Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis
Item 2. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with (1) our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and (2) the audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes and management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2024 included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on February 19, 2025.
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. These statements are often identified by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “will,” “would,” or the negative or plural of these words or similar expressions or variations, including statements regarding our expectations regarding customer renewals and our future financial and operating performance, anticipated expansion of the usage of partners to perform professional services, the increase of our subscriptions revenue as a percentage of total revenue, the fluctuation of gross margin on a quarterly basis, our future capital requirements, and our ability to meet our financial covenants under our Credit Agreement. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that could cause actual results and the timing of certain events to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified herein and those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors,” set forth in Part I, Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 19, 2025 and in our other filings with the SEC. Forward-looking statements should not be relied on as predictions of future events. Furthermore, such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements.
Overview
Appian is The Process Company. We deliver a software platform that helps organizations run better processes that reduce costs, improve customer experiences, and gain a strategic edge. Committed to client success, we serve many of the world’s largest companies across various industries. We believe processes define each organization. Processes are how they operate, deliver value, and interact with their customers. Nothing is more transformative for an organization than improving their processes. Appian has both the platform and the expertise to enable enterprise transformation.
Appian provides capabilities to tackle any process challenge. Appian tightly integrates data fabric; robotic process automation, or RPA; intelligent document processing, or IDP; generative artificial intelligence, or generative AI; artificial intelligence agents, or AI agents; low-code design; application programming interfaces, or APIs; business rules; and process intelligence capabilities in a single platform. These capabilities are unified and scalable, meeting enterprise demands and easy to change as requirements evolve.
• Process Orchestration: The Appian platform coordinates tasks between AI, automation, and humans to ensure processes run efficiently and intelligently. RPA enables customers to build bots with low-code to automate repetitive manual tasks. Appian AI agents extract data, process documents, and initiate processes at scale. API integration easily connects systems with low-code design tools and hundreds of prebuilt connections.
• Data Fabric: Appian’s data fabric is an integrated data layer that unifies data across systems without requiring companies to migrate their data. Appian empowers users to explore data in real-time, build reports, and get AI-powered insights for smarter decision-making. Our patented data fabric technology supports both analytical and transactional workloads, which allows users to build applications that create and update enterprise data. It also includes row-level security rules to enforce access controls at every level. Our data fabric functionality powers and is designed to secure our AI offering.
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• Process Intelligence: Process intelligence allows users to gain deep insights into process performance through Appian’s Process HQ. It also preps data for process mining with just a few clicks, even across multiple sources. Companies can use AI to monitor processes, identify issues, and get intelligent recommendations for optimization.
• Artificial Intelligence: We believe the key to unlocking AI’s full potential is embedding it inside a business process. Process is where business happens. It’s where companies make decisions, save and spend money, serve customers, and scale business operations. When AI operates within processes, it gains purpose, governance, and accountability—all essential to delivering value from AI. Appian can embed AI into every process, which gives AI the context and actions it needs to accelerate outcomes for the enterprise.
Appian delivers six key benefits with our “AI in process” approach:
1. Process makes AI easy. Deploying AI in isolated projects is complex and costly. By embedding AI within a process, enterprises can easily access valuable AI capabilities when and where they need them.
2. Process gives AI structure. AI is only as useful as the structure surrounding it. A process gives AI defined goals in a structured flow of work. AI can work alongside humans and automation tools, escalating issues so humans always maintain oversight and control.
3. Process gives AI data. AI is nothing without data. But most enterprises struggle to feed AI complete data from across systems, while still ensuring privacy and maintaining access privileges. By integrating AI into processes, enterprises ensure AI receives quality, real-time data from all systems. Organizations can enforce privacy controls to prevent unauthorized access and optimize data governance to comply with regulations (such as GDPR, HIPAA, etc.).
4. Process makes AI safe. AI is powerful, but no one wants to give AI free reign over their enterprises. Processes provide crucial safety mechanisms, including human approval steps for high-risk actions and escalation paths to ensure AI errors don’t cause harm. Additionally, activity logs make auditing and compliance simple for organizations with strict regulatory requirements.
5. Process makes AI measurable. For many enterprises, AI is a black box, which can’t be measured for impact. Appian processes track every AI action, allowing organizations to measure performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimize outcomes.
6. Process makes AI enterprise-grade. A process provides the necessary infrastructure to scale AI use. The right tooling puts AI to work with security certifications, enterprise scalability, and other capabilities such as process orchestration, automation, and intelligence. Processes take AI from a collection of disconnected pilots to an enterprise-wide capability.
