What changed in this filing

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Item 1. Business

2026-02-26 compared with 2025-02-27 · 90 added, 133 removed, 80 unchanged (74% of the section changed)

Cars Commerce is an audience-driven technology company empowering the automotive industry.

We aim to simplify everything about car buying and selling with powerful products, solutions and machine learning model-driven artificial intelligence technologies that span pretail, retail and post-sale activities – enabling more efficient and profitable retail operations.

The Cars Commerce platform is organized around four industry-leading brands:

our flagship automotive marketplace and dealer reputation site Cars.com, award-winning digital retail technology and marketing services from Dealer Inspire, essential trade-in and appraisal technology from AccuTrade and exclusive in-market media solutions from the Cars Commerce Media Network.

Established in 1998, we have a history of empowering shoppers with the data, resources and digital tools needed to make informed buying decisions and seamlessly connect with automotive retailers.

Our premier automotive marketplace, Cars.com enables dealerships and OEMs with innovative solutions and data-driven intelligence to better reach and influence our 26 million average monthly ready-to-buy shoppers, ultimately increasing inventory turn.

We have further invested in building innovative products and solutions that we believe help future-proof dealerships with more efficient operations, a faster and easier car buying process, and connected digital experiences that sell and service more vehicles.

Today, we provide a full suite of integrated platform capabilities that drive ready-to-buy car shoppers to the dealership.

The strength of our products and solutions has attracted over 19,200 franchise and independent dealer customers across the U.S.

Cars.com Inc.

(NYSE:CARS) is a trusted audience-powered and data-driven technology platform that simplifies buying and selling cars.

The flagship Cars.com marketplace connects millions of consumers to dealerships across the U.S., powering the car buying experience with artificial intelligence ("AI") shopping tools and comprehensive vehicle reviews and content.

Our interconnected ecosystem of products enables dealers and OEMs to sell more cars by efficiently leveraging our marketplace, dealer websites, trade and appraisal tools and proprietary in-market media solutions.

Learn more at www.carscommerce.inc.

Our premier automotive marketplace, Cars.com, empowers shoppers with the data, resources and digital tools they need to make informed buying decisions and seamlessly connect with automotive retailers.

We also equip dealerships and OEMs with innovative solutions and data-driven intelligence to better reach and influence our 26 million average monthly shoppers.

Not only does our marketplace drive ready-to-buy customers to the dealership, we believe our interconnected ecosystem of products also allows dealerships to operate more efficiently by facilitating a faster and easier car buying and selling experience.

The strength of our products and solutions has attracted approximately 19,500 franchise and independent dealer customers across the U.S.

and Canada to our platform.

The majority of our dealer customers subscribe to the Cars.com marketplace and increasingly, they are

leveraging more of our platform to power their local retail operations.

Approximately 80% of our dealer customers subscribe to either the Cars.com marketplace or the marketplace and additional interconnected solutions, with our remaining customers subscribing to standalone digital website solutions.

In addition, substantially all OEMs selling vehicles in the U.S.

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Buying a car is one of life’s most significant and researched decisions.

Consumers are challenged with makes, models and trim-levels and opaque, yet negotiable prices, and gaps in the online-to-offline shopping experience, all of which add complexity to an often overwhelming decision-making process.

Shoppers are seeking a more streamlined, simplified automotive retail experience.

Cars Commerce helps car shoppers cut through the clutter with products designed to reduce friction from search to signature.

Consumers are challenged with makes, models and trim-levels, opaque, yet negotiable prices, and gaps in the online-to-offline shopping experience, all of which add complexity to an often overwhelming decision-making process.

Shoppers desire a more streamlined, simplified and trustworthy automotive retail experience.

We help car shoppers cut through the noise with AI-powered features designed to move them confidently from search to signature.

We believe our marketplace functions as a definitive resource for car shoppers.

We are known for the depth and scale of our listings and reviews, with over 2.7 million vehicle listings and over 13 million consumer reviews as of December 31, 2024.

In addition, our expert editorial reviews and news and research publications aid shoppers in their purchase journey.

We also include features like Instant Finance to help consumers better understand their total cost of ownership, including financing fees.

