Docusign Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Docusign EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.90
• Consensus EPS: $0.81
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.09
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.82

Docusign Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $763.65 million
• Expected Revenue: $748.79 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$14.86 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +7.60%

Docusign Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 6/5/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Docusign (NASDAQ:DOCU), Inc. provides electronic signature solution in the United States and internationally. The company provides e-signature solution that enables sending and signing of agreements on various devices; Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which automates workflows across the entire agreement process; Document Generation streamlines the process of generating new, custom agreements; and Gen for Salesforce, which allows sales representatives to automatically generate agreements with a few clicks from within Salesforce. It also provides Identify, a signer-identification option for checking government-issued IDs; Standards-Based Signatures, which support signatures that involve digital certificates; Monitor that uses advanced analytics to track DocuSign eSignature web, mobile, and API account; Notary which enables notaries public to conduct remote online notarization transactions; and Web Forms, a web forms that quickly draft agreements using pre-populated data from completed forms or external systems via APIs. In addition, the company offers Rooms for Real Estate that provides a way for brokers and agents to manage the entire real estate transaction digitally. Signature and CLM are FedRAMP, an authorized version of DocuSign eSignature for U.S. federal government agencies; and life sciences modules that support compliance with the electronic signature practices. The company sells its products through direct and partner-assisted sales, and digital self-service purchasing. DocuSign, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Docusign Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q1 revenue of $764 M (+8% YoY) outpaced expectations, non-GAAP operating margin rose to 29.5%, and a 30% free cash flow margin supported a new $1 B share buyback authorization.
• Billings grew 4% YoY to $740 M, slightly missing the 4–6% guidance range due to earlier-than-anticipated timing shifts in early renewals rather than weaker demand.
• The Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) platform surpassed 10,000 customers, remains the fastest growing offering, and debuted AI-powered tools like AgreementDesk, Workspaces, and custom extractions to enhance contract lifecycles.
• Go-to-market changes—new customer segments, self-serve migration, and partner program relaunch—drove efficiency, with nearly 1,000 self-serve IAM customers in three weeks and digital revenue growing more than twice the company average.
• FY26 revenue guidance was raised by $22 M to a midpoint 6% growth forecast, while billings guidance was trimmed by $15 M to a midpoint 6.5% growth rate, reflecting conservative timing assumptions for early renewals and macro uncertainty.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining DocuSign's First Quarter Fiscal Year twenty six Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and will be available for replay from the Investor Relations section of the website following the call.

[Operator]

I'll now pass the call over to Matthew Soldenfeldt, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Matt Sonefeldt, Head - Investor Relations at DocuSign]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to DocuSign's Q1 fiscal twenty twenty six earnings call. Joining me on today's call are DocuSign CEO, Alan Tegasson and CFO, Blake Grayson. The press release announcing our first quarter fiscal twenty twenty six results was issued earlier today and is posted on our Investor Relations website along with a published version of our prepared remarks. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that some of our statements on today's call are forward looking.

[Matt Sonefeldt, Head - Investor Relations at DocuSign]

We believe our assumptions and expectations related to these forward looking statements are reasonable, but they are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results or performance to be materially different. In particular, our expectations regarding factors affecting customer demand and adoption are based on our best estimates at this time and are therefore subject to change. Please read and consider the risk factors in our filings with the SEC together with the content of this call. Any forward looking statements are based on our assumptions and expectations to date, and except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these statements in light of future events or new information. During this call, we will present GAAP and non GAAP financial measures.

[Matt Sonefeldt, Head - Investor Relations at DocuSign]

In addition, we provide non GAAP weighted average share counts and information regarding free cash flows and billings. These non GAAP measures are not intended to be considered in isolation from, a substitute for or superior to our GAAP results. We encourage you to consider all measures when analyzing our performance. For information regarding our non GAAP financial information, the most directly comparable GAAP measures and a quantitative reconciliation of these figures, please refer to today's earnings press release, which can be found on our website at investors.docusign.com. I'd now like to turn the call over to Alan.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Thank you, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. Q1 twenty twenty six was an important quarter in our long term transformation. At our annual Momentum customer event, we announced an ambitious roadmap for DocuSign Intelligent Agreement Management, or IAM, the world's leading AI driven agreement platform. We're delivering innovation to customers at the fastest pace in our history. Q1 financial performance was strong.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Revenue of $764,000,000 and 8% growth outpaced our expectations from additional IAM customers and self serve digital revenue contribution. Profitability outperformed, with operating margins improving by 1% versus last year to 29.5%. And a strong 30% free cash flow margin drove continued share repurchases and supports our conviction to authorize an additional $1,000,000,000 in buybacks. As we transform DocuSign, we continue to make long term decisions to drive accelerated growth. As discussed last quarter, in Q1, we made several foundational go to market changes to realize IAM's potential.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Our full year guidance anticipated that these changes would lead to lower early renewal billings in fiscal twenty twenty six after Q1. Instead, the impact happened sooner than anticipated, resulting in lower Q1 early renewals. As a result, billings growth ended slightly below our guidance range of 4% year on year, an outcome of timing, not demand. Blake will discuss these dynamics and our financials in his remarks. We're proud of the progress made in Q1 across our three strategic pillars.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Over 10,000 customers have purchased the DocuSign IAM platform. We have strong product market fit in small and mid market customers and early promise with enterprise and self serve organizations. And we continue to make progress evolving our go to market to drive efficient, long term growth. Starting with our innovation pillar, the I'm platform has become the fastest growing offering in DocuSign's history, less than a year after its launch. Customers using I'm have processed tens of millions of agreements, and continue to increase their engagement, especially through AI generated dashboards and Search and DocuSign Navigator, our intelligent agreement repository.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

In Q1, I'm usage increased significantly, thanks to UX improvements that better integrate Navigator with the e signature envelope management experience. The demand for I'm highlights the mission critical nature of agreement management for organizations. In a new Deloitte report, 77% of business leaders cite agreement management as a key driver of outperformance. Attendance at our Momentum conference in April grew by 70% over last year, with notable increases in partner attendance and executive level participation. The New York event kicked off a global series of six additional MOMENTUM across EMEA, APAC and Latin America.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

At Momentum, we shared our robust IAM platform vision and introduced a deep lineup of new AI powered capabilities across the create, commit, and manage agreement lifecycle. Within Create, AgreementDesk provides powerful workflow management for agreement reviews and approvals, streamlining tedious processes to accelerate deal cycles. AI assisted review compares contract language to a customer's existing standard terms and identifies noncompliant or high risk language, eliminating the need to review hundreds of contracts. And AgreementPrep standardizes terms and templates, applying the right language to every agreement to reduce risk. Within Commit, Workspaces transform how customers collaborate with contracting counterparties by centralizing all documents, communications, and tasks in a secure hub while protecting sensitive data.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

