We have identified a final candidate. But we're not yet able to provide detail at this time. As you know, bringing in a sitting public company CFO is a complex process. And there is a sensitivity in the timing of the communications and the announcements. In closing, I'd like to thank our team of dedicated employees across the globe for their relentless focus on innovation, our customer success, and our go-to-market execution that continues to fuel our growth. I'd also like to acknowledge their disciplined commitment to productivity and performance that's driving measurable improvement in operating leverage in our business. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Jill to walk you through our financial results and updated 2025 guidance in more detail. Over to you, Jill. Jill Klindt: Thank you, Julie, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Today, I will begin by providing an overview of the financials and key metric highlights for the 2025. I will then provide guidance for Q4 and the full year 2025. As Julie discussed, had a strong Q3, generating $224 million of total revenue, up 21% over Q3 2024 and beating the high end of our revenue guidance by $4 million. There was an approximately one percentage point positive impact on revenue growth due to foreign currency fluctuations. Q3 subscription revenue was $210 million. Up 23% from Q3 2024. Both new customers and account expansions continue to contribute to our solid revenue growth. With new customers added in the last twelve months accounting for 40% of the increase in Q3 subscription revenue. Q3 professional services revenue was $15 million, flat versus Q3 2024 with the decline in setup and consulting services offset by higher XBRL services. Our non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 12.7%. This 470 basis point beat on the high end of our guidance was driven by stronger than expected top-line results increased PTO usage, and continued focus on operational efficiency and productivity. I'll now move on to our performance metrics for the quarter. We had 6,541 customers at the end of Q3 2025. A growth of 304 customers from Q3 2024. Our gross retention rate was 97%, exceeding our 96% target. And our net retention rate was 114 for the quarter versus 111% in Q3 2024. Similar to revenue growth, there was an approximately one point positive impact on NRR due to foreign currency fluctuations. During the quarter, 73% of our subscription revenue was generated from customers with multiple solutions. This is up from the 68% we achieved in Q3 2024. Growth in our large contract customer metrics also reflected strong momentum. As of the end of the second quarter, we had 2,372 contracts valued at over $100,000 per year, up 23% from Q3 the prior year. The number of contracts valued at over $300,000 totaled 541. Up 41% from Q3 2024. And the number of contracts valued over $500,000 totaled 236, up 42% from Q3 2024. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash impacts. As of September 30, 2025, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $857 million, an increase of $43 million over the prior quarter end. In Q3, we used a portion of our generated cash to repurchase 126,000 shares of our class A common stock for $10 million. This was done under the share repurchase plan approved by the board in July 2024. As of the end of the quarter, we had $40 million remaining of the original $100 million authorization, which we will continue to deploy periodically in order to help manage dilution. As of September 30, 2025, we expect $701 million in remaining performance obligations to be recognized over the next twelve months. This is an increase of 21% versus the prior year. I also wanted to discuss a couple of notes on the PTO program changes I shared at our September Investor Day. In The US, we will be transitioning from our current accrued PTO program to a flexible time off plan at the 2026. As the accrued PTO is used, it will have a positive impact to op margin, but this impact will not slow down to our free cash flow margin. There will not be a onetime cash impact on the balance sheet due to this transition. Turning now to our outlook for Q4 and full year 2025. we are now raising our full year revenue guide. With our outperformance in Q3, And increasing our operating margin guide to reflect our ongoing commitment and focus on driving both durable growth and improved operating leverage across the business. With that in mind, for the 2025, we expect total revenue to range from $234 million to $236 million. We expect services revenue will be down compared to Q4 2024. We expect non-GAAP operating margin to be in the range of 16.7% to 17.4%. For the full year 2025, we are increasing total revenue guidance to range from $180 million to $882 million. Similar to 2024, we expect total services revenue will be down year over year as we move low-margin services to our partners. We now expect subscription growth will be at least 21% year over year. We now expect our non-GAAP operating margin will range from 9.2% to 9.4%. This 200 basis point improvement at the midpoint reflects our revenue beat and our ongoing commitment to drive expanding operating leverage in the business. We now expect 2025 free cash flow margin to be approximately 12%. As we look to 2026, I want to provide some early comments on next year in order to help with your modeling. In 2026, we expect to make continued progress towards our 2027 medium-term revenue and operating margin goals. We expect XBRL services revenue will continue to grow at a modest low single-digit rate in 2026, while we