Appian’s unified approach delivers all the capabilities leading organizations need to orchestrate their business processes in one place. It empowers enterprises to transform their processes and improve business outcomes.
We have generated the majority of our revenue from sales of subscriptions, which include (1) cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and (2) term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our subscription contracts are priced based primarily on the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or, alternatively, non-user-based single application licenses. Our subscription contract terms generally vary from one to three years with most providing for payment in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. Due to the variability of our billing terms and the episodic nature of our customers purchasing additional subscriptions, we do not believe changes in our deferred revenue in a given period are directly correlated with our revenue growth.
We have invested in our Customer Success organization to help ensure customers are able to build and deploy applications on our platform. We have a number of strategic partnerships with companies, including Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, and TCS, which allow them to refer customers to us in order to purchase subscriptions. Our partners then provide professional services directly to the customers using our platform. We intend to continue focusing on adding new customers with our strategic partners. In addition, over time we expect
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our professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decline as we increasingly rely on strategic partners to help our customers deploy our software. We believe our investment in professional services, including strategic partners building their practices around Appian, will drive increased adoption of our platform.
Our customers primarily include financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation organizations. Generally, our sales team targets its efforts to organizations with over 2,000 employees and $2 billion in annual revenue. For the three months ended March 31, 2025, revenue generated from government agencies represented 33.4% of total revenue, of which revenue from U.S. federal government agencies was 23.9% of total revenue. For the three months ended March 31, 2024, revenue generated from government agencies represented 29.5% of total revenue, of which revenue from U.S. federal government agencies was 21.7% of total revenue. No single end-customer accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in the three months ended March 31, 2025 or 2024.
We offer our platform globally. Our platform supports multiple languages to facilitate collaboration and address challenges in multinational organizations. In the three months ended March 31, 2025, 36.2% of our total revenue was generated from customers outside of the United States as compared to 37.2% in the three months ended March 31, 2024. As of March 31, 2025, we operated in 16 countries. We believe we have a significant opportunity to continue to grow our international footprint, and we are investing in new geographies, including through investment in direct and indirect sales channels, professional services, and customer support and implementation partners.
Our business model focuses on maximizing the lifetime value of customer relationships, which is a function of the duration of a customer’s deployment of our platform as well as the price and number of subscriptions of our platform that a customer purchases. We incur significant customer acquisition costs, including expenses associated with hiring new sales representatives, who can take anywhere from six months to a year to become productive given the length of our sales cycle, and marketing costs which, with the exception of certain types of sales commissions, are expensed as incurred.
At the same time, we believe the costs we incur to retain customers and drive additional purchases of software are lower than our customer acquisition costs on a relative basis. Over time, we expect a large portion of our customers to renew their subscriptions and purchase additional subscriptions as they continue to build more applications and add more users to our platform. Over the last three completed fiscal years, we had an average cloud subscriptions gross renewal rate of 99%. We calculate our cloud subscriptions gross renewal rate by dividing (i) the cloud subscriptions revenue from renewing cloud customers in the current 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of the prior 12-month period, by (ii) our cloud subscriptions revenue from all cloud customers in the corresponding prior 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of such prior 12-month period. The calculation includes the impact of customers that churned during the current 12-month period but excludes the impact of price changes, additional users, upsells, and downsells during the same period.
Key Factors Affecting Our Performance
The following are several key factors that affect our performance:
• Market Adoption of Our Platform - Our ability to grow our customer base and drive market adoption of our platform is affected by the pace at which organizations digitally transform. We expect our revenue growth will be primarily driven by the pace of adoption and penetration of our platform. We offer a leading custom software platform and intend to continue to invest to expand our customer base. The degree to which prospective customers recognize the need for our software platform and its ability to enable their organizations to digitally transform, and subsequently allocate budget dollars to purchase our software, will drive our ability to acquire new customers and increase sales to existing customers, which, in turn, will affect our future financial performance.
• Growth of Our Customer Base - We believe we have a substantial opportunity to grow our customer base. We have aggressively invested, and intend to continue to invest, in our sales team in order to drive sales to new customers. We continue to make investments to enhance the expertise of our sales and marketing
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organization within our key industry verticals of financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, and manufacturing. In addition, we have established relationships with strategic partners who work with organizations undergoing digital transformations. Our ability to continue to grow our customer base is dependent, in part, upon our ability to differentiate ourselves within the increasingly competitive markets in which we participate.