CLEAR Identity Verification will integrate CLEAR's biometric identity network with IAM, making ID verification as simple as snapping a selfie. Within Manage, custom extractions for DocuSign Navigator uses AI to automatically capture the data that matters most to customers, such as organization specific agreement information or client specific terms. Instead of spending hours or even days on manual review, customers get instant actionable insights. The Obligation Management dashboard transforms a company's scattered commitments into intelligence by surfacing renewal dates, payment terms, and other obligations, helping maximize contract value and avoid penalties. These new features enable sales reps to close more business, procurement teams to stay on top of renewal dates and pricing changes, and HR teams to onboard new employees more efficiently.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

At DocuSign, our own procurement and legal teams have reduced agreement search time by 90% by using IAM. AI assisted review, workspaces, and obligation management are available today. Most of the other capabilities will be available by August. Launch dates are published on our product roadmap. We also introduced DocuSign Iris, our AI engine purpose built for agreement management that delivers leading LLM performance at a low cost per inference.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Iris leverages DocuSign's unique agreement domain expertise built from millions of workflows and two decades of contract intelligence. Later in fiscal twenty six, we will deliver the industry's first purpose built AI contract agents designed to accelerate workflows, reduce risk, and achieve better outcomes across the entire agreement lifecycle. You can see a demo of our agents in our Momentum keynotes. Within our go to market pillar, we continue to drive transformation across three integrated routes, now all selling direct, self serve, and partner. In Q1, IAM sales once again exceeded our outlook, and we remain on track for IAM to account for a double digit percentage of our subscription book of business exiting Q4.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Q1 direct customer IAM deal volume exceeded Q4, and we saw another significant increase in the percentage of new customers choosing IAM. International IAM deals were up over 50% from the last quarter, confirming the IIM value proposition resonates with customers worldwide. In fiscal twenty twenty six, we continued to generate large scale success with small and mid market customers while driving initial enterprise conversations and early wins. ServiceTitan, the operating system that powers the trades, and a longtime DocuSign customer, is deploying I'm across legal, HR, sales, and procurement, using DocuSign Maestro to create time saving automated workflows, and DocuSign Navigator to gain greater insight into its business. As part of our growing strategic go to market partnership with Microsoft, we're delivering this IAM solution via the Azure Marketplace.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I'm is also off to a strong start in Self Serve. The launch of Self Serve in April resulted in nearly 1,000 new I'm customers within just three weeks, all through organic adoption prior to the release of any marketing campaigns. In Q1, overall digital revenue continued to grow at more than double the rate of overall revenue. We also implemented self serve account management tools for our direct sales driven customers, which improves their experience and our go to market efficiency. Efficiency gains from our rapidly improving self-service channel enabled us to make broader go to market changes in Q1, all with the intention of maximizing IAM's long term potential.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

We migrated a meaningful cohort of customers to the self serve first digital experience, freeing up our sales team to concentrate on higher value prospects with greater revenue potential. Sales force changes included rolling out new customer sized segments, territories, and performance based compensation. We are using our investment dollars judiciously, and in fiscal twenty twenty six we invested in greater sales capacity without expanding our team. Our initial annual guidance is expected as lower rate of early renewals in fiscal twenty twenty six as reps increasingly focus on I'm expansion potential. We had anticipated the impact to take place after Q1, but the reduction in early renewals began sooner than forecasted.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

This resulted in lower than expected early renewal billings in Q1. We take responsibility for not fully anticipating the timing of the shift in our guidance. Stepping back, we're confident these are the right long term changes to build a more durable growth engine. We're pleased with how quickly teams adjusted, as evidenced by strong I'm sales throughout the quarter and fewer early renewals without expansion. We're also encouraged that the fundamentals in the overall core business continued to improve in Q1.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Gross retention and dollar net retention improved year over year, while envelope sent and customer contract utilization grew steadily. Also in Q1, we relaunched our partner program to focus primarily on I'm and enable partners to build business with DocuSign through specializations. At Momentum, we recognized outstanding partners that continue to grow with CDW, a leading multi brand provider of technology solutions, achieved impressive triple digit growth with us last year. Through our alliances with Deloitte and SAP, we have expanded our global footprint, and recently closed a major opportunity with a Fortune 500 company in the energy sector. At Momentum, we also recognize customers delivering significant business impact on the DocuSign platform.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Subaru of America significantly enhanced its operational efficiency and achieved substantial cost savings by digitizing its manual paper based processes. Primerica reduced agreement processing time by 25% and contract turnaround from fifteen days to one. KPNG cut its average signature process from five days to less than one, increased productivity by 30%, and improved customer satisfaction. In closing, the road ahead is exciting. DocuSign is building on its leadership position to reimagine how organizations manage agreements through IAM.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

We have strong conviction in our strategy and the long term business decisions we are making to drive acceleration to double digit growth. In April, Newsweek named DocuSign the most trustworthy software company in America for the second year in a row. We believe that trust strengthens our ability to help our 1,700,000 customers transform how they manage agreements. I want to thank the entire DocuSign team for their dedication and commitment to creating value for our customers. Now I'll turn it over to Blake to discuss our financial results.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Thanks, Alan, and good afternoon, everyone. Our primary goal in fiscal twenty twenty six is to position DocuSign to drive long term growth acceleration while maintaining efficiency. In Q1, we made continued progress against this goal and delivered solid business results. Highlights included accelerated IAM deal volume, as well as continued year over year improvements in dollar net retention, customer usage and utilization, and increased efficiency and profitability. While we performed better than our expectations across almost all of our key guidance metrics, including revenue and profit margins, billings came in slightly below our guidance range, driven by the timing of early renewals.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

In Q1, total revenue was $764,000,000 and subscription revenue was $746,000,000 both up 8% year over year, including a 0.6% year over year FX growth headwind. Revenue outperformed our expectations on both the strength of greater digital and I'm contributions, as well as from a few smaller nonrecurring items. Billings grew 4% year over year to $740,000,000 with no FX impact year over year. Billings ended slightly below our guidance range due to lower than expected early renewals. Our billing results would have finished near the high end of our guidance range when excluding both the negative impact from early renewals and the positive billings impact relative to our forecast from FX.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Billings renewal timing was impacted by the go to market changes discussed last quarter, including rolling out new customer size segments, territories, and performance based compensation. As Alan explained, these changes were foundational and focused on positioning DocuSign to realize accelerated long term growth. Specific to billings, as described last quarter, our original fiscal twenty twenty six annual billings guidance assumed a 1% year over year growth headwind from reduced early renewal volume. While we expected that impact to occur after Q1, the change in incentives led to a reduction in early renewals sooner than originally forecasted. Our sales team is acting as the program was designed.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