With over 30% of car shoppers also seeking to sell their vehicle, Instant Offer allows them to understand the value of their vehicle before leaving the comfort of their home.

Overall, our consumer experience is focused on reducing friction, improving speed and delivering powerful results through pricing, financing, comparison shopping, research and communication tools that empower shoppers.

We are known for the depth and scale of our listings and reviews, as evidenced by our over 4.6 million monthly unique VINs and over 16 million consumer reviews as of December 31, 2025.

In addition, our expert editorial content, including news and research publications, aid shoppers in their purchase journey.

We also allow consumers to better understand cost of ownership from the convenience of their home with financing tools and vehicle trade-in values.

Overall, our consumer experience is focused on reducing friction and improving speed to purchase through pricing, comparison shopping, research and communication tools that empower shoppers.

For Customers.

Our platform offers local dealers, OEMs, dealer groups and auto-adjacent companies a variety of products and solutions.

Dealers and OEMs value our marketplace for the opportunity to connect with our in-market audience of 26 million average monthly users in 2024, and to improve their marketing and operational efficiency with our suite of solutions.

We complement our marketplace products with digital solutions, including websites and trade-in and appraisal technology, and media offerings powered by our exclusive in-market media network.

For example, website hosting customers that also have a marketplace subscription get approximately 40% more connections to their website, in addition to the associated marketplace leads they receive, as compared to those without marketplace.

Additionally, dealers that have an active AccuTrade solution with marketplace have approximately 90% more marketplace and Instant Offer leads.

Importantly, we believe that many of the tools we have built for consumers, particularly those that support financing and trade-in valuation, help our dealer customers and OEMs by providing them with more qualified, ready-to-transact leads and reducing points of friction that can often arise in the purchase journey.

Our platform provides local dealers, OEMs, dealer groups and auto-adjacent companies a variety of digital and media solutions to improve their marketing and operational efficiency.

Dealers and OEMs particularly value our marketplace for the opportunity to connect with our in-market audience of 26 million average monthly users in 2025.

We complement our marketplace products with digital solutions, including websites and trade and appraisal technology, in-market media solutions.

For example, U.S.

website customers that also have a marketplace subscription see approximately 45% more connections to their website, in addition to

the associated marketplace leads they receive, as compared to those without marketplace.

Importantly, we believe that many of the tools we have built for consumers, particularly those that support trade-in valuation, benefit our dealer customers and OEMs by enhancing consumer trust and reducing points of friction that can often arise in the purchase journey.

Industry Dynamics.

As an audience-driven technology company, Cars Commerce is focused on helping our customers, primarily dealers, drive profitable vehicle sales.

More recently dealers have experienced compressed margins, as well as improved supply and market normalization.

Additionally, during this time, consumer expectations on their digital purchase journey have only increased.

As a result, dealers seeking to build a sustainable advantage are investing more in their websites and technology solutions to drive operational efficiency while supporting shoppers in their preferred purchase channels (i.e., online, offline or both).

We believe we are

the first truly integrated platform, providing a comprehensive suite of sales-oriented products and solutions that support dealers' local retail operations.

Our interconnected platform is organized around four core capabilities:

Marketplace, Digital Experience, Trade & Appraisal and Media.

As an audience-driven technology company, we are focused on helping our customers, primarily automotive dealerships, drive profitable vehicle sales.

Consumer expectations on their digital purchase journey have only increased.

As a result, some dealers seek to invest more in their websites and technology solutions to drive operational efficiency, while supporting shoppers in their preferred purchase channels (i.e., online, in person or both).

We believe we are the first truly integrated marketplace-centric platform, providing a comprehensive suite of sales-oriented products and solutions that support dealers' local retail operations.

Our interconnected product suite is organized around four core capabilities:

Marketplace, Digital Experience, Media Solutions and Trade & Appraisal.

• Marketplace.

Central to our platform is Cars.com, the most recognized automotive marketplace brand.

We believe the marketplace is critical to the pretail experience, allowing OEMs and dealers to merchandise their inventory to our 26 million average monthly shoppers each month in 2024.

