Earnings Labs

Workiva Inc. (WK)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 19, 2026

$53.54

-1.21%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Workiva's Q4 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Bailey, and I will be your host operator on this call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded on February 19, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Katie White, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Katie White

Analyst

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Workiva's Q4 2025 Conference Call. During today's call, we will review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and discuss our guidance for the first quarter and full year 2026. Today's call will include comments from our Chief Executive Officer, Julie Iskow, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Barbara Larson. We will then open up the call for a Q&A session. After market closed today, we issued a press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website along with our quarterly investor presentation. 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 2026. 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-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 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

Analyst · Baird

Thank you, Katie, and thank you all for joining us. We closed 2025 with strong momentum. We delivered another guidance feat that reaffirms our position as a trusted platform in the office of the CFO. Our Q4 subscription revenue grew 21% and total revenue grew 20%, both compared to Q4 of 2024. For the full year 2025, we achieved 22% subscription revenue growth and 20% total revenue growth, well ahead of the guidance that we had set at the beginning of the fiscal year. We also delivered profitable growth. We had another quarter of accelerating margin improvement with a Q4 non-GAAP operating margin of 19%. This was a 160 basis point beat on the high end of the guide and a 1,170 basis point improvement compared to Q4 of 2024. For the full year 2025, we delivered meaningful progress towards our 2027 medium-term model targets. Our non-GAAP operating margin was just shy of 10%. This is 440 basis points above the guidance that we had set at the beginning of 2025 and 560 basis points above full year 2024. Our Q4 momentum reflected broad-based durable demand across our AI-powered platform. It also reflected our customers' deepening commitment to Workiva as they transform how work gets done and how their most critical financial and nonfinancial data is managed. Before I move into a few deal examples from the quarter, I'd like to address a broader narrative that's dominating conversations in the SaaS market. There's an emerging view that as AI changes how work gets done, traditional SaaS platforms become significantly less valuable and in some cases, obsolete. We understand that perspective. Many workflow tools that organize tasks, route information or summarize activity can increasingly be automated or agentized. However, this is not the category Workiva operates in. We operate where data…

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Baird

Thanks, Julie. It's great to be here. After spending my first month with the team in the business, I'm energized by the opportunity ahead as we continue to focus on delivering both durable growth and improving profitability. I'll start with an overview of our financial and key metric highlights for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, followed by our guidance for the first quarter and full year 2026. As Julie mentioned, we delivered a strong finish to the year. In Q4, we generated $239 million in total revenue, up 20% year-over-year and beating the high end of our guidance range by $3 million. Foreign currency fluctuations had an approximately 1 percentage point favorable impact on our reported growth rate. Q4 subscription revenue was $219 million, up 21% year-over-year. Both new customers and account expansions continue to contribute to our revenue growth with new customers added in the last 12 months, accounting for approximately 40% of the increase in Q4 subscription revenue, consistent with our expectations. Q4 professional services revenue was $20 million, up slightly versus the prior year. In line with our strategy, we continued to grow our higher-margin XBRL services while we shifted lower-margin setup and consulting services to our partners. Our non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 19.1%. This beat the high end of our guidance by 160 basis points, driven by operating leverage from our top line outperformance and our continued focus on operational efficiency and productivity. Moving on to our performance metrics for the quarter. We had 6,624 customers at the end of Q4 2025, an increase of 319 customers year-over-year. Our gross retention rate was 97%, exceeding our 96% target. And our net retention rate was 113% for the quarter compared to 112% in Q4 2024. Consistent with our reported revenue growth, there…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Rob Oliver with Baird.

Robert Oliver

Analyst · Baird

I had 2 questions. Julie, one for you and then Barbara, a follow-up for you. So Julie, I appreciate your commentary relative to AI and Workiva's positioning. I'd like to ask specifically about some of the new wins, obviously, the contributions to subscription in Q4, but notably the multiproduct platform wins, the 6-figure wins that you guys had in the quarter and called out in your prepared remarks. Can you talk about how AI is playing a role in those discussions, if it's functionality that's being employed today, if it's part of your road map going forward? What are customers looking to you for today on AI as a component of those deals?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Baird

Sure. Thank you for the question, Rob, and good to have you on the call. I think first off, those multi-solution account expansions, large customer wins are happening with the broad-based platform. You're asking specifically around AI's contribution. I will tell you this, of all the customer conversations I have, AI is a topic -- a strong topic of conversation. It they have to happen and they're ready to move in this moment, but they are buying because they know Workiva focuses on innovation, and we have it and we are demoing those. So adoption is increasing simply because now there is a recognition that they can use it in an environment that is safe and secure, and it applies to all of the information across the portfolio of solutions. So it's absolutely playing a role in the buying decisions. I believe I highlighted one on the call today in my remarks earlier that it was a significant reason for the win. The other part of the question was around the -- how it's showing up in the product. And as you know, we adopted a good, better, best model when it comes to pricing and packaging. And we have our AI capabilities in the premium tier, and we have that across all categories on our platform, sustainability, financial reporting as well as GRC. And we're seeing some strong traction in the premium tiers.

