Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nick, and I will be your host operator on this call. After the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time. Please note that this call is being recorded on February 25, 2025 at 5 PM Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Katie White, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Workiva. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Workiva's Q4 2024 conference call. During today's call, we will review our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results and discuss our guidance for the first 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 closed 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 and 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 first quarter and full fiscal year 2025. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are based on our assumptions as to the macroeconomic, political and regulatory environment today and reflect our best judgment based on factors currently known to us. Workiva cautions that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. All forward-looking statements are made as of today and reflect our current expectations only. 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-K 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 to 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.

Thank you, Katie, and welcome to the team, and thank you all for joining us today. What a start to the year. We're operating in an ever-changing environment. And while we look forward to discussing sustainability and the regulatory landscape later in the call, we'll first dive into our results. The Workiva team had a strong close to 2024. Our Q4 top line results beat the high end of our guidance. The value of our platform continued to resonate, and we saw broad-based demand across our portfolio of solutions. In Q4, we delivered subscription revenue growth of 22% and total revenue growth of 20%, compared to Q4 of 2023. For the full year 2024, we exceeded the top end of our revenue guidance, achieving a growth rate of 20% in subscription revenue and 17% in total revenue. At the same time, we continued to increase productivity, delivering a non-GAAP operating margin of 4.3%. That's up from 1.6% in 2023. We also delivered a full year free cash flow margin of 11.7%, 170 basis points above the guide that we provided in February of 2024. Our Q4 results are supported by strong underlying business fundamentals. We exceeded expectations in our account expansion activity, showcased by our net retention rate improving to 112%. Our large contract value customers continue to accelerate as well. The number of contracts valued over $300,000 increased 34%, and those over $500,000 increased 32%, all compared to Q4 of 2023. Whether from new logos or account expansion, we're encouraged by our win rates, our increasing deal sizes and the multi-solution platform demand from our customers. Before I jump into some specific deals from the quarter, I'd like to share some 2024 highlights that show our progress, as we execute on our strategy. First, we are consistently winning larger…

Thank you, Julie, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'll start by providing an overview of the financials and key metric highlights for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. Then I will provide guidance for Q1 and the full year 2025. As Julie discussed, we continued to see solid results in Q4 with execution across our broad portfolio of solutions. We beat the high end of our Q4 revenue guidance by $4 million, generating $200 million of total revenue in the fourth quarter, up 20% over Q4 2023. Q4 subscription revenue was $181 million, up 22% from Q4 2023. As in past quarters, new customers and account expansions both contributed to our strong revenue growth. New customers added in the last 12 months accounted for 42% of the increase in Q4 subscription revenue. Q4 professional services revenue was $19 million, up slightly from Q4 2023, driven by higher XBRL services. Moving on to our Q4 2024 operating results, all on a non-GAAP basis. Q4 gross margin improved 80 basis points year-over-year, increasing to 79%. We continue to focus on leverage in our cloud computing costs as well as in how we scale our customer and partner experience teams. Operating profit was $14.8 million compared to the Q4 2023 operating profit of $12.7 million. Operating margin for the quarter was 7.4%. Continuing on to performance metrics for the quarter. We had 6,305 customers at the end of Q4 2024, a growth of 271 customers from Q4 2023. Our gross retention rate was 97%, exceeding our 96% internal target. And our net retention rate was 112% for the quarter, up from 110% in Q4 2023, reflecting increased account expansion across our platform. We generated 70% of our subscription revenue from customers with multiple solutions, up from 64% in…

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And your first question today will come from Rob Oliver with Baird. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon. Julie, I appreciate your comments towards the end of your prepared remarks about the macro, and I want to probe those a little bit where you called out some policy and geopolitical uncertainty. I think you touched on the policy uncertainty around CSRD and CSDDD in Europe. And so I wanted to understand, was that sort of the main policy thing that you were calling out. And then, on the geopolitical side, wanted to understand what -- if there's anything new you guys are seeing relative to trade or tariff concerns and how that informed your 2025 guide because your commentary certainly made it seem as if it perhaps would have been higher? And then I had a follow-up question. Thanks.