Importantly, approximately 60% of our traffic comes to us organically, allowing us to provide our customers with a truly complementary and unduplicated audience.

Our marketplace packages include reputation management technology and digital financing tools, and dealers using our upper-tier packages experienced a double-digit improvement in inventory turn time.

For subscribing dealers, AccuTrade’s Instant Offer is directly integrated into the Cars.com experience, giving them access to in-market consumers who are ready to trade-in their vehicle for a new one.

We also have Your Garage as a feature of Cars.com, allowing consumers to add and save vehicles to their virtual Garage and track the Cars.com Market Value of their current vehicle.

Cars.com Market Value leverages our retail demand data to help consumers identify the best time to sell or trade-in their vehicle.

Central to our platform is Cars.com, the most recognized automotive marketplace brand, which we believe serves a critical role as a trusted and neutral third-party marketplace connecting consumers, dealers and OEMs to drive automotive retail at scale.

We enabled dealers and OEMs to professionally merchandise their inventory to our 26 million average monthly shoppers in 2025.

Importantly, the majority of our traffic comes to us organically so that we provide our customers with a truly complementary and unduplicated audience.

We offer dealers packages that include reputation management technology and digital financing tools, with additional functionality like media solutions, for our upper-tier packages.

Notably, dealers purchasing these upper-tier packages typically experience a double-digit improvement in leads per listing.

We continue to add new consumer features, such as Carson TM , to our marketplace.

Carson TM , which launched in 2025, provides consumers with an AI-powered natural language search experience.

Shoppers utilizing Carson TM generate two times more leads than other shoppers.

• Digital Experience.

The Cars.com marketplace audience is often driven directly into the retail experience through our platform's websites and solutions.

Our industry-leading brand Dealer Inspire is a preferred provider with nearly every OEM in the United States.

Dealer Inspire websites and technology include integrated reviews, AI-powered chat tools, instant financing and vehicle acquisition technology.

Key products include:

o Website creation and platform hosting.

Our Dealer Inspire website hosting and related solutions make automotive retail faster, easier and smarter from search to signature.

We operate dealer websites in both the U.S.

and Canada as an endorsed website provider by substantially all OEMs.

These website hosting and related solutions transform automotive retail processes by making them faster, easier and smarter from search to signature.

Built on a customizable platform and designed with user behavior data, we believe our websites are set apart by the advanced technologies that drive modern consumers toward purchase decisions.

In 2023, we acquired D2C Media Inc.

("D2C Media"), a leading automotive technology and digital solutions provider in Canada.

D2C Media also serves dealer customers with website, media services and other technology solutions that help dealers increase sales velocity and measure impact.

Today, we host the digital storefronts (websites) for approximately 7,700 dealers in the U.S.

o Digital retailing solutions.

Our digital retailing product suite is focused on bringing omnichannel commerce to the automotive industry at scale by simplifying the online to in-store process for dealers and buyers.

Our Conversations product is built to connect in-market car buyers with sellers — wherever, whenever and however they want to shop.

Conversations turns chats into customers by leveraging AI technology, live video chat capabilities and 24/7 managed chat support to instantly respond to all incoming messages.

Our Online Shopper solution enables e-commerce transactions for dealers.

This feature also allows shoppers to add finance and insurance products and aftermarket accessories, and to checkout, for delivery or pick-up in just three easy steps.

Instant Finance enables shoppers to digitally secure instant vehicle financing, while our dealer customers are empowered with the ability to utilize the lenders of their choice at no cost to the dealer.

• Trade & Appraisal.

AccuTrade uses real-time market data and diagnostic scans to determine the right trade-in offer for every VIN in minutes, increasing dealer access to high quality used vehicle inventory and improving dealer profitability through reconditioning loss avoidance and operations efficiency, and while creating transparency for the consumer in the trade-in process, which is often a point of friction.

AccuTrade leverages retail and wholesale data and onboard diagnostic scanner data to automatically adjust the vehicle value based on the specific vehicle being analyzed, with approximately 30% greater accuracy than legacy valuation providers.

It quickly delivers a tailored, consumer-facing condition report that provides transparency to consumers while saving dealers an average of approximately $700 in reconditioning costs per vehicle.