Robert Oliver

Analyst · Baird

Great. I appreciate that, Julie. And then Barbara, welcome a question for you. Just your comments about efficiency and productivity and the commitment to operational rigor. Just be curious, having had some experience at bigger companies and now stepping in here to the role at Workiva, as you look at the financial targets in '27 and '30, which you've reiterated, looking at the business, where do you see the opportunity for continued progress on that operational rigor and margin side? And what are some of the areas that sort of stand out to you?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Baird

Rob, thanks for the welcome, and thanks for being on the call. I definitely appreciate you calling out the progress. We certainly feel like we're well on our way to achieving those 2027 and 2030 targets. And then in terms of where we expect to see the leverage. It's kind of more of what we have been seeing in 2025, really across the business. And then, of course, we have opportunity to drive more productivity in the sales and marketing side.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Terrell Tillman with Truist Securities.

Terrell Tillman

Analyst · Truist Securities

Welcome aboard, Barbara. Yes, I had a question and a quick follow-up. I was hoping we could touch on Michael Pinto. I know he's still kind of relatively new in the role to really lead the go-to-market efforts as CRO. But I was just curious if we could get just some early observations, maybe some areas where he's focusing and potential timing of impact from some of those efforts? And then I had a follow-up.

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Truist Securities

Sure. We are very happy to have Michael joining us on the team with his strong background in transforming and scaling high-growth SaaS companies and certainly to the multibillion where we are headed. His mandate is really multifold. The first thing is just building a strong team that can scale globally. He is also here to help strengthen our partner ecosystem and importantly, refine sales plays in various regions around the world. And focus too, because of his background in AWS and Databricks, focus on our place in the data ecosystem, which is becoming increasingly important. And then overall, just scaling and strengthening our go-to-market machine. And he's been going deep into the business. He's looking around in every function, in every area under the commercial team, and already bringing significant insight and opportunity here. So we're very happy with the progress he's made to date, and we're looking forward to seeing what he's going to be contributing very soon over the coming quarters.

Terrell Tillman

Analyst · Truist Securities

That's great. And I guess, Barbara, in terms of anything you can share about NRR directionally in '26 as part of the plan? And then would there be any discernible shift from that new customer contribution at about 40%?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Truist Securities

Thanks for the question, Terry. So for 2026, we're modeling the business at 96% for GRR and 110% for NRR, and we're striving to maintain that going forward. And then your question in terms of the split of the business, more of what we've been seeing, so about 60% new, 40% from expansions, but that can shift -- sorry, opposite, 40% new, 60% expansion. But any given quarter, we can see that shift a little bit.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Sklar with Raymond James.

Alexander Sklar

Analyst · Raymond James

Julie, first one for you, following up on Rob's question around your growing AI capabilities. What have you seen in terms of usage so far from those initial features you launched with customers that have had access? And how should we think about how incremental your AI road map plans are for 2026 based on some of the prepared comments in terms of the monetizable opportunity there?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Raymond James

Sure. So we do have a lot of interest in our AI capabilities from customers. And as I mentioned, continue to see increasing adoption and use once they recognize it's in the trusted controlled environment. To date, we've got almost 30% of our customers having enabled AI on their platform. And again, once they enable and adopt, we continue to see increasing use. So we've had great feedback on what we've rolled out, a lot of those features. We announced several of them at our customer conference, Amplify, the last quarter last year and continue to work with the customers just to expand their use of our AI capabilities. And importantly, we're learning what capabilities bring the highest value and deliver AI that's actually going to drive impact. And as we do that, we can put our investments in that direction. And certainly, we're able to put those in the upper tier of our offerings and ensure that we're getting our value for the value that we're bringing them. And we're going to continue to do that. And yes, ultimately monetize our AI capabilities. So thank you for the question.