expect setup and consulting revenue to decline from 2025 to 2026 as we continue to move low-margin services to our partners. The net result will be relatively flat total services revenue for the year. Similar to 2025, we expect operating margin in the 2020 will be stronger than the first half. We expect momentum on improved operating leverage to continue well beyond next year. Julie walked you through our approach to improving productivity and driving operational efficiency within the organization, while executing on our long-term profitable growth strategy. Year to date, we've raised our full year 2025 operating margin by over 400 basis points from 5% to 5.5% at the start of the year to 9.2% to 9.4% today. This improvement reflects how thoroughly operational rigor is being embraced by every employee across the organization. Our commitment to productivity is at the core of our short-term strategy and long-range planning. As you all know, is my last earnings call. I wanted to say how proud I am of everything the Workiva team has accomplished over these last seventeen years. I look forward to watching the company achieve highest potential in the months and years to come. I also want to thank my amazing team. It has brought me great joy to get to know and work with each and every one of you. You all have made my time here meaningful and truly special. I hope your path forward is filled with rewarding challenges, exciting opportunities, and significant achievements. To our analysts and investors, it has been a pleasure working with all of you over the years, and I wish you all the best. Thank you all for joining the call today. We're now ready to take your questions. Operator? Please open the line for Q&A. Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed, and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. We ask that you please limit yourself to two questions. And at this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And the first question will come from Rob Oliver with Baird. Please go ahead. Rob Oliver: Great. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I had two, but first just wanted to say best wishes. It's been a pleasure working with you. And good luck to Mike Hawkins as well. First question, Julie, is just around the platform sale. You made reference to some competitive consolidations within some of the wins you had this quarter. And I guess kind of a bigger picture question when Office of the CFO, buyers are thinking about kind of applications aligned with underlying data and work workflow integrity, are you starting to see a bit of a tipping point where more of these functionalities, whether it be, you know, GRC things within GRC or, or things within the financial suite around filing are starting to be consolidated around a single buyer? And should we expect that to happen more in the next couple of years? Color you have there would be great. And then I had a quick follow-up. Julie Iskow: Sure. Thanks, Rob, for the question. And I would say that, the trend that you're describing is a trend, and it probably comes from two things really. One is the age-old just consolidation when companies are looking to take more responsibility for their productivity, for their efficiency, and so forth. That's one. Just there's so many benefits to a platform, and we've seen that since know, day one as we've evolved to the platform. It's just the response thing to do and the CFO and the CIO, office, of course. But then there's the trend of data and the importance of it and the ability to leverage it and how it works across all of our solutions. And certainly there is a recognition. You see this by our increase in expansion deals that there's a recognition that these solutions in the office of CFO play better together. We have capability that makes them better together and that data, that's one of our key competencies really is the ability to, bring all that data together, financial and the nonfinancial CFOs get a much better, and more comprehensive view of their business. And so I would say it's one for the efficiency the platform, but two, also data particularly with AI and so forth and be able to leverage it and get better insights more quickly. It's just way more important now with the tools and the capabilities to be able to leverage it. And our platform is unique in that we have all of these capabilities together and our customers get a, much more holistic view, and they're able to leverage that for better business decisions and speed and accuracy and so forth. So two reasons why the trend you've spotted is going to continue. Rob Oliver: Great. Thanks. Very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up around, you guys touched on at the Analyst Day portion down in DC the kind of new approach to pricing around good, better, best. And I just wanted to get any color you could provide around early reads or indications around the acceptance of that pricing? I mean, I know you guys are already not a seat-based model. So you're not facing, at least from what we can tell, any of the risk or concerns around that. But would be interested to know what the early indicators are on the pricing change? Thanks so much. Julie Iskow: Sure. And this is nothing we are disclosing at this time. It certainly plays a positive role in our expansions. We can share that. And again, on and looking forward to doing more of it and rolling it out a broader way across the platform. But thank you for highlighting. It's a great way to get our additional capabilities in and roll them out and get increased adoption. So thank