AccuTrade's consumer website application is seamlessly integrated into Cars.com and dealer websites, allowing consumers to obtain instant and transparent cash offers for their specific VINs.

• Cars Commerce Media Network.

A commerce media network created exclusively for automotive, Cars Commerce Media Network allows local and national customers alike to reach proven in-market and in-context consumers to accelerate the path to purchase.

When OEMs advertise with Cars Commerce Media Network, we see impact throughout the consumer digital shopping experience.

When one of our OEM partners purchased a prominent advertising sponsorship, we observed increased consumer engagement on Cars.com (searches and vehicle page views), traffic to their dealers' websites, and a

double digit lift in conversions on those dealer websites during the sponsorship period.

The product suite for dealers includes four turnkey solutions:

• Media Solutions.

Our exclusive automotive media solutions enable local and national customers alike to reach proven in-market consumers.

Whether on or off our Cars.com related properties, OEMs and dealers advertising with our media solutions experience increased consumer engagement as seen throughout the digital shopping experience.

For example, when an OEM partner purchased a prominent advertising sponsorship in 2025, we observed increased consumer engagement on Cars.com (searches and vehicle page views), traffic to the OEM's dealers' websites, and a double-digit lift in conversions on those dealer websites during the sponsorship period.

Our media solutions include:

o Cars Social.

Cars Social allows dealers to target and serve native advertisements displaying real-time inventory to in-market car shoppers on Facebook and Instagram by leveraging our valuable audience data.

This solution is also available to OEMs.

Cars Social enables dealers, OEMs and other national advertisers to target and serve native advertisements displaying real-time inventory to in-market car shoppers on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms by leveraging our valuable audience data.

o VIN Performance Media.

VIN Performance Media utilizes advanced machine-learning to automatically optimize all aspects of the media campaign, including audience targeting, real-time inventory, and ad placement across search, social, and display.

By improving traffic to dealer vehicle details pages, VIN Performance Media increases the inventory turn rate.

o In-Market Video and In-Market Display.

VIN Performance Media utilizes advanced machine-learning to optimize all aspects of a media campaign, including audience targeting, real-time inventory and ad placement across search, social, and display.

o In-Market Video.

In-Market Video provides OEMs and dealers with the opportunity to pinpoint serious, ready-to-buy shoppers geographically on their screen of choice via social media platforms, streaming apps and connected TV.

This targeted approach drives high advertising efficiency for customers and compares favorably to the high-cost broadcast television solutions that dealers and OEMs have historically relied on.

Our In-Market Display products enable dealers and OEMs to extend their reach and efficiently access our large audience of in-market car shoppers.

The geographically targeted advertising served on our Cars.com website and mobile app enables our customers to increase brand awareness and promote inventory.

• Trade & Appraisal.

AccuTrade helps dealers manage inventory life-cycle from appraisal to exit to maximize dealer profitability.

Gross profit begins at the time of appraisal by leveraging retail and wholesale demand data and diagnostic scans to determine the right trade-in offer for a VIN in minutes.

Through this solution, dealers gain access to high quality used vehicle inventory and experience improved profitability by avoiding reconditioning costs of approximately $800 on average per vehicle acquisition.

AccuTrade's rich dataset then determines the best retail or wholesale exit strategy for each vehicle.

The dealer can choose to retail the vehicle on our Cars.com marketplace or wholesale their vehicle on DealerClub.

And for dealers choosing to wholesale the vehicle, we have a click-to-list option to DealerClub, the first reputation-based, dealer-to-dealer digital auction that brings trust to wholesale auctions via transparent pricing and buyer and seller reviews.

We believe this helps minimize arbitration disputes and title issues, ultimately improving overall profitability per wholesale transaction.

Our Strengths and Competitive Advantages.

Cars Commerce is focused on simplifying car buying and selling by eliminating complexity and increasing transparency throughout the local retail experience, where sales and service are best facilitated.

The Cars Commerce platform brings our industry leading marketplace together with innovative digital and media solutions to create frictionless shopping experiences for consumers and our customers.

We are focused on simplifying car buying and selling by eliminating complexity and increasing transparency throughout the local retail experience, where sales and service are best facilitated.