Alexander Sklar

Analyst · Raymond James

Okay. Great. And then maybe for you or Barbara, but on the strong bookings exiting the year, if you had to disaggregate some of the drivers, how much do you think is already coming from some of the go-to-market changes that you started on a little over a year ago? How much is coming from the new packaging efforts or from partners or just from broader multi-solution sales? Like how would you stack rank some of the biggest contributors to the bookings growth?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Raymond James

I will take that one off and just say -- it is broad-based around solutions. As Barbara mentioned, the mix of the new logos and expansion, we're focused on both. So it's coming from, again, our multi-solutions across the platform, and it isn't 1 or 2 standouts. And the changes that we have been making to increase operating leverage and increase productivity have been continuing on and progressing. So much of it is around our own execution. Our partner ecosystem continues to strengthen. So it isn't one thing. It's broad-based. It's all the actions we've been doing to get stronger ourselves, build our teams, get higher profiles of individuals out there with feet on the street, those who sell with partners, focusing on the platform play because that is resonating in the market. So just going after our opportunity in a stronger way with the full breadth of our platform is really what it is, just getting better.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Adam Hotchkiss with Goldman Sachs.

Adam Hotchkiss

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Julie, I wanted to start on the capital markets environment. I know you mentioned Q3 was strong, Q4, a little bit softer, but some, I think, strong expectations for next year. How should we think about what is contemplated in 2026 from a guidance philosophy perspective around capital markets? And then I had a quick follow-up.

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Sure. One of the fun topics we get almost every call, what's happening with cap markets. When will it come back? Is it back? And we did see a moderation of IPO activity in Q4 relative to a stronger Q3. But we're really encouraged by the number of companies that we've been speaking to that are considering IPF -- IPO activity in 2026. And so the simple answer is, yes, we've incorporated into our guide. We're anticipating some growth this year, but we also recognize there are just a lot of factors and market variables that might impact that rate of growth. So I'll say is we're optimistic about the IPO momentum as we kick off 2026, but there are a lot of macro dependencies to sustain the growth throughout the year. And I can name a few, we have a new Fed chair, economic instability, those kinds of things. So they're all weighing new valuations in technology companies is one. So a number of factors, but we do feel very optimistic from the customer conversations that we've had.

Adam Hotchkiss

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Okay. Fantastic. And then as we sort of look at the margin progression, it does feel like you're progressing a little bit ahead of schedule on the margin side relative to the 2027 guidance. Barbara, I realize you're early into the role, but any early observations on how that's going? And maybe even Julie, given you've been involved on the operational side, just learnings as you've been going through the margin expansion piece, anything that surprised you or been encouraging through that process?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes. I'll start that out. We're really pleased with the pace of operating margin expansion we've been able to deliver in 2025 as well as what we're guiding to 2026. So we've definitely shown our ability to drive operating leverage, and we're confident that we will continue to do the same and meet those medium- and long-term targets.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Enders with Citi.

Steven Enders

Analyst · Citi

I guess to start, I just want to ask on, I guess, the guidance philosophy and Barbara, I appreciate you coming on board to an already established team. But any kind of change in how you approach the guide and what's being, I guess, contemplated here from -- versus prior periods?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Citi

Steve, thanks so much for the question. Our guidance philosophy hasn't changed. It continues to reflect our best view of the business at a specific time. I've inherited a very strong finance team. I've been working closely with them as well as with Julie and the rest of the leadership team, and there's clear continuity in how we approach our outlook.

Steven Enders

Analyst · Citi

Okay. Perfect. That's great to hear. And then maybe just on the updated pricing model and the good, better, best. Just I guess, what have you seen so far from customer uptake of, I guess, that program? And kind of, I guess, what are the assumptions that you're making moving forward in terms of how that kind of plays out in converting customers up to higher tiers?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Citi

We -- as I mentioned, we're seeing uptick in our more premium tiers. We're putting in advanced capabilities, and we've seen a lot of traction, and it is contributing to the momentum that we're seeing that we exited 2025 with. So we're very optimistic, a good way to get more of our value to the customer and again, get value on our end. So we've, again, rolled it out for GRC, for financial reporting and sustainability. And it's also a good way for us to take some learnings from AI that we put in those tiers, and we see the customers focusing in certain areas of the platform and certain capabilities, so we can take that to build even more valuable offerings for the customer. So it helps in both ways, getting value, but also helping us understand more what will resonate with customers and bring even more value.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets.