• Further Penetration of Existing Customers - Our sales team seeks to generate additional revenue from existing customers by adding new users to our platform. Many of our customers begin by building a single application and then grow to build dozens of applications on our platform. Generally, the development of new applications on our platform results in the expansion of our user base within an organization and a corresponding increase in revenue. As a result of this “land and expand” strategy, we have generated significant additional revenue from our customer base. Our ability to increase sales to existing customers will depend on a number of factors, including the size of our sales and professional services teams, customers’ level of satisfaction with our platform and professional services, pricing, economic conditions, and our customers’ overall spending levels.
• Mix of Subscriptions and Professional Services Revenue - We believe our professional services have driven customer success and facilitated the adoption of our platform by customers. During the initial period of deployment of our platform by a customer, we generally provide a greater amount of support in building applications and training than later in the deployment, with a typical engagement lasting from two to six months. At the same time, many of our customers have historically purchased subscriptions for only a limited set of their total potential end users. As a result of these factors, the proportion of total revenue for a customer associated with professional services is relatively high during the initial deployment period. Over time, as the need for professional services associated with user deployments decreases and the number of end users increases, we expect subscriptions revenue as a percentage of total revenue to increase. In addition, we continue to grow our base of strategic partners to provide broader customer coverage and solution delivery capabilities. These partners perform professional services with respect to any new service contracts they originate. As the usage of strategic partners expands, we expect the proportion of our total revenue from subscriptions to increase over time relative to professional services. For the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024, 80.7% and 78.5% of our revenue, respectively, was derived from sales of subscriptions while the remaining 19.3% and 21.5%, respectively, was derived from the sale of professional services.
• Investments in Growth - We have made, and plan to continue to make, investments for long-term growth, including investing in our platform and infrastructure to continuously maximize their power and speed, meet the evolving needs of our customers, and take advantage of our market opportunity. In addition, we may pursue strategic acquisitions that enhance our product offerings. We also intend to continue to invest in sales and marketing as we further expand our sales teams, increase our marketing activities, and grow our international operations.
Key Metrics
We monitor the following metrics to help us measure and evaluate the effectiveness of our operations. All dollar amounts are presented in thousands.
Cloud Subscriptions Revenue
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 % Change
Cloud subscriptions revenue
$ 99,826 $ 86,603 15.3 %
Cloud subscriptions revenue includes cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services. Our cloud subscriptions revenue for any customer is primarily determined by the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or by the number of application licenses purchased, as well as the price paid. We believe increasing cloud subscriptions revenue is an indicator of the demand for our platform,
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the pace at which the market for our solutions is growing, the productivity of our sales team and strategic relationships in growing our customer base, and our ability to further penetrate our existing customer base.
Cloud Subscriptions Revenue Retention Rate
As of March 31,
2025 2024
Cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate
112 % 120 %
A key factor to our success is the renewal and expansion of subscription agreements with our existing customers. We calculate this metric over a set of customers who have been with us for at least one full year. To calculate our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate for a particular trailing 12-month period, we first establish the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue for the previous trailing 12-month period. This effectively represents recurring dollars we should expect in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period without accounting for any expansion or contraction. We subsequently measure the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period. Cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate is then calculated by dividing the aggregate recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period by the previous trailing 12-month period. This calculation includes the combined impact on our revenue from customer churn, upsells, downsells, pricing changes, and growth in the number of users on our platform. Our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate can fluctuate from period to period due to large customer contracts in any given period.
Key Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We generate revenue primarily through sales of subscriptions to our platform as well as professional services. We typically sell our software on a per-user basis or through non-user-based single application licenses. We generally bill customers and collect payment for subscriptions to our platform in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. In certain instances, we have had customers pay their entire contract value up front.
Our revenue is comprised of the following:
Subscriptions
Subscriptions revenue is primarily derived from cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our maintenance and support agreements provide customers with the right to unspecified software upgrades, maintenance releases and patches released during the term of the maintenance and support agreement on a when-and-if-available basis, and rights to technical support. Term license subscriptions are offered when the customer prefers to self-manage the deployment of our platform within their own infrastructure. When our platform is delivered as a cloud subscription, we manage operational needs in third-party hosted data centers.
Professional Services
Our professional services revenue is comprised of fees for consulting services, including application development, deployment assistance, and training related to our platform. Over time, we expect professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decrease as the usage of our partner network expands.
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Cost of Revenue
Subscriptions
Cost of subscriptions revenue consists primarily of fees paid to our third-party managed hosting providers and other third-party service providers, personnel costs, including payroll and benefits for our technology operations and customer support teams, amortization of acquired technology, and allocated overhead costs. We expect cost of revenue to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as our customer base grows.