Our platform brings our industry leading marketplace together with innovative digital and media solutions which we believe creates frictionless shopping experiences for consumers and our customers.

Led by our product first innovation strategy, industry-leading brand, high-quality audience and differentiated technology solutions, we are executing on our vision to be essential to the success of the automotive industry which we believe will drive accelerated growth in our subscription based revenue and cash flow.

A powerful suite of brands delivering integrated digital and media solutions that enable our platform strategy.

Our Cars Commerce suite of brands includes integrated marketplace, retailing and media solutions that define our platform strategy and make us essential to the automotive industry.

Our suite of brands includes our flagship Cars.com integrated marketplace, digital retailing and media solutions that define our platform strategy and make us essential to the automotive industry.

We believe our solutions seamlessly connect buyers and sellers wherever they are in their vehicle shopping journey.

Our integrated platform helps sellers expand their consumer influence and engagement across the entire purchasing journey, ultimately increasing sales, creating operational efficiencies and improving profitability.

Customers who subscribe to our Cars.com marketplace and Dealer Inspire website experience are providing consumers with a more integrated experience across pretail and retail, leading to more than a higher lead close rate, reflecting the interoperability and benefits of our platform.

For instance, dealers that subscribe to our trade and appraisal tools as well as our Cars.com marketplace have approximately 70% more marketplace leads, in addition to their Instant Offer leads.

A high-quality audience, at scale, enables our industry-leading platform.

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In 2025, we had 26 million average monthly unique visitors that visited our marketplace a total of over 600 million times.

We generate the majority of our traffic organically as a trusted resource for customers through our high-quality content, including editorial and consumer reviews and suite of easy-to-use consumer facing tools such as Best Match.

Leveraging industry-leading brand recognition, we capture the majority of our traffic organically.

Cars.com serves as a premier consumer resource, combining expert editorial content with easy-to-use tools such as Best Match and Carson.

Over the past 25 years, we have made more than half a billion connections between car shoppers and sellers.

According to a recent Cars.com survey, approximately 83% of our audience is in-market to buy a car, compared to a fraction of the general population.

The average time for a shopper to purchase a car is approximately two months;

however, approximately 50% of the Cars.com audience plans to buy within 30 days.

According to a recent Cars.com survey, over 80% of our audience is in-market to buy a car, compared to a fraction of the general population.

The average time for a shopper to purchase a car is approximately two months, and approximately 60% of the Cars.com audience plans to buy within the next two months.

Asset light business model with a diversified revenue base, attractive cash flow and strong balance sheet.

We generate approximately 80% of our revenue via subscription, creating a dependable recurring revenue stream across our diversified mix of marketplace

subscription advertising packages, digital solutions, and media.

Customer concentration is also limited and each month, we generate an average monthly revenue per dealer of over $2,400 during the fourth quarter from across our over 19,200 dealers.

We generate approximately 80% of our revenue via subscription-based solutions, creating a dependable recurring revenue stream across our diversified mix of marketplace subscription advertising packages, digital solutions, and media.

Our customer concentration is also limited, as each month, we generate an average monthly revenue per dealer of over $2,400 during the fourth quarter from across our approximately 19,500 dealers.

Our asset light business model drives significant net operating cash flow, in excess of $135.0 million in each of the last three years, resulting in substantial liquidity and financial flexibility, which enables us to invest in innovation, pursue strategic growth opportunities and maintain a healthy balance sheet with modest leverage.

Strong, experienced management team.

We have an experienced management team that has a demonstrated track record of delivering results.

The team also brings unique experience driving innovation and digital transformation and unlocking value for customers while modernizing established industries.

Our Long-Term Growth Strategy.

We have five primary drivers to grow our business:

continue to create the most engaged in-market audience, grow our dealer customers, unlock the cross-sell, transform our OEM relationships and create platform advantages.

• Grow the industry's most engaged shopping audience.

With approximately 26 million average monthly unique visitors and over 600 million visits per year, we have one of the industry’s largest and most engaged in-market audience.

Our industry-leading brand and high quality content allow us to generate approximately 60% of our audience organically.

This reduces our reliance on search engine marketing and provides our dealers with access to an audience that cannot be easily duplicated.

Shoppers interact with our platform in many ways, including researching vehicles, writing dealer reviews, securing qualified financing and obtaining instant offers for their trade-in vehicles.

We believe continued investments in consumer engagement will create more qualified leads for our customers, thereby increasing our attribution and ultimately resulting in growth in customers and increased product adoption and retention.

• Grow our network of dealer customers.

We have a significant opportunity to grow our base of dealer customers.

While we have a substantial dealer customer base of over 19,200, there are approximately 40,000 dealerships nationwide, providing us with ample room for growth domestically and geographically by expanding our presence in Canada through the D2C Media acquisition.

• Expand our relationship with dealers through greater adoption of our platform.

We operate in the large and growing automotive advertising and technology market.

Dealers are investing more in media and digital solutions, particularly those that allow them to turn inventory faster and more efficiently.

Customers who increase their adoption of our platform products provide consumers with a more integrated experience across pretail and retail, leading to more than a higher lead close rate.

We believe there is a sizable opportunity to cross-sell our existing suite of solutions and continue to grow our monthly average revenue per dealer.

• Transform our OEM relationships.

We play a critical role in helping OEMs drive awareness of new model launches, particularly with the transition to electric vehicles.

However, we have an equally large opportunity to leverage our industry-leading technology solutions to better connect the OEM and dealer experience, creating a seamless shopping experience for consumers.

• Create platform advantages.

By continuously increasing the interoperability of our products, and developing new products and solutions including leveraging the use of artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, we can help dealers unlock greater insights and increased efficiency;

thus deepening our relationship with our customers and increasing the stickiness of our products.

Additionally, as we focus on platform sales, we continue to simplify and streamline our internal and go-to-market processes.

These actions will ultimately translate into improved financial performance.

We compete with other companies to attract consumers and customers to our marketplace, digital experience, trade and appraisal, and media solutions.

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We also compete with other automotive websites, such as CARFAX, Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book.

Additionally, we compete with platforms, such as internet search engines, online dealerships, social media marketplaces and online consumer marketplaces.

We also compete with dealer software and marketing services providers such as Cox Automotive and DealerOn.

Additionally, we compete for consumer audience with platforms, such as internet search engines, generative AI chat engines, online dealerships, social media marketplaces and online consumer marketplaces.

• Competition for Consumers.

We compete for consumer visits with other online automotive marketplaces, OEM websites, free listing services, general search engines, social media and dealer websites.

We compete for consumer visits with other online automotive marketplaces, OEM websites, free listing services, general search engines, generative AI chat engines, social media and dealer websites.

We compete for shopper traffic primarily on the basis of the quality of our consumer experience.

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• Competition for Dealers.

We compete for various areas of dealers’ budget including with offline customer acquisition channels, software and solutions spend, other online automotive marketplaces, dealers’ own customer acquisition efforts on search engines and other internet sites that attract consumers searching for vehicles.

We compete primarily on the basis of the return on investment ("ROI")

to the customer that our marketplace and our other solutions provide.

We believe we are in a favorable market position due to our platform advantage utilizing our highly engaged, large, in-market consumer audience, resulting in high quality connections we provide to dealers, resulting in an attractive ROI.

Competition for OEMs.

We compete for a share of OEMs' total marketing budgets which include traditional media, such as television, radio, print media, and billboards, as well as digital media, such as media sites, other marketplaces, search engines and social media sites, among others.

We compete for dealers’ marketing budget with offline customer acquisition channels, software and solutions spend, other online automotive marketplaces, dealers’ own customer acquisition efforts on search engines and

other internet sites that attract consumers searching for vehicles.

We compete primarily on the basis of the return on investment ("ROI") to the customer that our marketplace, solutions and data insights provide in the form of increased profitability and improved inventory turn time.

We leverage our expansive, engaged audience and proprietary data to maintain a distinct competitive advantage.

We believe by connecting well-informed consumers with dealers through these insights, we ensure a superior ROI that is both consistent and measurable.

• Competition for OEMs and other advertisers.