The health of early renewals in Q1 improved materially from the prior year. For example, we reduced the mix of early renewals that were flat or included partial churn by approximately 30% versus last year. Although the timing of early renewals has a negligible impact on revenue and does not reflect the long term health of the business, we take responsibility for underestimating the potential timing and range of impact from the go to market changes. We will take a more conservative approach to forecasting the timing of early renewals for the remainder of fiscal twenty twenty six in light of the go to market changes. Apart from the timing impact on billings, we are encouraged that fundamentals continue to improve in Q1.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

The dollar net retention rate increased slightly to 101%, in line with Q4 and up from 99% in Q1 of twenty twenty five. We continue to expect dollar net retention to moderately improve throughout the year based on both gross retention improvement and IAM upsell impact. IAM sales continue to show strong momentum with both IAM deal volume and revenue slightly outpacing our expectations this quarter. IAM share of total direct deal volume, including upsell deals and new customer deals, increased meaningfully quarter over quarter, showing strength versus typical Q4 to Q1 business seasonality. This strength is underscored by passing 10,000 direct IAM customers in Q1, adding nearly 1,000 new IAM self serve customers within weeks of launching that capability, and the strong early ramp in international sales.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Through Q1, we are on track for IAM customers to contribute a low double digit percentage of the subscription book of business exiting Q4. The year over year growth in Envelope Sent remains consistent with prior quarters and has continued through May. Customer consumption, a measure of contract utilization, increased in our direct business to the highest levels since early fiscal twenty twenty two, driven predominantly by increases in North America. We observed year over year improvements in consumption rate in nearly every direct customer size segment and major vertical for the first time in over two years. In Q1, total customers grew 10% year over year, surpassing 1,700,000.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Continued strength in customer growth highlights the value of investing in diverse routes to market and geographies. Additionally, we believe that the breadth and scale of our customer base provide a strong foundation for the continued growth of the IAM platform. Large customers spending over $300,000 annually increased by 6% year over year to 11/23, down slightly versus Q4 given normal seasonality. We're encouraged that a low single digit percentage share of the $300,000 plus base has adopted and begun to roll out IAM in their organizations. This will be a multiyear journey that builds on both product and go to market evolution.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Digital revenue growth also continued its recent strength, benefiting from initiatives that make it easier for self serve customers to manage and upgrade their accounts. Digital revenue grew at more than double the rate of the overall business in Q1, and we are cautiously optimistic that the launch of IAM should support future digital growth. International revenue in Q1 represented 28% of total revenue and grew 10% year over year or approximately 13% after adjusting for FX, which is similar to the prior quarter. Lower than expected expansion rates have impacted international growth, especially in EMEA. The IAM rollout, combined with new EMEA sales leadership, creates a stronger foundation for future growth potential.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

For example, international IAM deal volume in Q1 grew over 50% from Q4 when we launched in most of our larger international regions. Turning to the financials, our focus on operating efficiency initiatives drove strong results in Q1. Non GAAP gross margin for Q1 was 82.3%, up slightly from the prior year as higher revenue offset the impact of additional cloud migration costs, which were slightly lower than expected due to the timing of migration efforts. As previously discussed, we continue to expect additional expenses associated with our cloud migration to impact gross margins throughout fiscal twenty twenty six before easing in fiscal twenty twenty seven and beyond. Non GAAP operating margin for Q1 was 29.5, a 100 basis point improvement versus the prior year.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

The strength year over year was driven by higher revenue growth and prudent management of expense growth. We ended Q1 with 6,852 employees. This was up just slightly from the prior quarter and 6% from the prior year due to investing in our team, particularly in R and D, including the acquisition of Lexion. Our hiring approach remains strategic and consistent, ensuring alignment with key initiatives while thoughtfully considering location based on cost and necessary skill sets. Our non GAAP operating expense growth in sales and marketing and G and A areas were both lower than the total company, while R and D grew faster with continued investment.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

In Q1, we generated $228,000,000 of free cash flow, a 30% margin. We expect that annual free cash flow margin will approximate non GAAP operating margin for fiscal twenty twenty six. Our balance sheet remains strong with over $1,100,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and investments. We have no debt on the balance sheet. Subsequent to quarter end, at the May, we secured a new $750,000,000 credit revolver to replace our existing revolver agreement, creating additional capital capacity and flexibility.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We continue to use our demonstrated strong free cash flow generation to return capital to shareholders. In Q1, we repurchased $183,000,000 of stock through share buybacks, bringing our cumulative buyback over the past twelve months to over $700,000,000 With the additional $1,000,000,000 buyback authorization announced today, we now have up to $1,400,000,000 in repurchase authorization available for deployment, and we expect to continue opportunistically repurchasing shares as part of our capital allocation strategy. Regarding the cost of our equity programs, our stock compensation expense as a percentage of revenue was 19.1% in Q1, down approximately 100 basis points from the prior year and approximately 40 basis points after excluding the impact of restructuring in Q1 of fiscal twenty twenty five. On a two year basis, stock compensation expense as a percentage of revenue was down approximately 200 basis points from 21.1% in Q1 of fiscal twenty twenty four, excluding the impact of restructuring, reflecting continued focus on using equity compensation efficiently and managing dilution. Non GAAP diluted EPS for Q1 was $0.90 a $08 per share improvement from $0.82 last year.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

GAAP diluted EPS for Q1 was $0.34 versus $0.16 last year. Diluted weighted shares outstanding for Q1 was $212,800,000 in line with our expectations. Basic shares outstanding for Q1 decreased by 2,600,000.0 year over year to 203,300,000.0 total shares, reflecting the anti dilutive impact of our buyback program. With that, let me turn to guidance. We expect total revenue between $777,000,000 and $781,000,000 in Q2, or a 6% year over year increase at the midpoint and between $3,151,000,000 and $3,163,000,000 for fiscal twenty twenty six, also a 6% year over year increase at the midpoint.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We expect subscription revenue of $760,000,000 to $764,000,000 in Q2 or a 6% year over year increase at the midpoint and $3,083,000,000 to $3,095,000,000 for fiscal twenty twenty six or a 6.5% year over year increase at the midpoint. We expect billings between $757,000,000 to $767,000,000 in Q2, or a 5% year over year growth rate at the midpoint, and between $3,285,000,000 to $3,339,000,000 for fiscal twenty twenty six or a 6.5% year over year growth rate at the midpoint. Our updated top line guidance reflects the following dynamics present in our business and the external environment. For full year revenue, the annual guidance midpoint is increasing by $22,000,000 reflecting the combination of Q1 strength and an anticipated neutral rather than a negative year over year FX impact, partially offset by some headwind from additional bookings prudence for the economic environment. For full year billings, the annual guidance midpoint is declining by $15,000,000 which includes additional early renewal considerations and some conservatism in our bookings outlook, partially offset by the positive impact from favorable year over year FX rates.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