Professional Services
Cost of professional services revenue includes all direct and indirect costs to deliver our professional services and training, including employee compensation for our global professional services and training personnel, third-party contractor costs, allocated overhead costs, and the costs of billable expenses such as travel and lodging. The unpredictability of the timing of providing services related to significant professional services agreements sold on a standalone basis may cause significant fluctuations in our cost of professional services which, in turn, may impact our quarterly financial results.
Gross Profit and Gross Margin
Gross profit and gross margin (defined as gross profit as a percentage of total revenue), have been, and will continue to be, affected by various factors, including the mix of cloud subscriptions and term license subscriptions, the mix of total subscriptions revenue and professional services revenue, subscription pricing, the costs associated with third-party hosting providers, and the extent to which we expand or reduce our professional services to support future changes in our growth. Our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period based on the above factors.
Subscriptions Gross Margin
Subscriptions gross margin is primarily affected by the growth in our subscriptions revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, costs to support such revenue. We expect to continue to invest in customer support and cloud operations to support growth in our business, and the timing of those investments is expected to cause subscriptions gross margin to fluctuate on a quarterly basis.
Professional Services Gross Margin
Professional services gross margin is affected by the growth in our professional services revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, the costs of our Customer Success organization as we continue to invest in the growth of our business, as well as by consultant utilization rates. Professional services gross margin is also impacted by the amount of services performed by subcontractors and partners as opposed to internal resources. For the full year 2025, we expect professional services gross margin to be consistent with 2024; however, the margins for individual quarters remain subject to fluctuation based on the factors discussed above.
Operating Expenses
Operating expenses consist of sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses. Personnel-related costs such as salaries, bonuses, commissions, payroll tax payments, and stock-based compensation expense are the most significant components of each of these expense categories. Other components of each category include professional fees for third-party services such as legal, software development resources, contractors, and cloud computing services. In addition, operating expenses include allocated overhead costs, which are primarily comprised of facility costs such as rent, employee medical benefits, employee relations expense, and certain information technology costs.
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In general, our operating expenses are expected to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we invest resources in enhancing our product and growing our business, although such growth is expected to be at a more measured rate than prior years.
Sales and Marketing Expense
Sales and marketing expense primarily includes personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, commissions, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs related to sales teams. Additional major expenses in this category include travel and entertainment, marketing activities and promotional events, subcontracting fees, and allocated overhead costs. We are focused on increasing the efficiency of our sales force and marketing activities by enhancing account targeting, messaging, field sales operations, and sales training in order to accelerate the adoption of our platform.
We expect sales and marketing headcount to marginally increase from current levels in 2025 due to expected growth in our principal markets and strategic growth areas. Furthermore, we expect sales and marketing expense to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest in acquiring new customers, further expand usage of our platform within our existing customer base, and broaden our efforts to build on our brand reputation and increase market awareness of our platform.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel costs for our employees who develop and enhance our platform, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs. Also included are non-personnel costs such as subcontracting, consulting, professional fees to third party development resources, certain information technology expenses, and allocated overhead costs.
Our research and development efforts are focused on enhancing the capabilities, speed, and power of our software platform. In 2022, we opened a new product development center in India. Although we expect research and development expense to continue to increase in absolute dollars as such costs are critical to maintain and improve the quality of applications and our competitive position, we believe our product development center will result in cost savings over time.
General and Administrative Expense
General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs for our administrative, legal, information technology, human resources, finance, and accounting teams as well as our senior executives. Additional expenses included in this category are non-personnel costs such as travel-related expenses, contracting and professional fees for such services as audits, taxation, and legal, insurance and other corporate expenses, including allocated overhead costs, and bad debt expenses. In 2025, we expect general and administrative expense to increase in absolute dollars largely due to investments in our information technology team.
Other Non-Operating Expense
Other Expense (Income), Net
Other expense (income), net consists primarily of gains and losses related to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, interest income on our cash and cash equivalents and investments, and other sources of income or expense not related to our core business operations.
Interest Expense
Interest expense consists primarily of interest on our debt, amortization of deferred financing fees, unused credit facility fees, and commitment fees on our letters of credit.