We compete for a share of OEMs' and other advertisers total marketing budgets which include traditional media, such as television, radio, print media, and billboards, as well as digital media, such as media sites, other marketplaces, search engines and social media sites, among others.

We compete for advertising spend based on the marketing ROI that our products provide.

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and international trademarks, service marks, patents, domain names and copyrights.

The duration of the protection afforded to our intellectual property depends on the type of property in question and the laws and regulations of the relevant jurisdiction.

We protect our intellectual property rights by relying on federal, state and common law rights, including registration in the U.S.

and applicable foreign jurisdictions.

In addition, we seek to protect our proprietary information by entering into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and confidentiality agreements with consultants, contractors and business partners.

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Additionally, our business is directly subject to laws, regulations and standards regarding consumer communications, marketing and advertising activities conducted by telephone, email, mobile devices and the internet, such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the CAN-SPAM Act and similar state consumer protection laws.

Our digital solutions products may also be subject to laws and regulations governing accessibility, intellectual property ownership, obscenity, libel and privacy among other issues.

Our digital solutions products may also be subject to laws and regulations governing accessibility, intellectual property ownership, obscenity, libel, privacy and AI among other issues.

In addition, we are subject to local, state and federal laws and regulations in the United States and internationally relating to privacy policies and obligations as well as our obligations regarding the personal information we collect, use, share, store and disclose.

We strive to comply with industry standards and all applicable laws, policies, legal obligations relating to privacy and data protection.

We strive to comply with industry standards and all applicable laws, regulations, policies, and legal obligations relating to privacy and data protection (including those imposed by comprehensive state consumer privacy laws, which are constantly evolving and increasing in number).

We are also subject to our privacy policies and privacy-related obligations to third parties.

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Human Capital.

The foundation of Cars Commerce’s business is our employees.

As of December 31, 2024, Cars Commerce had approximately 1,800 full-time, part-time, seasonal and temporary employees.

Cars Commerce is committed to the highest standards of integrity, inclusion and responsible business practices.

The foundation of our business is our employees.

As of December 31, 2025, we had approximately 1,700 full-time, part-time, seasonal and temporary employees.

We are committed to the highest standards of integrity, inclusion and responsible business practices.

Our commitment to build a culture and business that cares about our employees, customers, industry and communities is a part of who we are.

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We welcome new ideas, respect differences and open the floor to all voices.

We believe our highly innovative and collaborative teams are one of our biggest differentiators and the most important investment we can make at Cars Commerce.

In order to attract and retain exceptional talent in pursuit of our mission to simplify everything about

buying and selling cars, we offer competitive benefits, including market-competitive compensation, an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, a virtual first work environment, healthcare, paid time off, parental leave, adoption assistance, retirement benefits, tuition assistance, volunteer hours, employee skills development and leadership development.

At Cars Commerce, we recognize the value of a workforce with varied backgrounds, opinions, perspectives and personal and professional experiences.

We believe our highly innovative and collaborative teams are one of our biggest differentiators and the most important investment we can make.

In order to attract and retain exceptional talent in pursuit of our mission to simplify everything about buying and selling cars, we offer competitive benefits, including market-competitive compensation, an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, a virtual first work environment, healthcare, paid time off, parental leave, adoption assistance, retirement benefits, tuition assistance, volunteer hours, employee skills development and leadership development.

We recognize the value of a workforce with varied backgrounds, opinions, perspectives and personal and professional experiences.

As a result, we strive to foster a culture of inclusion that ensures our workplace appreciates the views and ideas of all.

Cars Commerce also monitors employee satisfaction and engagement by conducting periodic surveys that are reviewed and, when appropriate, acted upon by our executive management team and shared with our Board of Directors.

We also monitor employee satisfaction and engagement by conducting periodic surveys that are reviewed and, when appropriate, acted upon by our executive management team and shared with our Board of Directors.

These surveys are an important way for us to identify areas where we can improve.

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Available Information.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available free of charge at https://investor.cars.com as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such material with, or furnish it to, the U.S.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as well as proxy statements and amendments to those reports are available free of charge at https://investor.cars.com as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such material with, or furnish it to, the U.S.

Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").

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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business