While we do not see any material macro impact on our Q1 results, we are taking a cautious approach for the remainder of fiscal twenty twenty six, given the uncertain economic environment. For early renewals, we are including a more conservative forecast to account for a wider range of potential timing and magnitude impacts. This change has nearly zero impact on our revenue forecast as it is based on the timing of renewal contracts and is not related to customer demand. As shown in recent quarters and years, billings are highly sensitive to customer renewal timing, which can result in meaningful variability from period to period. As we evaluate our updated fiscal twenty twenty six billings guidance, we remain encouraged that we continue to forecast a year over year billings acceleration in fiscal twenty twenty six after adjusting for the timing of early renewals and FX.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We also expect year over year billings growth to increase in the second half of fiscal twenty twenty six versus the first half as IAM deal volume continues to ramp. For profitability, we expect non GAAP gross margin between 80.5% to 81.5% for Q2 and between 80.781.7% for fiscal twenty twenty six. We expect non GAAP operating margin between 26.5% to 27.5% for Q2 and 27.8% to 28.8% for fiscal twenty twenty six, unchanged for the full year. We included the following two considerations in our non GAAP profitability guidance. For gross margins, for the full year, we continue to expect approximately one percentage point of headwind due to the ongoing cloud data center migration efforts.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

That headwind was lower in Q1 due to a slight shift in migration timing out to the remainder of fiscal twenty twenty six. As previously discussed, we anticipate a larger gross margin impact from migration in fiscal twenty twenty six, followed by a gradual easing in fiscal twenty twenty seven and beyond. For operating margins for the full year, we continue to expect an approximate 1.5 percentage point operating margin headwind due to the impact of cloud migration, the shift of some roles to cash compensation from equity, and the comp against one time professional fees from Q2 of twenty twenty five. Q2 is our hardest comparison quarter this year. The majority of the difference between Q2 of twenty twenty six and Q2 twenty twenty five operating margins can be attributed to the one time benefits from professional fees, including the insurance reimbursement and litigation reserve release described in the Q2 twenty twenty five results, the ongoing cloud migration impact, and the equity to cash compensation changes.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Our overall approach to profitability in fiscal twenty twenty six reflects our intent to prioritize I'm investments to drive long term growth while maintaining similar levels of full year operating margins realized in fiscal twenty twenty five, excluding the unique gross margin and operating expense headwinds noted above. We remain encouraged about our longer term opportunity to improve operating leverage by combining our approach to efficiency with an improved and accelerating outlook for billings growth exiting fiscal twenty twenty six. We continue to expect non GAAP fully diluted weighted average shares outstanding of $210,000,000 to $215,000,000 for both Q2 and fiscal twenty twenty six. In closing, in Q1, we continued DocuSign's transformation by delivering significantly increased innovation to customers, driving business momentum through I'm adoption and digital maturity, and positioning our go to market team for greater long term contribution. We also maintained our efficiency focus through improved profitability and strengthened our commitment to generate significant cash flow and return capital opportunistically through buybacks.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We have strong conviction in our strategy and ability to execute, and we will continue to focus on increasing the value we deliver to customers, employees, and shareholders. Thank you for your support. This concludes our prepared remarks. With that, operator, let's open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Jake Roberge with William Blair. Please proceed.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair & Company, L.L.C]

Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. Can you just double click on the go to market transition and what exactly is driving the early the lower early renewals? And then it sounds like normalized billings growth would have come in at high end of the range. But if we flash back to Q3 and Q4 of last year, were some fairly healthy beats to guidance.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair & Company, L.L.C]

So can you help us understand that delta and whether there was anything else that impacted the quarter?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, why don't I take the first part of that, and you can do the second, Blake. So we made some changes at the beginning of the first quarter to our compensation to encourage reps to close deals in quarter. We felt that that was the healthiest dynamic, unless there's a customer reason for booking the deal early. We thought that that would play out during the course of the year and ended up happening predominantly here in Q1. And so that's what accounts for the early renewals miss relative to our forecast.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I think those were the right changes. We want to set our sales reps up to focus on long term success on building their portfolios with I'm And we feel that that's now landed very well. The sales reps are behaving as we expected. And so it's on us to have missed the forecast slightly on that, and that accounts for the early renewals missed. But overall, the business is on very healthy foundation.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I think the I'm progress is very substantial this quarter, and we are maintaining or increasing our revenue outlook. With that, let me go to Blake.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Sure. Thanks, Jake, for the question. With regards to the questions about a normalized Q1 relative to the prior quarters, I think you brought up Q3 and Q4. So just in regards to Q1 business fundamentals remain strong. Like Alan just said, I'm continued to ramp. Q1 direct deal volume for I'm was larger than Q4.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

That's not something we would normally see in our business just because of seasonality and that's direct only. I'm not including the nearly 1,000 new self-service I'm customers we added, which is great. You heard in the prepared remarks consumption and usage growth just as consistent and positive year over year, which we're really happy about. Dollar net retention improved just slightly for us, flat quarter to quarter on a non rounded basis up just slightly. I would say that on expansion and gross retention both were up year over year.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We think we can do a little bit better there, but as far as Q1 goes, if you're comparing it to Q3 and Q4, make sure to go back and look at the details that we talked about in those quarters, because in the second half of twenty twenty five, early renewals were a tailwind, particularly for us in both of those quarters. So trying to compare like beat magnitudes and such against those quarters in particular, I just really advise you to go back and take a look at those numbers normalized for that timing component of early renewals.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, maybe just to complement what Blake just said, if you take both the FX and the early renewals part out and you look at our time series of our billings, we're sort of past the trough last year and have a nice acceleration this year in our outlook. And that reflects our confidence in the business and the momentum at I'm

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair & Company, L.L.C]

Okay, that's helpful. And then, Alan, I understand the moving pieces around the go to market and early renewals, but how do you feel about the broader health of the business? Do you still feel like that I'm upsell opportunity is intact and then that retention and expansion, I understand it might have been a little bit softer than you would have expected this quarter, but should that continue to improve from here? Or is there anything else in the quarter that would give you pause on that trajectory back to double digit growth?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

No, I think we feel really good about where I am sitting. We've demonstrated product market fit in the commercial segment, and that sales motion has now been replicated from our domestic business to our international business. We're seeing great adoption. We mentioned some trends on the prepared remarks there. So overall, I feel really good about where I'm sitting.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

And of course, our core sign business remains very, very healthy. We've got improving DNR overall in the business, and fundamental consumption metrics and contract utilization are also improving. And so overall, I think we're sitting on a very good trajectory. You can feel the optimism inside the company with the sales teams. We did make some changes here at the beginning of the year that are necessary to set us up for the right medium to long term growth, but perhaps introduce a little bit of disruption.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I think that's past us now, and we're seeing good trends into May. So I think we're feeling very good about where things are sitting.

[Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair & Company, L.L.C]

Okay, thanks for taking the questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Radke with Citi. Please proceed.