Daniel Jester

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Welcome to the call, Barbara. Look forward to working with you. Maybe just on the verticals piece, Julie, you talked about financial services. And I think you talked about financial services throughout a lot of 2025. Can we just spend a moment there sort of regauging kind of where we are in that opportunity? And as we think about 2026, how do the verticals stack up relative to the other growth opportunities you have?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Sure. Well, I will mention financial services, Dan. Thank you very much for the question because I love to highlight is why I highlighted on the remarks earlier. We just continue to land both large new logos and account expansion deals in financial services. We co-sell with partners in this vertical, and we have a lot of regulatory use cases in addition to, of course, our horizontal solutions. It's just been a great story for us, a great growth story. It includes mid 6-figure and 7-figure deals with our fund reporting solution shown strong performance this year. And just in general, the trends are multi-solution large deals focusing on regulation and of course, our partners. I gave a few deal examples, too. And I do -- this has been our strongest vertical to date. And we're going to continue to move into verticals. We have a few others that we're increasing our investment in as well. So a good area for the Workiva platform. But our horizontals go in every sector of the economy, and that is front and center, of course.

Daniel Jester

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Great. And then maybe, Barbara, just on the guidance, FX has been impacting the business for the past couple of quarters, including sort of the big impact on RPO and cRPO this quarter. What's embedded in terms of FX in terms of the guidance? And is there anything you'd sort of call out for us as we update our models?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Yes, absolutely. So our guidance for 2026 assume that our FX rates remain consistent with January 2026 rates. So that's the same approach the team has used historically. And then consistent with our standard reporting, we'll provide the specific FX impact on our actual results.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Allan Verkhovski with BTIG.

Nicholas Dannewitz

Analyst · BTIG

This is Nick Dannewitz on for Allan here. Just one question on my end. You guys are doing a really good job adding multiproduct customers. And I was just wondering what kind of role does that play in increasing NRR? And how should we think about the ceiling for multiproduct customers as a percent of your subscription revenue base?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · BTIG

Sorry, can you repeat the question, Nick? We couldn't understand it. Allen, sorry. Nick on for Allen.

Nicholas Dannewitz

Analyst · BTIG

Yes, no worries. So you guys are doing like a really good job adding multiproduct customers. I was just wondering like what kind of role does that play in increasing your NRR? And how should we think about the ceiling there for multiproduct customers as a percent of your subscription revenue base?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · BTIG

I assume you are talking about margin -- or excuse me, account expansion is what it sounds like?

Nicholas Dannewitz

Analyst · BTIG

Yes.

Julie Iskow

Analyst · BTIG

So I think we can just talk about new logos first, right? Again, 45% of our customers have -- or excuse me, 2 or more solutions. And when we do expand -- so we have a lot of opportunity still in the 55% that have -- only have one. So we're focusing there. And then we, of course, continue to expand with the new logos as well. But the account expansion is a key focus of effort on our end. There's just a tremendous amount of opportunity to go after. We have a lot to sell a couple of dozen solutions. And as I just mentioned, in financial services, it's an area where we're seeing significant account expansion.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brett Huff with Stephens Inc.

Brett Huff

Analyst · Stephens Inc

Can you hear me? I'm getting some feedback. Do you get me okay?

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Stephens Inc

Yes, we can hear you.

Brett Huff

Analyst · Stephens Inc

Okay. Great. And welcome to the slate of new team members. So I hope things are going well. Two questions. One, to follow up on the helpful 30% of customers are using AI in some way, and they seem to be increasing usage. You mentioned monetization, but as you might expect, it's on the tip of the tongue of all of the investors with whom we speak. Can you remind us or maybe fill out your views on kind of mix of monetization, be it -- you mentioned getting folks into premium additions. Can you talk a little bit about any consumption-based pricing as folks worry a little bit about gross margins and things like that? So that's question one. And then the second question is on GRR. As you all do more bigger deals and you do more multiproduct deals, are you far enough into that motion to see what I suspect are positive impacts on GRR yet?

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Stephens Inc

So I'll take the pricing question. And as I mentioned, we don't have seat-based licensing. We're already usage-based, whether it's a number of controls, a number of entities, number of connections and integrations that our platform connects with. So the seat-based is not an issue for Workiva. We've been usage-based now for 6, 7 years. And the other way we've been pricing is also, again, the good, better, best model, putting more feature and capability in the more premium offering. So that's how we've been handling our pricing and the packaging.

Barbara Larson

Analyst · Stephens Inc

And I'll just comment on GRR. We continue to have strong GRR, and we're building that into our model going forward.

Julie Iskow

Analyst · Stephens Inc

Great. Thank you. Operator?

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. Thank you for attending today's presentation. The call has now concluded. You may now disconnect.