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Results of Operations
The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations (in thousands):
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024
Revenue
Subscriptions $ 134,352 $ 117,694
Professional services 32,074 32,141
Total revenue 166,426 149,835
Cost of revenue
Subscriptions
14,894 12,270
Professional services
24,024 25,727
Total cost of revenue 38,918 37,997
Gross profit 127,508 111,838
Operating expenses
Sales and marketing
54,553 58,156
Research and development
39,517 39,771
General and administrative
34,272 33,446
Total operating expenses 128,342 131,373
Operating loss (834) (19,535)
Other non-operating (income) expense
Other (income) expense, net (5,716) 8,207
Interest expense 5,318 5,646
Total other non-operating (income) expense (398) 13,853
Loss before income taxes (436) (33,388)
Income tax expense (benefit) 741 (465)
Net loss $ (1,177) $ (32,923)
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The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations data expressed as a percentage of total revenue:
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024
Revenue
Subscriptions 80.7 % 78.5 %
Professional services 19.3 21.5
Total revenue 100.0 100.0
Cost of revenue
Subscriptions 8.9 8.2
Professional services 14.4 17.2
Total cost of revenue*
23.4 25.4
Gross profit 76.6 74.6
Operating expenses
Sales and marketing 32.8 38.8
Research and development 23.7 26.5
General and administrative 20.6 22.3
Total operating expenses* 77.1 87.7
Operating loss (0.5) (13.0)
Other non-operating (income) expense
Other (income) expense, net (3.4) 5.5
Interest expense 3.2 3.8
Total other non-operating expense*
(0.2) 9.2
Loss before income taxes*
(0.3) (22.3)
Income tax expense (benefit) 0.4 (0.3)
Net loss*
(0.7) % (22.0) %
* Totals may not foot due to rounding.
Comparison of the Three Months Ended March 31, 2025 and 2024
Revenue
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Revenue
Subscriptions $ 134,352 $ 117,694 $ 16,658 14.2 %
Professional services 32,074 32,141 (67) (0.2)
Total revenue $ 166,426 $ 149,835 $ 16,591 11.1 %
Total revenue increased $16.6 million, or 11.1%, in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 due to an increase in our subscriptions revenue of $16.7 million. This increase was partially offset by a decrease in our professional services revenue of $0.1 million. The increase in subscriptions revenue was driven by a $13.2 million increase in cloud subscriptions revenue, a $3.1 million increase in term license subscriptions revenue, and a $0.3 million increase in maintenance and support revenue. With respect to new versus existing customers, there was an $8.1 million increase in subscriptions revenue from sales to new customers, while the remaining $8.5 million of the increase was attributable to expanded deployments, price increases on renewals, and corresponding sales of additional subscriptions to existing customers. The decrease in professional services
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revenue was due primarily to a $4.9 million decrease in revenue from existing customers, which was largely offset by a $4.8 million increase in sales to new customers.
Cost of Revenue
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Cost of revenue
Subscriptions $ 14,894 $ 12,270 $ 2,624 21.4 %
Professional services 24,024 25,727 (1,703) (6.6)
Total cost of revenue $ 38,918 $ 37,997 $ 921 2.4 %
Subscriptions gross margin 88.9 % 89.6 %
Professional services gross margin 25.1 % 20.0 %
Total gross margin 76.6 % 74.6 %
Cost of revenue increased $0.9 million, or 2.4%, in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, primarily due to a $2.4 million increase in hosting costs coupled with a $0.4 million increase in contractor costs. These increases were partially offset by a $1.6 million decrease in professional services and product support personnel costs. Hosting costs increased due to an increase in sales of our cloud offering during the three months ended March 31, 2025, while contractor costs increased due to an increase in the usage of subcontractors for professional services engagements. Professional services and product support personnel costs decreased due to a decrease in cost of sales headcount of 11% from March 31, 2024 to March 31, 2025.
Subscriptions gross margin decreased slightly to 88.9% for the three months ended March 31, 2025, compared to 89.6% in the same period in 2024. The decrease in subscriptions gross margin was attributable to an increase in hosting costs, which was substantially offset by an increase in subscriptions revenue during the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to the three months ended March 31, 2024. Professional services gross margin increased to 25.1% for the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to 20.0% in the same period in 2024 due largely to a decrease in professional services personnel expense, partially offset by a slight decrease in professional services revenue in the comparable period. Gross margin increased to 76.6% for the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to 74.6% for the three months ended March 31, 2024, driven largely by the increase in subscriptions revenue and the improvement in professional services gross margin.
Sales and Marketing Expense
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Sales and marketing $ 54,553 $ 58,156 $ (3,603) (6.2) %
% of revenue 32.8 % 38.8 %
Sales and marketing expense decreased $3.6 million, or 6.2%, in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, primarily due to a $2.2 million decrease in sales and marketing personnel costs. This decrease was partially offset by a $0.3 million increase travel and entertainment costs and a $0.2 million increase in contractor costs. Sales and marketing personnel costs decreased due to a decrease in sales and marketing headcount of 24% from March 31, 2024 to March 31, 2025 and a $0.3 million decrease in stock compensation expense. Travel and entertainment expense increased due to a higher number of in-person events and engagements relative to the prior year, while the increase in contractor costs was attributable to an increase in third-party consulting fees.
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Research and Development Expense
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Research and development $ 39,517 $ 39,771 $ (254) (0.6) %
% of revenue 23.7 % 26.5 %
Research and development expense decreased $0.3 million, or 0.6%, in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. This change is primarily attributable to a $0.3 million decline in research and development personnel costs. Research and development headcount remained consistent period over period, but overall personnel costs declined due to realized cost savings from our product development center in India.
General and Administrative Expense
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
General and administrative
$ 34,272 $ 33,446 $ 826 2.5 %
% of revenue 20.6 % 22.3 %
General and administrative expense increased $0.8 million, or 2.5%, in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 primarily due to increases of $0.8 million in information technology spending and $0.7 million in professional fees. These increases were partially offset by decreases of $1.4 million in insurance expense and $0.3 million in personnel costs. Information technology costs were higher due to continued investments in computer software while professional fees were higher due to a $1.1 million increase in litigation-related expenses attributable to the Pegasystems cases and a $0.4 million increase in contract labor spending. The decrease in insurance expense was driven by the lower amortization expense of our judgment preservation insurance policy, and personnel costs were lower due to headcount decreasing by 3% from March 31, 2024 to March 31, 2025.
Other Non-Operating (Income) Expense, Net
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Other (income) expense, net
$ (5,716) $ 8,207 $ (13,923) ***
% of revenue (3.4) % 5.5 %
*** Indicates a percentage that is not meaningful.
Other income, net was $5.7 million in the three months ended March 31, 2025 compared to other expense, net of $8.2 million in the three months ended March 31, 2024. This change was primarily due to $4.1 million in foreign exchange gains in the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to $11.5 million in foreign exchange losses in the three months ended March 31, 2024. In addition, there was a $1.4 million decrease in other income related to a non-recurring local government incentive payment that was received in the prior year.
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Interest Expense
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Interest expense $ 5,318 $ 5,646 $ (328) (5.8) %
% of revenue 3.2 % 3.8 %
Interest expense decreased by $0.3 million in the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to the corresponding period in 2024 primarily due to a lower effective interest rate on our outstanding principal across the comparable periods.
Income Tax Expense (Benefit)
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Income tax expense (benefit)
$ 741 $ (465) $ 1,206 ***
% of revenue
0.4 % (0.3) %
*** Indicates a percentage that is not meaningful.
Income tax expense increased by $1.2 million in the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to the corresponding period in 2024. This change was primarily driven by increased pre-tax book income in certain international subsidiaries for the three months ended March 31, 2025. The change in pre-tax book income was primarily attributable to increases in non-operating unrealized foreign exchange gains.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we provide investors with certain non-GAAP financial performance measures. We use these non-GAAP financial performance measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Management believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance by excluding certain expenses that may not be indicative of our recurring core business operating results. We believe both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when planning, forecasting, and analyzing future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management’s internal comparisons to historical performance as well as comparisons to competitors’ operating results. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors both because (1) they allow for greater transparency with respect to measures used by management in its financial and operational decision-making and (2) they are used by institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business.
Our non-GAAP financial performance measures include the following: non-GAAP subscriptions cost of revenue, non-GAAP professional services costs of revenue, non-GAAP total cost of revenue, non-GAAP total operating expense, non-GAAP operating loss, non-GAAP income tax expense, non-GAAP net income (loss), and non-GAAP net income (loss) per share, basic and diluted. These non-GAAP financial performance measures exclude the effect of stock-based compensation expense, unrealized foreign exchange rate gains and losses, certain non-ordinary litigation-related expenses consisting of legal and other professional fees associated with the Pegasystems cases (net of insurance reimbursements), or Litigation Expense, amortization of the judgment preservation insurance policy, or JPI Amortization, severance costs related to an involuntary reduction in our workforce, or Severance Costs, lease impairment and lease-related charges associated with actions taken to reduce the footprint of our leased office spaces, or Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges, and a short-swing profit disgorgement paid to us by an investor, or Short-Swing Profit Payment. While some of these items may be recurring in nature and should not be disregarded in the evaluation of our earnings performance, it is useful to exclude such items when
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analyzing current results and trends compared to other periods as these items can vary significantly from period to period depending on specific underlying transactions or events that may occur. Therefore, while we may incur or recognize these types of expenses in the future, we believe removing these items for purposes of calculating our non-GAAP financial measures provides investors with a more focused presentation of our ongoing operating performance.