[Tyler Radke, Director / Senior Equity Research Analyst - Software at Citigroup]

Yes, thank you for taking the questions here and can certainly understand the billings dynamic particularly coming off of a Q4. But I guess one of the questions we're getting from other investors is really around your confidence level in the second half. If we take your commentary, it sort of implies a kind of continual ramp in billings growth from this Q1 level. So I guess, can you just give us a sense for what you've assumed in that ramp as it relates to early renewals? And then specifically around maybe the enterprise contribution from go to market and I'm I imagine those are going to be even greater factors as you go into Q3, Q4, but just help us understand why this new guidance that implies an acceleration is derisked in your view.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

First of all, we were always assuming acceleration in the second half, that remains the case as you observed. In terms of the factors you pointed to, we snapped to a lower level of early renewals here in Q1, and we're expecting that to be maintained throughout the remainder of the year. That feels like a very good assumption based on what we're seeing. In terms of the enterprise stuff, part of the reason that we have a lot of confidence in our forecast looking forward is because we've already demonstrated that we can replicate our commercial motion, and that's the bulk of the forecast. We are counting on a little bit from the enterprise.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I think that's well within our grasp. And then a bigger contribution from enterprise out in fiscal 'twenty seven and beyond. So there isn't an assumption that we're going to see some dramatic acceleration in our enterprise business in the second half. It's really more just the rolling out and scaling of our commercial business globally that drives that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And then I'll just add one note to your question, Tyler, on the renewals assumption. We have put in a little bit more room to operate on the timing of renewals. And that's really it's important to recognize that that's just timing. There's not an impact on revenue from that assumption. There's not an impact on customer demand from that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

But just in light of the environment, I think it's a good idea to have a little bit more room there because especially when it's timing and not related to the health of the revenue kind of profile of the business.

[Tyler Radke, Director / Senior Equity Research Analyst - Software at Citigroup]

Great. And for follow-up question, I appreciate the comments on the consumption trends in the May, seemed to suggest things are healthy and really across all verticals. But do you are you hearing from customers sort of a desire to contract envelopes maybe a bit closer to their underlying consumption than they previously were just given the macro environment and tariff environment seems to be changing on a daily basis. Is that sort of calculus change for customers? And is that something you've contemplated in the guidance?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, no, haven't seen that. We saw some of that coming off COVID, but that's been played out and is reflected in all the historical numbers at this point. So no, macro really was not a material factor. Maybe there's a few anecdotes here and there, but nothing that we've seen so far. That said, I think all CEOs and CFOs are slightly apprehensive about an environment that just feels more volatile and risky.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

And so we gave ourselves just a little bit more buffer, as Blake alluded to. But in terms of looking backwards, it was not material in Q1.

[Tyler Radke, Director / Senior Equity Research Analyst - Software at Citigroup]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Owens with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

[Rob Owens, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

And I guess as you just following on that that last thread, some of the the the billings, I guess, lowering that you took as a function of the uncertain economic environment, that's purely a function of timing and not necessarily a function of size of deals as well?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, no, I don't think we've seen anything on size of deals. I mean, you can see, I think we report our customers over 300 ks, which were up year on year, and we continue to see help there. That hasn't been an issue. And that's also reflected in some of the consumption stats would hold across customer side segments and industries.

[Rob Owens, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Okay, perfect. And then our understanding is the lean a little more aggressively this year, which didn't come to fruition in the first quarter, and I understand the commentary around the timing of some of the cloud migration efforts. Anything else at play? And you did talk about increasing sales capacity without expanding the team. Is that something that you're factoring into the calculus here or something that could lend upside just in terms of repurposing a lot of that existing Salesforce? Thanks.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

We're not counting on that, but I certainly hope so that over time that sales capacity will translate into more bookings and billings and revenue. Maybe just let me just touch quickly on some of the changes that we made at the beginning of the year to set ourselves up for long term success. Besides the early renewals piece, which really was a minor element of the changes that we made, big changes were we really wanted our sales reps to be able to focus more time to go deeper and sell more broadly into organizations that represented the biggest growth opportunity. And so we resegmented and changed the portfolios for our sellers and moved a substantial number of customers to a self serve first model. And so that freed up capacity in effect without additional headcount to let our reps go deeper.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

We also changed our sales compensation model to emphasize more annualized models and emphasize I'm and so on. And so there were a lot of levers pulled to set ourselves up for, shall we say, a larger deal, more enterprise y type of sales motion. That will be a long journey for the company. But we've begun it. I'm very pleased with the early results and how the sales teams are responding to that. And we're feeling like those were the right changes to make to set us up to really capture the full potential I'm Great.

[Rob Owens, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Thanks for the color.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Baer with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

[Josh Baer, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thanks for the question. I was hoping you could provide some context for how much of the double digit percentage that will be I'm as a percentage of subscription booking book of business is coming from upsell and net new customers versus that transition from e signature. Just any any context for how accretive or incremental I'm is on the business?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Why don't you take that one, please?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Sure. So we're not disclosing expansion rates on that. Obviously, the book of business that we have with the size of it, 3,000,000,000 plus, we have a huge opportunity to be able to provide extra value to our existing customers. So I think that existing install base and that is an upsell from what they're doing today, because if you recall, the vast, vast majority of the I'm deals that we're doing are expansions of spend because we're providing additional value to customers, but also we're finding that new customers also are quite interested in it.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And it's becoming a much, much larger share of our new deals, our new company deals that we're doing. So, it's going to come from both of these things, but I think that it's fair to assume that with the size of the install base that we currently have, the biggest opportunity we have is with customers that we already do business with.

[Josh Baer, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, that's helpful. And Blake, you called out some smaller nonrecurring items benefiting revenue. Just was wondering what are those and how big was that? Thank you.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, sure. So we had a number of what I'll call just smaller items that we just don't feel like we can count on necessarily as recurring every quarter. They can, we just aren't including that in the guidance. They include things like short term add on deals where somebody comes in for a very short period of time for additional capacity, lower sales returns, lower bad debt.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Those went almost all in our favor in Q1 in the revenue side. Now they're not massive, they're not a huge portion of it, but when you add them up, they help the quarter. But all good things, all positive elements for us for in Q1.

[Josh Baer, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brad Sills with Bank of America. Please proceed.

[Brad Sills, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you so much. Alan, I wanted to ask a question on the go to market changes here. I mean, the focus on going deeper and more broadly within accounts now, what are you seeing? I know it's early, but is there anything in the pipeline that you'd point to say that the leading indicators are there and you're seeing some of the early results that you might expect out of that?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, we're definitely doing larger I'm deals, and we've had some early successes in the enterprise space. So I'm feeling pretty good about the momentum, but as I said, it is still early. We think in the long run this has potential to really materially change how much value we're able to deliver to customers, and therefore how much they're willing to pay us on a recurring basis. So all the signs on the I'm front in terms of both deal velocity and deal value, progress in various customer segments and geographies, all are positive so far.