Yes. I think I did give some detail on the call around CSRD and everything going on there and policy uncertainty and discuss a little bit that likely it's not impacting us because of our -- are targeting the upmarket. Our thoughtful and balanced guide truly is around just general uncertainty. There's tariffs. There's exchange rates, the new administration and so forth. So it wasn't any one thing. It was just general uncertainty and not like other SaaS companies and technology companies providing guidance. Nothing unusual and really not one heavier than the other.

Got it. And just a quick follow-up. I mean you guys -- certainly since your arrival at the company, you've really sort of instilled the platform focus for the company, the multiproduct strategy. It certainly seems in Q4, with the strength that we saw in the sort of the larger customers that, that is playing out nicely presumably at the right time. So, if you can talk about kind of the pipeline that you see for this year and because I think investors are all focused on risk adjusting these pipelines, how you think about that multiproduct strategy and how that both would cross-sell and upsell and new lands and how that's helping to perhaps mitigate some of the risk for -- in the end market? Thanks.

Thanks for highlighting the strength of our platform and our approach to going to market with it. I mean, our building blocks are in 2025 will remain the same. It's broad-based demand across our platform, and we've got dozens of solutions there across the platform, lots of white space, lots of unaddressed TAM. So, feeling confident there around the platform just in general, we have the same vectors of growth strategy. It's our mix of new logos, account expansion. And yes, around the platform and the strength of that platform become a significant differentiator for us, source and co-sell deals with partners, again, broad-based demand around the platform, and you have highlighted that for us. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks very much.

And your next question today will come from Alex Sklar with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Just following up on Rob's first question on the subscription growth guide. Really impressive 20% outlook. You talked about being thoughtful there, just given some of those risks that they were distressed. So should we think -- is the right way to think about the 20% is kind of a floor under any regulatory kind of circumstance, was it just a little bit more conservatism versus prior years? I just wanted to kind of get a little bit finer point on that. Thanks.

I'll just comment briefly. It's -- we haven't changed really our approach. It's -- we feel -- we exited 2024 feeling strong with a lot of momentum. But again, it's the environment and just taking a balanced approach and a thoughtful approach on it. So no different than our usual approach to the guide.

Okay. Great. And then just maybe one other follow-up on sustainability and mix, top booking solution again, exiting now 2024, I'm wondering if you could update us on where sustainability revenue sits as a as a percentage of revenue today or any color on what kind of mix it was in 2024 bookings and how you're kind of approaching thinking about that for 2025. Thanks.

Hi, Alex, this is Jill. Thanks for the question. Appreciate it. We were very pleased with sustainability revenues and bookings last year. We're still not providing a split of -- solutions-based split of revenues, but it has continued to be one of our top booking solution now for 10 quarters in a row, and we expect it to play a balanced part of our plan for 2025. And continue to participate at a high level.

Okay. Thank you both.

Yes, thanks.

Your next question today will come from Terry Tillman with Truist. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Dominique Manansala on for Terry. Thanks for taking my questions. So just with more setup and consulting work shifting to partners, have you seen a measurable impact on deployment speed and scalability so far? And have you seen any impact on customer satisfaction, retention or maybe churn rates as we get further along in the transition?

With partners, I mean, sure. We continue to work hard to build out those strong alliances, work with our partners to deliver. We spend a lot of time ensuring that they are receiving the same experience and implementation and delivery that they would if it was coming from the Workiva team. So yes, we are continuing to get better. Yes, we move more quickly. They also develop tools, capabilities and accelerators around our platform to bring more value, but also help to expedite the implementation. So we are seeing a lot of momentum in this direction. And thanks for highlighting it, continue to build even more strength with our partners. And become more effective in the delivery.

Great. And then just as a follow-up with ESG sustainability solutions still being a key driver, especially in Europe. I was just curious how the -- how you expect the mix of partner-led versus direct sales to evolve over the year? Maybe any other recent shifts or improvements in partner ecosystem to call out there with sustainability?

Sure. I mean, I will say that we have partners involved in the majority of our deals now, particularly those that are upmarket. And we're going after the high-end of the market, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, so partners are very strong in the sustainability place that we have and a big part of our go-to-market. Again, everywhere we want to be they help us sell not just sustainability but more broadly across the platform. We sell higher. We get higher deal sizes, just a big part of our growth strategy and accelerating our growth.

Got it. Thank you.

Your next question today will come from Adam Hotchkiss with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Julie, I'd be curious. You mentioned all the non-CSRD-related momentum in sustainability and other reporting categories in your prepared remarks, but I'd be curious if you see any risk of prospects deferring or delaying sustainability-related projects in light of some of the dialogue in the market or if that's just something that's not coming up in your conversations? Thanks so much.

Yeah. Thank you for the question. I'm sure it's on the minds of others as well. We've always disclosed that Q1 is very hard for us to look at trends in the beginning of year, simply because our customers are heads down in their filing in the first one and two months. But even out aside, we've not seen any trends. And as you can imagine, we're looking, but no, we haven't really seen any trends in that regard at this point.

Okay. No. That's helpful. Thanks so much. And then Jill, just on profitability, I'd be curious, about how the evolving situation impacts your view on investment cadence here. You mentioned your mid-term and long-term margin targets are intact, but margins are coming down in Q1, and I think the improvement is a little bit less year-over-year next year in general. So I'd be curious how you're weighing those few issues. Thank you.

Well, thanks for the question. You're right. We did reiterate on the call and continue to stand behind our 2027 and 2030 margin goals. We are able to manage our business and manage our expenses, in order to shift as needed throughout the year. And as we -- because, I think that's your question really is how are we going to be able to execute on that and ensure that, we reach those goals. The way that we do that is to operate our business carefully to ensure that we have a balanced approach to our investments. And react to how the market is trending and how we're performing on a quarterly basis. And so we do expect to still be -- we do believe we're on track and we're pleased to be continuing to move towards those 2027, 2030 goals.

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Your next question today will come from Daniel Jester with BMO. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking our questions. So a couple of times in the prepared remarks, you mentioned sort of broader digital transformation helping fuel deals for you. And I guess, there's several sort of big publicized trends driving ERP digitization. I'm just wondering, are you seeing a broader acceleration of back-office digitization? Or is this -- the comment on the prepared remarks, consistent with some of the trends that you saw in 2024?

Sure. Good to highlight that as well. New ERP systems and upgrades are a great buying trigger for our platform. And we do see a strong demand there, and I actually highlighted some in the call just earlier. We closed a Q4 deal with a new customer, it was a manufacturing company going through an Oracle implementation, and they were preparing for an IPO. A customer using Workiva private company reporting and financial statement automation. So that was one example. Another one I gave on the call, too, large six-figure platform deals. And that was part of an ERP system upgrade as well, client purchase sustainability, SEC, GRC to complement the ERP functionality. So we get these deals most significantly through our partners. We have got Big 4 regional partners that have dedicated ERP practices, and they are, of course, as you know, frequently driving finance transformations. And we slide right in there. I'll give you a good example. S/4HANA transformation playbook, one of the Big 4 has us in there. So these are how we typically find these opportunities and definitely see strong demand on that area.

Thank you. That's very helpful. And then I just wanted to double-click Europe. Great call-out in terms of the improvement that you're seeing there. I think I just want to be clear, how much of Europe, the improvement there has been CSRD-related driven, and how much are you seeing a broader uptick in the Workiva platform outside of sustainability in in Europe? And any difference the trends that you're seeing there? Thank you very much.

Sure. I can certainly see why you asked that question, but the answer is we saw broad-based demand across the geos in Europe and across our portfolio. Momentum just continues to build there, and we're very pleased with what we're seeing. It's a great story for us in in 2024. Actually, we highlighted in our 10-K that 17% of our revenue now comes from outside the Americas. And primarily, that's Europe, 250 basis points of improvement there from 2023. We've just got a lot of greenfield opportunities in Europe since we don't have a whole lot of penetration in that market. So just a lot of opportunity both for new logo and expansion for us. So isn't just about the CSRD or sustainability. It's really about the platform. And admittedly, too, it's our own execution. We've made a lot of changes, as we've disclosed over the past year or so, and we are just executing much better in general in Europe, and we believe we've built some strong momentum there with our teams across the region.