We also discuss adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial performance measure we believe offers a useful view of the overall operation of our business. We define adjusted EBITDA as net loss before (1) other expense (income), net, (2) interest expense, (3) income tax expense, (4) depreciation expense and amortization of intangible assets, (5) stock-based compensation expense, (6) Litigation Expense, (7) JPI Amortization, and (8) Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to adjusted EBITDA is net loss. Users should consider the limitations of using adjusted EBITDA, including the fact that this measure does not provide a complete measure of our operating performance. Adjusted EBITDA is not intended to purport to be an alternative to net loss as a measure of operating performance or to cash flows from operating activities as a measure of liquidity.
The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and our non-GAAP measures may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies.
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The following tables reconcile our non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures (in thousands, except per share data):
GAAP Measure Stock-Based Compensation Litigation Expense JPI Amortization Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges
Unrealized Foreign Exchange Rate Gains and Losses Non-GAAP Measure
Three Months Ended March 31, 2025
Subscriptions cost of revenue $ 14,894 $ (243) $ — $ — $ — $ — $ 14,651
Professional services cost of revenue 24,024 (1,407) — — — — 22,617
Total cost of revenue 38,918 (1,650) — — — — 37,268
Total operating expense 128,342 (8,389) (1,712) (3,084) (312) — 114,845
Operating (loss) income
(834) 10,039 1,712 3,084 312 — 14,313
Non-operating (income) expense
(5,716) — — — — 4,016 (1,700)
Income tax impact of above items
741 455 — — — (267) 929
Net (loss) income
(1,177) 9,584 1,712 3,084 312 (3,749) 9,766
Net (loss) income per share, basic and diluted (a,b)
$ (0.02) $ 0.13 $ 0.02 $ 0.04 $ — $ (0.05) $ 0.13
Three Months Ended March 31, 2024
Subscriptions cost of revenue $ 12,270 $ (213) $ — $ — $ — $ — $ 12,057
Professional services cost of revenue 25,727 (1,578) — — — — 24,149
Total cost of revenue 37,997 (1,791) — — — — 36,206
Total operating expense 131,373 (8,815) (742) (4,504) — — 117,312
Operating (loss) income
(19,535) 10,606 742 4,504 — — (3,683)
Non-operating expense (income)
8,207 — — — — (11,848) (3,641)
Income tax impact of above items
(465) 604 — — — 935 1,074
Net (loss) income
(32,923) 10,002 742 4,504 — 10,913 (6,762)
Net (loss) income per share, basic and diluted
$ (0.45) $ 0.14 $ 0.01 $ 0.06 $ — $ 0.15 $ (0.09)
(a) Accounts for the impact of 0.4 million shares of dilutive securities.
(b) Per share amounts do not foot due to rounding.
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The following table reconciles GAAP net loss to adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024 (in thousands):
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024
GAAP net loss $ (1,177) $ (32,923)
Other (income) expense, net
(5,716) 8,207
Interest expense 5,318 5,646
Income tax expense
741 (465)
Depreciation expense and amortization of intangible assets
2,446 2,361
Stock-based compensation expense 10,039 10,606
Litigation Expense
1,712 742
JPI Amortization
3,084 4,504
Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges
312 —
Adjusted EBITDA $ 16,759 $ (1,322)
Liquidity and Capital Resources
The following table presents selected financial information and statistics pertaining to liquidity and capital resources as of March 31, 2025 and December 31, 2024:
As of
March 31, 2025 December 31, 2024
Cash and cash equivalents $ 134,982 $ 118,552
Short-term investments and marketable securities 64,716 41,308
Property and equipment, net 36,330 37,109
Working capital* 81,520 80,787
* Defined as current assets net of current liabilities.
We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments and marketable securities, together with any positive cash flows from operations and available borrowings under our line of credit, will be sufficient to support working capital and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next twelve months.
We have in the past entered into, and may in the future enter into, investments in or acquisitions of complementary businesses, products, or technologies, which could also require us to seek additional equity financing, incur indebtedness, or use cash resources. We have no present binding agreements or commitments to enter into any such acquisitions. If we are unable to raise additional capital when desired, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Sources of Funds
We have historically financed our operations in large part with equity financing arrangements. Our last public offering was completed in June 2020. Through these public offerings, we received net proceeds of $344.8 million.
To further help strengthen our financial position and support our growth initiatives, in November 2022 we entered into a Senior Secured Credit Facilities Credit Agreement, or the Credit Agreement, which provides for a five-year term loan facility in an aggregate principal amount of $200.0 million and, in addition, up to $100.0 million for a revolving credit facility, including a letter of credit sub-facility in the aggregate availability amount of $20.0 million and a swingline sub-facility in the aggregate availability amount of $10.0 million (as a sublimit of the revolving loan facility).