you, Rob. Great. Thanks. Operator: The next question will come from Steve Enders with Citi. Steve Enders: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the questions here. And, Jill, great to great to have worked with you over the years. Maybe just maybe just starting with you. I wanna touch a little bit just on the early kind of view in the in the twenty sixth But I appreciate some of the guide points there, but maybe how should we think about the kind of continued operating margin expansion? Is it does it seem a little bit more kind of straight line from here to the medium-term target? Or is there still a view of a hockey stick? And then, I guess, secondarily, just is there any way to maybe frame the magnitude of the accrued PTO change and the impact that might have on margin over this year or in the next year? Jill Klindt: Sure. Thanks, Steve. For the op margin for 2026, as I mentioned, we do expect as the trend has shown for the past couple of years for margins to be better in the second half versus the first half, we do we will continue to have that seasonality. Thinking about the trajectory, towards our 2027 medium-term target. We will continue to make progress and you saw us make great progress this year. We're very pleased with the guidance that we're providing. And the progress that we've made and everything that Julie has talked about as far as the company focusing on that margin improvement and focusing on productivity and getting leverage from our existing resources will continue in to 2026. And so we will continue to see the results of that work throughout the year. We're not gonna provide specific number on margin for 2026 at this time, but I can tell you that we will continue to progress towards our updated twenty seven medium-term target, the updated amount that we provided during our Investor Day in September. And then related to PTO, just as the second part of your question related to the PTO portion of that question, If you can always take a look at our footnotes and looking at the balance of our accrual at the end of Q3. It sat around $19 million. A large portion of that would be from The U. S. Our accrued PTO balance will never go to zero, but as far as helping to build some models, we will see that balance continue to decline, and we expect The U. S. Portion of that balance to decline significantly through the 2026. Steve Enders: Okay. Perfect. That's, that's helpful. And then just on the, I guess, the large deal you know, execution, I mean, I think for the past couple of quarters, we've seen record ads in the 300 k and 500 k customer level. But I guess anything to call out that maybe is helping drive that or support, you know, the strength there, then I guess, you know, do we think about maybe the forward trend there continuing as you look at the pipeline going into Q4 into next year? Julie Iskow: Sure. I can I can take that? I don't say, again, probably a two-pronged answer. One, the platform is resonating and we are we are just, we are getting better at selling it. So I think it's those two things. It's execution and the platform resonating the market. So just, again, these solutions were the plat were the only platform that has all these capabilities unified together data, with the capabilities we continue to roll out. It is resonating in the market across financial, non-financial and assurance. And we also have a team, a go-to-market team that is executing, and they continue to get more capable of selling with partners, of selling larger deal sizes, of selling multi-solution. We just continue to get better and better in execution, and I think, I think those are the two reasons. That you are you are seeing that trend. Steve Enders: Okay. Perfect. Thanks for taking the questions. Operator: The next question will come from Alex Sklar with Raymond James. Please go ahead. John Messina: Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is John on for Alex. Wanted to ask here on the capital markets activity. Can you maybe touch on the deal pipeline there? It's certainly sounded like IPO activity or your share of IPO activity picked up. But you maybe talk about the reasons behind that and maybe any early perspective on how things are shaping up for 2026? And then I have a quick follow-up. Julie Iskow: On capital markets specifically, we can comment on that certainly. One of the questions we get most consistently on earnings calls is around the capital markets. And we did see an increase in activity this quarter And we had a lot of, great high-profile IPOs Figma, Klarna, HeartFlow, etcetera. We're encouraged by it. But we also know we're in the midst of a shutdown. So we it's expect it to continue once the shutdown goes away, if and when. And so we do expect it to come at the momentum to continue on post that. We don't talk about, of course, forward-looking activity around our pipe, but we did give guidance for the quarter. So you probably have an idea about how we're thinking about the next quarter. John Messina: Okay. Thanks. Helpful there. And then on the international side, continue to see positive momentum there in business coming from international markets. Maybe talk a little bit more about what you're seeing internationally? Maybe how sales cycles are trending there versus domestic markets? And then maybe any differences you'd call out in multiproduct adoption internationally versus here in North America? Jill Klindt: Sure. You know, year to date revenue outside of The Americas represents, at this point, greater than 19% of our total revenue. Julie Iskow: Compared to 17% in the year, about a year