[Brad Sills, Analyst at Bank of America]

Wonderful, thank you, Alan. And then one more if I may on some of the new features you alluded to with IAM coming in August. Anything that you'd point to in particular that you're excited about? I know you probably don't want to let the cat out the bag too much, but maybe just some broad strokes on what's coming in August that could perhaps be a catalyst in the I'm business?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Well, we've already announced what's coming So at our Momentum event in April, we previewed our roadmap. Just as an indication of the scale of the innovation momentum, when we launched I'm last year, I would say there were really three pieces of anchor functionality that were materially net new besides the refresh on the existing products. And I'd say we did seven announcements of comparable magnitude here at Momentum in April. Some of those were immediately available, and some of those are rolling out here over the next three to four months.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I don't think there's any one thing that I would highlight, but maybe I'll talk about three very quickly. On the front end of creating agreements, we have agreement desk, which is essentially a system for managing the flow of contracts inside of a company. Imagine sales reps and legal instead of today, which is just a series of uncorrelated and unconnected emails, but nobody knows what the status is. This is essentially a hub for managing that workflow that integrates with the tools you already have. That was extremely well received at the event.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

On the execution side, we announced something called workspaces. And today, if you're trying to do a multistage financial transaction, let's say signing up for wealth management or a real estate transaction on auto purchase or anything like that, it tends to again be a series of disconnected interactions between the company and an outside party, a consumer, another company. We've created a single destination where all of that activity can happen with multiple parties. That's really an earthquake in that space and very well suited, of course, for financial services, but also for a whole host of other categories. And then I'd say on the managing your contracts after execution, one of the things that we showed that's a very AI centric feature, and it really wouldn't have been possible even a year or two ago, is something we call custom extractions, which essentially lets you, besides all the standard extractions like the names of the parties or the terms, now you can define any arbitrary term you're interested in, point us to a couple of agreements that those terms are present and the relevant language.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

The AI will essentially learn off that and then allow you to find that across your population of agreements. So that creates sort of an infinite flexibility in what you can look for in your agreements, which is something that pretty much all companies have asked us for for a long time, and we're finally able to deliver it in a really scalable, lightweight, delightful way. So those are just three examples of contract innovation at all stages of the journey. And I think that there was a lot of excitement at the event, and we're excited about bringing those features to market globally.

[Brad Sills, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great to hear. Thanks, Alan.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kurt Madeniere with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

[Kirk Materne, Senior Managing Director - Equity Research at Evercore ISI]

Yes. Thanks very much. Alan, I was wondering, can you expand a little bit on your commentary around your GSI partners? I was just kind of curious whether they could be a source of sort of net new ACV for you this year. I realize it could take a while for them to build up practices.

[Kirk Materne, Senior Managing Director - Equity Research at Evercore ISI]

But can you just talk about sort of where you are with them and what's the hope of them helping pull you into the enterprise perhaps a little bit more and then really helping to be a driver of new pipeline for you all? Thanks.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yep. Yeah, so historically, we haven't had a huge relationship with SIs because it's been primarily about our CLM business, right? Sign was so simple and easy to deploy for companies that there wasn't a lot of need for the kind of value added services that SIs provide. But with I'm that's a really change in the picture and across really all of DocuSign. So at the same time, this is an area where the SIs do a tremendous amount of work already.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

They pretty much all have large practice areas in digital transformation that includes or is focused specifically on the agreement space and haven't had a platform to build those practices on top of. So we see a lot of inbound interest from the big names in the industry. I would rate us as relatively immature and really being able to fully dance with the big SIs right now, but we are ramping up. As I said, a lot of interest. We know how critical that is to unlock the full potential in the enterprise.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

And they are very keen to partner with us as a well trusted, well respected brand that I think has the most complete and compelling vision and agreements. We have growing to do to fully capitalize on what the GSIs represent. So that's a big focus of mine and Paula's. We hired a fantastic new leader for our partner organization who's very strong in that area. And so it's a top priority for us over the next couple of years to really build out our GSI partnerships.

[Kirk Materne, Senior Managing Director - Equity Research at Evercore ISI]

Okay, great. And then Blake, sorry if I missed this, I think you said in your prepared commentary, but the upside on margins this quarter was partially due to some of the duplication of cloud costs going away earlier. Can you just remind me sort of on some of the upside levers on margin this quarter relative to your guide? Thanks.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Sure. The biggest component that drove operating margin outperformance was the revenue outperformance on the top line, right? We don't have like a ton of variable cost in this business so that when we outperform on the top line, we usually have the advantage that it can follow the bottom line, which it did for us. That drove the majority of the op margin side. On the cloud migration component, we just had a little bit of timing push from Q1 and then out into kind of Q2 and Q3, and you can see that reflected in our guide.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

That happens from time to time, nothing to concern over anything like that, but that was the other component of the op margin op components.

[Kirk Materne, Senior Managing Director - Equity Research at Evercore ISI]

Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

[Brent Thill, Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Thanks, Alan. Just on the sales change, I mean, we've all witnessed the last couple of decades sales changes in Q1. They have their impact. I think everyone's just curious, is this I know you said it's gonna take time, but do you think this is was this a massive overhaul? Was it a tweak?

[Brent Thill, Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Do you think it's a six month digestion? Do you think it's a nine month? I mean, how do you gauge the magnitude and the duration of how long this takes to settle in?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

You know, I think we feel pretty good about this settled in, and we're already seeing stabilization and normalization here early in Q2. So I'm pretty optimistic. Let me just start with, I think, the overall piece, which is we really wanted to set ourselves up with the right long term decision to maximize our opportunity and value here. And so when you do that, you have to be willing to encounter just a little bit of turbulence in the short run. We've shown a pattern of doing that.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

You may recall we had some difficult decisions in Q1 in the last couple of years. And we're just trying to set ourselves up for the right long term health. I'm very pleased with where it's going. I'd say that if you think about where the adjustments play out, the commercial segment can adjust very quickly. You give people new books, but the sales cycle is short enough and it's a higher volume, more repetitive motion.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

So they were able to get there very quickly. It takes a little longer in an enterprise segment, which you're building relationships over a more extended period of time. But I'm feeling like that the team's really settling in, just the quality and scale and pipeline that team's generating is picking up. And we were, in any event, always going to be building our enterprise business during the course of the year. So I'm feeling pretty good. We did throw a lot of levers. I put it at sort of a as I said, I think on the last earnings call, at sort of a medium size change, and very carefully planned and considered. And it's sort of ironic that one of these smaller things that really weren't the core strategic focus ended up tripping us up a little bit on the billing side. But that's really a timing issue and not something that plays to the long term health or strength of the business. So I'm feeling great about changes we made, how they've settled in and how they set us up.