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The Credit Agreement matures on November 3, 2027. We have been using the proceeds to fund the growth of our business and support our working capital requirements. We are currently in compliance with all covenants, had used borrowing capacity of $62.0 million under our $100.0 million revolving credit facility, and had outstanding letters of credit totaling $14.6 million in connection with securing our leased office space.
We expect future sources of funds to consist primarily of cash generated from sales of subscriptions and the related professional services. We may also elect to raise additional sources of funding through entering into new debt financing arrangements or conducting additional public offerings. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, the timing and extent of spending to support research and development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, particularly internationally, the introduction of new and enhanced products and functions as well as platform enhancements and professional services offerings, and the level of market acceptance of our product.
Uses of Funds
Our current principal uses of cash are funding operations and other working capital requirements. Historically, we have also utilized cash to pay for the acquisition of businesses that were complementary to ours, and we may pursue similar opportunities in the future. Over the past several years, revenue has increased significantly from year to year and, as a result, cash flows from customer collections have also grown. However, as we continue to invest in growing our business, operating expenses have also increased.
In 2024, we entered into a Judgment Preservation Insurance policy in connection with our $2.036 billion judgment against Pegasystems. See Note 12 to the consolidated financial statements for additional details. The total cost of the policy was $57.3 million, which we paid with operating cash on hand. In addition, in February 2024 our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program, under which we repurchased approximately 1.3 million shares of our common stock for approximately $50.0 million during the first quarter of 2024. We may in the future opportunistically repurchase our common stock within the context of maintaining our strong capital position.
Outside of the above items and cash used by operations, other uses of cash in 2025 to date have included capital expenditures related to the expansion of the new leased facilities and principal repayments of our term loan debt.
Furthermore, we have a non-cancellable cloud hosting arrangement with AWS that contains provisions for minimum purchase commitments. Specifically, purchase commitments under the agreement total $220.0 million over five years. The agreement, which was originated in July 2021 and amended in October 2024, currently contains minimum annual spending requirements of $44.0 million from November 2024 to October 2029. Spending under this agreement for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024 totaled $10.4 million and $10.3 million, respectively. The timing of payments under the agreement may vary. We expect to meet our minimum annual spending requirement during the term of the arrangement.
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Historical Cash Flows
Three Months Ended March 31,
2025 2024 $ Change % Change
(dollars in thousands)
Beginning cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash $ 118,552 $ 149,351 $ (30,799) (20.6) %
Operating activities:
Net loss (1,177) (32,923) 31,746 (96.4)
Stock-based compensation and other non-cash adjustments 8,358 24,328 (15,970) (65.6)
Changes in working capital 37,785 27,461 10,324 37.6
Net cash provided by operating activities 44,966 18,866 26,100 ***
Investing activities:
Net cash (used by) provided by investing activities
(24,077) 7,459 (31,536) ***
Financing activities:
Net cash used by financing activities (5,509) (4,249) (1,260) 29.7
Effect of exchange rates 1,050 (1,319) 2,369 ***
Net change 16,430 20,757 (4,327) (20.8)
Ending cash and cash equivalents
$ 134,982 $ 170,108 $ (35,126) (20.6) %
*** Indicates a percentage that is not meaningful.
Operating Activities
Net cash provided by operating activities was $45.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to $18.9 million provided by operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The increase in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily driven by increased cash collections stemming from strong contract bookings in the fourth quarter of 2024 and other cost management activities during the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to the three months ended March 31, 2024.
Investing Activities
Net cash used by investing activities was $24.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to $7.5 million in net cash provided by investing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2024. This change was primarily driven by a $37.0 million increase in purchases of short-term investments. This increase was partially offset by a $4.0 million increase in proceeds from the maturity of investments and a $1.5 million decrease in capital expenditure payments.
Financing Activities
Net cash used by financing activities was $5.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 as compared to $4.2 million of net cash used by financing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The increase in net cash used by financing activities was primarily due to a $1.3 million increase in debt repayments and a $0.3 million increase in payments for employee taxes related to the net share settlement of equity awards during the three months ended March 31, 2025.
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Critical Accounting Estimates
There have been no material changes in our critical accounting estimates from those disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on February 19, 2025. We are not aware of any specific events or circumstances that would require us to update our estimates, assumptions, and judgments.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See Note 2 to the unaudited consolidated financial statements in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of recent accounting pronouncements.
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Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.