Great. Thanks for the color.

Your next question today will come from Steve Enders with Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is George on for Steve. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask about the growth margin mix and how you're thinking about that framework into 2025, obviously, 20% sub-rev growth is really strong. On the operating margin side, guiding to 5% for the year, you're more at 7% for Q4. Is it right to think about you're just investing behind strong demand signals that you're seeing kind of foot on the gas type of year? Or how would you frame that?

So when we look at our full year margin and especially, I mean, you mentioned coming out of Q4, we do have significant seasonality within our expenses as we roll into Q1. We've talked about for the past few years that all of our employee raises hit January 1, and also have front-loaded expenses around 401(k) matches, employment taxes, those sorts of things. And so we do see some seasonality in the first part of the year around expenses. But as we look at the full year investments, a lot of the investments that we made during 2024 will, of course, see the full year impact in 2025. But we are looking to see where can we further accelerate and ensure that we're taking advantage of the timely opportunity in front of us to really take advantage our large and unaddressed TAM and ensuring that we're making the right investments across the business, across geographies, across solutions and across the platform in order to really ensure that we're doing the most that we can to accelerate growth.

Excellent. And then one quick follow-up. Was there any material impact of FX on your metrics in the quarter? And anything baked in on FX in the guidance? Thank you.

Nothing to call out, in particular, around FX. It has continued to, of course, impact our results as it has other SaaS companies. We're building our current models using current rates. And they are somewhat historical levels right now. And so we called that out as a potential risk and part of the reason why we're being very balanced with guide for the full year. And so alongside of policy uncertainty and some of the other things that Julie highlighted, the currency -- potential currency fluctuations definitely weighs in on the mix.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions.

Thanks.

Your final question today will come from Jake Roberge with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to follow up on the ESG front. I know one of the added benefits for some of those new ESG logos you're landing in Europe is that it gives you a chance to sell the broader platform. So I'm curious what you're seeing from those new logos in terms of adopting ESG alone versus actually landing with the broader platform that includes financial and GRC reporting, given that's much more of a greenfield market for you?

Sure. We always go out with a platform, right? We pitched the platform, and it's the value proposition to be able to do your financial reporting, your non-financial or sustainability reporting along with audit capability, governance, risk and service management and so forth. So that's how we go to market. Sometimes it is a carbon-first or sustainability-first. Sometimes we're looking for the controls and audit capability. And sometimes, it isn't any step further, financial reporting. So global statutory or multi-entity reporting. So we do both new logos and account expansion. But as you highlighted, we're less well known there. We're less penetrated in the market in Europe. So oftentimes, it is with a new logo. But it can come from anywhere in our platform, and it's broad-based, and we're increasing the amount of multi-solution land. So it isn't just one solution that we would land with. So teams going out there or trying to fill our pipeline with multi-solution deals as opposed to a single solution. So very much focused on the platform play and of course, also meeting the customer where they are.

Okay. That's helpful. And then now that it's been under your roof for a little bit more time. Can you just talk about how the initial feedback for Sustain.Life has been from customers? And then how that solution is helping with win rates and just the overall reception in terms of getting the ESG solution into the door earlier with customers. So I would love to just kind of hear Sustain.Life, the reception and how it's been impacting win rates?

Sure. We love the question. Because to highlight Sustain.Life, a wonderful team that is very much a part of Workiva, and was almost on day one, but we executed very well. That was only six months ago on the launch of Workiva Carbon. As mentioned in my prepared remarks, our results in Q4 just continue to demonstrate the momentum that we've seen again, since day one of the launch of the solution. So I do want to remind you that Workiva Carbon was a strategic addition to our platform. It's made our sustainability solution. Overall, a short integrated reporting platform, even more marketable and even more relevant. That was the intent, and we're certainly seeing that. Some companies want to purchase sustainability first, but also carbon first. So we are there with that. It's opened up opportunities for us, and we expect the trends to continue to help again win new sustainability reporting deals going forward and of course, platform in place.

That's helpful. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the results.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That will conclude our question-and-answer session as well as conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.