[Brent Thill, Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Okay. And for Blake, just the number of 300,000 plus customers were down quarter on quarter. Is that just seasonal or is there anything else to read into that?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yes. Thanks, Brent. Yes, it's mostly seasonal. You'll see that occur. I think the biggest thing that I tend to look at is just on that year over year side growing.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And you also heard us and it's a small component today, obviously, but low single digit share of those larger customers starting to use IAM. Again, while it's a super small chunk of it, I'm excited about the opportunity that we have there over the long term. It's going to take time, but that was exciting for me to see just the very early beginnings of our penetration there.

[Brent Thill, Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Walravens with Citizens JMP. Please proceed.

[Patrick Walravens, Analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, LLC]

Oh, great. Thanks for all the detail on this. And I'm gonna ask one more if it's alright. So when did you know that billings would come in below where you had guided?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, why don't I start and then you jump in. So look, early billings almost definitionally happened very late in the quarter. And so we didn't really have good visibility on it until the last couple of weeks. And so that was not something we had perfectly foreseen, or we would obviously have previewed it at the beginning of the quarter, because it is such a timing sensitive thing that comes together in the last couple of weeks or even the last couple of days. I don't know, Blake, if you want to add to that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

No, I mean, I just would just reinforce, the vast just so everybody knows, the vast majority of our early renewals very consistently comes in the last two weeks of the quarter. And so there is volatility. That's why you'll hear us talk about, oh, the timing of these billings based on start dates and close dates, it can cause a lot of volatility in the number. And so that's the component here. What I regret from the work we've done is we forecasted the timing impact later than Q1, and it occurred in Q1. Everybody's operating as the way we had planned. Right?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Like the way the plan is designed, like Alan said, we're really happy with how this is working out. From a forecasting perspective, and I and the leadership team own this, is that we forecast for later than Q1 and it happened in Q1. Now, at the end of the day, that's just timing. It doesn't affect the health of the business.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

It doesn't affect revenue. It's not an indication of demand. And so from a business perspective, it's kind of a I don't want call it a non event,

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

but it doesn't affect the health of the business. So I'm really excited about that. Yeah, we saw the right kind of productive changes in our earliest mix more than being accretive and so on. And so that's exactly the changes we're looking for. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Patrick Walravens, Analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, LLC]

Oh, and then as follow-up,

[Patrick Walravens, Analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, LLC]

I could ask a little bigger picture. So Alan, what are you seeing competitively? How do you feel about that? And then I'm sure everyone saw that Dan ended up at Ironclad, so maybe if you can comment on if that's a competitor and where it fits in, that would be great.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

I think in terms of our the legacy markets, if you will, that we operate in, I see very little change in the competitive dynamics. I think the sign shares and competitive dynamics have been stable. If anything, I think we're maybe even doing a little bit better. The CLM space continues to be quite competitive, a number of players. And it's a small category overall, we are I think we're holding our own, but it's definitely competitive.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

In terms of our rearticulation and revisioning of the company, I think we're really setting the pace. But as we've expanded our ambitions, not only are we seeing, of course, some of the players that have competed with us in existing categories, but running into other potential competitors. But overall, I think we're setting the pace and becoming much more of a thought leader for the agreement space more holistically. And I think it's really about our execution right now. I'm not as focused on competition as perhaps in our past discussions as we had the more mature eSign category.

[Patrick Walravens, Analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, LLC]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Berg with Needham and Company. Please proceed.

[Ian Black, Equity Research Associate at Needham & Company]

Hi. This is Ian Black on for Scott Berg. Does the release of your new transitional IAM SKU impact your renewals? And how has that SKU affected your go to market motion?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yes, I would say the transitional SKU is immaterial to the results for us for the quarter.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

We would have highlighted that if that was there. It's really meant it's an option for customers. We want to make sure that they have the right options available to them, but it wasn't an impact for us for the quarter.

[Ian Black, Equity Research Associate at Needham & Company]

Thank you. And how has that SKU impacted your guys' go to market motion?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

It's not. I mean, you could say it's included in the guidance that we have, but the impact we think is going to be relatively small.

[Ian Black, Equity Research Associate at Needham & Company]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Zukin with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

[Arsenije Matovic, Senior Equity Research Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Hi. This is Arsenio on for Alex. I guess just what's holding you guys back from excluding early renewals from that updated guidance given the dynamic in Q1? And can you just walk us through how much early renewals are assumed now versus last year when guidance was initially provided and why it's viewed as conservative? And just a quick follow-up after that. Thanks.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Sure. So we don't break out our book of renewals based on time, early, late. There's just a whole host of different ways you can think about that. Early renewals, just as an education, folks as some folks don't know or not, is a very regular and recurring part of our business. It is something that in majority of cases come with expansion.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And so you like that because that means that customers are either needing more capacity, want more features, all those types of things. So it's not something where I don't want anybody to think like an early renewal is like a bad renewal by any sense of the measure, because that's one of the things we really like is that when customers are consuming more than they had planned or they had originally thought, a lot of times that means they want to get more from us as well. Obviously, the conservatism in the early renewal component in the forecast, which is timing, I think you heard in the prepared remarks, you've got the impact from FX and then we have two different kind of positive impact from FX, two different offsetting impacts. They're both worth about the same size, whether it's the early renewal component giving us a little bit more room to operate around the issue of timing and then a little bit more conservatism around the bookings just based on the uncertainty and environment. We think that's the prudent thing to do, as we look out today.

[Arsenije Matovic, Senior Equity Research Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Got it. That's helpful. And then just looking at I'm pricing today, seems to have gone up since last quarter without having that lower price point relative to like eSig Business Pro. Is this indicative of you just seeing better adoption than expected and trying to capture more value with this momentum to get better growth?

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

No. Look, I think we feel we're delivering a lot more value, and we charge a premium. And customers have been willing to pay that across all size segments. And we're adding the the packages are becoming more valuable. And with all that we announced here at momentum, there's a lot more there across every segment.

[Arsenije Matovic, Senior Equity Research Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.

[Michael Turrin, Managing Director, Software Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay, great. Appreciate you squeezing me on. Blake, there's been a lot of questions on the impacts, but you mentioned the health of early renewals in Q1 improved. Can you unpack that piece a bit more? What were you seeing last year?

[Michael Turrin, Managing Director, Software Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Was that customers renewing smaller in certain instances? Is this I'm something that you now have in response? Or what else are you doing to continue to improve the health of those renewals going forward?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, thanks. And thanks for the question too. I think what we got from the go to market changes that we made was that so the renewals happen too as you can have expansion or you can have a flat renewal or you can have an early renewal with partial churn. For those renewals that are flat or have partial churn, you actually prefer to renew them in their kind of natural renewal cycle timing. So you call like their on time contract date.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Now there's a bunch of different reasons why customers may want to do a flat renewal with high capacity or consumption. Maybe they don't want an expansion, but they need a new rule. So flat could be good in those ways. But what the big difference what we saw on a year over year basis in that mix percentage I shared in the prepared remarks is that the mix of flat and partial churn renewals dropped 30% year over year. And so that's the data point that you hear from us, at least from me, when I think about, oh, those are working the way that was intended, and that you're seeing a larger mix than shifting to those early with expansion rather than some that also have some more partial churn in them.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And partial churn renewals happen, right? Not every customer expands with you when they renew. And so that was really when I'm talking about the health of the renewals, it's a larger focus on those flat to renewals with expansion that really drive the health of the business forward.