ago. And we continue to put focus on it. Europe has become a strong story for us in the past twelve months. Demand's been healthy. And with essentially broad-based as it is across our all regions, really. It's broad-based in the region. We're selling the value of the platform. We've got the multi-solution deals. Partner led. We're getting new logos and account expansion. So we continue to remain optimistic about the market opportunity and the future growth future growth there. So healthy demand, broad-based. John Messina: Thank you very much. Operator: The next question will come from Jacob Roberge with William Blair. Please go ahead. Jacob Roberge: Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. And Jill, it's been great working with you. Best wishes moving forward. Julie, can you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in the demand environment? I know you all have talked about some macro uncertainty over the past few quarters, but both revenue and bookings growth continue to be very strong. So would be great to hear what you're seeing in the environment and just how the how the Q4 pipe is shaping up. Julie Iskow: Sure. I mean, this year has been defined by consistency, but it's consistent uncertainty. Just a lot of change. Changes are different every week. Day, tariffs, policy changes, elections, government shutdown, inflation rate cuts. The list just goes on. But the Workiva teams just continue to execute to the you know, consistent change. And as we've mentioned in the past many times, our broad portfolio solutions gives us a resilient business. But make no mistake, about it. There is definitely uncertainty out there. But we are powering through with our value proposition and it's a good one in these times providing transparency, accountability and trust. It just continues to resonate in the market. Jacob Roberge: Okay. That's helpful. And then just on GRC, from the analyst day in your prepared remarks, today, seems like there's some good momentum with that business right now. What do you think's changed for that business over the past year that's that's helping drive that growth? I something, went wrong there. Can you say which business you're talking about? I missed it. I was talking specifically about the GRC business. Julie Iskow: Yes. Again, we've can we continue to be very competitive in that market, rolling out capabilities. But we're seeing in the market a move to a cloud. And we are, again, moving strongly there on our execution. There's a lot of legacy software out there. And teams are, getting stronger and stronger. And all many multi-solution deals there. So it's a great platform expansion. It's a it's a land capability. So it's just continues to get strong and continue to move on the trends of legacy software. You know, removal and also, move to the cloud. Jacob Roberge: Very helpful. Thanks for taking the questions. Operator: The next question will come from Brett Huff with Stephens. Please go ahead. Brett Huff: Good evening and congrats on a nice quarter. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is can you give us an update on how the base that is kind of your core base of the SEC reporting I know that was going be a big focus of potential cross sells and sort of returning to those folks also with the good, better, best. Upgrades. To us, that seems a really big asset that you all have that you're starting to really go back to. Any update on that and how that's going, how the conversations are evolving? Julie Iskow: Sure. Thank you for highlighting that. I mean, our base is of course, one of our tremendous assets with you know, 95% of Fortune 100 to 85% of the Fortune 1,000, we are executing well on account expansion. I highlighted a number of those deals on the call today. You can see some longtime SEC reporting customers moving into our other categories. So that account expansion is very strong. We also highlighted our account expansion in the percentage increases for those with ACV over 300 k and 500 k in the low 40%. So, it is a an absolute focus for us is expanding into the install base and bringing them more value and bringing the unified platform and all the capability. Brett Huff: That's helpful. Just final question for me. Can you talk a little bit about some of the non-regulatory drivers from the ES product? I think last quarter or maybe at the Analyst Day, you were talking about some of the science-based targets and things like that. You're still seeing good momentum there. Beyond sort of the direct regulatory drivers, is that still a part of the conversation and still driving new logos for you all? Julie Iskow: Yes. I'm glad you brought sustainability up. It is it's very simple. It just it remains a strategic solution for us. Has the near-term tailwind subsided Yes. And we've been open about this. But we continue to win large deals in the sector. And you said it yourself, and it is beyond regulatory, drivers. There's business performance. There's risk management. Companies wanting to be resilient. They wanna manage stakeholders, and they're tracking to yes, those science-based targets you mentioned. So, it's regulation worldwide, but it's also a number of number of other that are, driving this business. And, again, it does remain a strategic solution for us. Brett Huff: Great. Appreciate it. Operator: The next question will come from Adam Hotchkiss with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Grayson Skalb: Hi, this is Grayson Skalb on for Adam. Thank you for taking the question. And Jill, it's been great working with you. I wanted to actually start on the sustainability demand environment. I know you touched on it briefly. Is it fair to say that you're a similar softer demand environment in that space than what you called out in the previous few quarters? Or did you see a little bit of improvement there in 3Q? I just want to marry that with some of the strong sustainability deals that you called out in your prepared remarks. Jill Klindt: So as far as sustainability and what we're seeing currently, You just heard Julie talk about the that some of the we haven't had the same tailwinds, and we talked about this year. But it has still been consistent driver. You heard her talk about some of the deals that we were able to close during the quarter and we still see demand as far as sustainability reporting that's not tied to regulatory drivers. And so we would say that it's it's a similar story to what we were seeing that it has not and or ever gone to zero. That we continue to sell sustainability, and we believe it will have there'll be a long demand within that solution for us. Grayson Skalb: Got it. Thank you. And I also just wanted to quickly ask on the free cash flow margin guidance. I saw you brought that back up to where it was the beginning of the year. And so I'm just curious, what are the drivers behind that and sort of bringing that back to the 1Q guide? Thank you. Jill Klindt: Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the question, Grayson. So thinking about our free cash flow margin, early in the year, we did have, back to sustainability, we had the moderation in demand for that business in the first half. And so it did influence us to reduce our free cash flow margin earlier this year from our original 12% that we had guided. And then since then, though, we have seen improvement in our op margin, which had, of course, is tailwind to our free cash flow margin. And we've also seen as we talked about, improvement in Q3 and had good business during that quarter as well, and we're pleased with the results. And so it's it's going it's a combination of all those things that are influencing the our ability to bring that guide back up to 12% for free cash flow for the full year. Grayson Skalb: Great. Thank you very much. Operator: Of course. Thanks. The next question will come from Andrew DeGasperi with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Andrew DeGasperi: Thanks, and good luck. You'll the future. It's a pleasure working with you as well. I wanted to ask a question on the appointment of Michael Pinto as chief revenue officer. I know titles matter, and it's I don't remember a chief revenue officer per se being at Workiva recently. Can you maybe elaborate why is that if it is? If I'm wrong? A meaningful change in terms of that person being in charge of the sales organization, And what do you expect? What changes do you expect him to bring forward or if there's any change in the reporting lines in terms of what it how it was before. Thank you. Julie Iskow: Sure. I'll I'll start by saying Michael's being brought in to, take our go-to-market machine to the next level. It's the change is all about future growth and scale for us. From a billion to the multibillions. Building scale and efficiency in the sales organization, accelerating our high-performing partner ecosystem, driving new logos, account expansion, revenue retention activity, and all of this in partnership with our go-to-market teams, marketing and customer success organizations and so forth. So that's that is why he's here. It's all about the next you know, the next era of growth for us. On the on this title, I mean, we are we looked in market standard titles for the role. He's taking on the global sales organization, the partnerships and alliance, and all the commercial organizations. So this is the title and the role and we're enthusiastic about having him in and look forward to what he's bringing. Andrew DeGasperi: Got it. So it sounds like there's there's there's been a change in terms of the people that report to them to a degree or that role before. But in terms of also I noticed the change in tone this earnings call just in terms of your focus on efficiency, both across sales and marketing, R and D, and gross margin expansion, of course. So am I right to think that you know, there's there's been a shift pretty much since the Investor Day in terms of improving that, and you are actively taking steps to meaningfully drive that to get to those midterm targets you laid out. Julie Iskow: Sure. We have we have been working towards those targets and just improving productivity across the organization. We did roll it out in Investor Day, but we've have these plans. We've been working across the organization, whether it's automation efficiency, AI. We've been bringing in new roles across the organization of people who have been there and done that at scale. We have strong leadership across the organization, some of which is new. We've talked for a long time about having a blend of those people in the organization who've been here are evolving. We've been talking about them going out with, understanding the customers, understanding our industry, understanding our markets, then mixing that with the people who've been there and done that at scale. So it is not a new motion for us to dual focus on growth and productivity that we did talk about at investor day. Has been a focus for us and will continue to be to drive shareholder value. Operator: Thank you. This will conclude our question and answer session as well as our conference call for today. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