[Michael Turrin, Managing Director, Software Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. And just as a small follow-up, we've seen the pros and cons of early renewal impacts on billings. Have you considered ARR as a substitute for billings at all? Or what, from your perspective, makes billings the right metric to focus us all in on, given some of the puts and takes and questions you're fielding here?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yes. No, it's a great question and something that we talk about a lot. Billings is clearly not ideal because of the impact of timing, right? In this quarter and the past couple of quarters actually, the way we handle that is we try to be really clear about that. So when it's a tailwind and it provides that extra growth for us, we are trying to be very clear and transparent with folks about that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

And I think we did a good job of that in the second half of last year where we had that tailwind and we're sure to highlight it. It's also part of the reason why we're talking about I'm as a percentage of recurring revenue in book of business and not billings. What I can just say is we're actively thinking about better ways to communicate our business trends and be more thoughtful, but really consider kind of like the long term evolution of this business, especially with I'm which is still early. So I would say I recognize it and so stay tuned on that.

[Michael Turrin, Managing Director, Software Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Will Power with Baird. Please proceed.

[William Power, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Okay, great. Thanks for squeezing me in as well. Maybe just shifting gears a little bit. You all noted the strong consumption trends in the quarter. I think even indicated some of the indicators there were as strong as they've been in a couple of years.

[William Power, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Maybe anything you can do to kind of unpack kind of the drivers there and kind of the outlook for consumption as you move forward here?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, mean, I'll take a stab at this. I would say it's pretty challenging to disentangle exactly what that means other than the fact that I think higher consumption, higher usage is almost always a good thing for us. What the trickiness in there and disentangling is, oh, do you have people that are potentially running higher to their limit for something that's going on in their business? But almost always, if people are using more of their contracts than they have previously, that's a good thing. And so I think it just bodes well for us, but the timing and the tipping point to move from contract utilization to a new contract is really an independent kind of decision that each customer makes on their own in kind of operating with their own representative from DocuSign.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

But nothing else more than I've seen within the data. I think that the usage trends still continue to look good for us from a year over year perspective. We highlighted that's continued in May. It's been very, very consistent for us, I would say, over the past few quarters, which I think has been great. And I believe based on that data, it bodes well for us.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Yeah, I would just add that, look, one of the things I was very pleased to see is that I think Blake called this out in his prepared remarks, I think we hit like a four year high in contract consumption. So we're really through that full post COVID cycle and at a pretty healthy point there. And so I think that bodes well for the future. It makes me at the margin more optimistic.

[William Power, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Yes, those trends seem positive. My other question is just on gross retention. I think you all indicated you expected that to improve in the second half of the year. I just hope you could provide any some additional color as to kind of the key drivers and confidence level around that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yes. So for us in gross retention, we improved year over year in Q1. We expect that trend to continue for the remainder of the year. It's a trend that's been going on here, would say, at least for the last eighteen months. And we're really excited about that.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

It's working better with our customers, talking and getting in front of deal renewal timings, looking at their usage, looking at the types of usage that they can have with us and having those conversations, having conversations as well about IAM and having those discussions as well. And so it's just a continuation of a trend of better results for us that we're excited about.

[William Power, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Murphy with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

[Mark Murphy, Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase]

Thank you very much. Just curious if you can speak to the activity levels that you're seeing from segments of the economy that might be slowing or could slow in the second half due to interest rates or tariffs. And I'm thinking of real estate, construction, manufacturing, the tech industry has had layoffs, consumer goods, etcetera. In understanding that you didn't seem to see any aggregate change or material change in macro, But is there any bifurcation where those industries are slowing and other industries are picking up or just anything you're noticing that looks any different?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Sure. I'll take a stab at that. So I would say the trends have been relatively consistent for us over the last few quarters, like on a usage kind of basis, the same verticals continue to show strength for us, whether that's financial services, healthcare, insurance, those have been kind of standout ones for us. I would say real estate continues to grow year over year, but less than the total, if you will. And that's been pretty consistent as well.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

So they're still growing. I just think there's room to improve there over time depending on how everything works out, but no massive volatility over the last quarter in any major segment.

[Mark Murphy, Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase]

Okay. And Blake, as a quick follow-up, had commented that the Q1 billings delta is a function of timing, not demand. Actually, I guess, Alan said that. But that being the case, I'm curious why the renewals couldn't bounce back rather automatically in Q2. In other words, if non early renewals just become regular old on time renewals?

[Mark Murphy, Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase]

And then if that happened, why couldn't that produce a slightly better level of Q2 billings growth than what you're guiding to?

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

Yes, that's a great question, right? Because in general, lower early than a quarter results in higher on time renewals in future quarters. Not all of our renewals are just one quarter out. Some are one, two, three or more than four quarters out depending on the customer. So there you do have a partial offset from that kind of lower water level on future release contribution, which that's going to create hard comps year over year as you progress through the year.

[Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer at DocuSign]

But the reason why you don't see that necessarily in our full year guidance is because of that we've also included the additional room to operate as we progress through the year. So that's just conservatism for us on the timing aspect and the magnitude of it. It makes sense to do that, especially when the extra conservatism is around timing and it doesn't have a material effect on our revenue forecast. But that's why you don't see that showing back in the guide.

[Mark Murphy, Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase]

Understood. Thank you.

[Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer at DocuSign]

Okay, everyone. Thank you, operator. Thank you to all who joined today's call. In closing, I just want to emphasize how excited we are about the increased pace of innovation at DocuSign, the value we're delivering to customers, and the long term decision making we're doing to realize the large I'm opportunity. Thanks to the team for their energy and focus, and to our owners for your ongoing support. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer
• Blake Grayson, Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Matt Sonefeldt, Head - Investor Relations at DocuSign
• Jake Roberge, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair & Company, L.L.C
• Tyler Radke, Director / Senior Equity Research Analyst - Software at Citigroup
• Rob Owens, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies
• Josh Baer, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Brad Sills, Analyst at Bank of America
• Kirk Materne, Senior Managing Director - Equity Research at Evercore ISI
• Brent Thill, Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies
• Patrick Walravens, Analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, LLC
• Ian Black, Equity Research Associate at Needham & Company
• Arsenije Matovic, Senior Equity Research Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC
• Michael Turrin, Managing Director, Software Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo
• William Power, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Mark Murphy, Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase