ACV Auctions Q2 2026 Earnings Report

ACV Auctions EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: $0.05
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.04

ACV Auctions Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $214.93 million
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

ACV Auctions Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/10/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Monday, August 10, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

ACV Auctions (NYSE:ACVA) operates a digital marketplace designed to streamline the wholesale used-vehicle auction process for independent dealerships and larger automotive groups. The platform enables dealers to participate in live, online auctions, submit real-time bids, and access guaranteed-sale programs that reduce the risk of inventory moving. By replicating the dynamics of in-lane bidding in a virtual environment, ACV Auctions connects sellers and buyers across a broad geographic footprint without the need for physical auction attendance.

In addition to its core marketplace, ACV Auctions offers a suite of software tools and data-driven services aimed at improving transparency and decision-making in the remarketing process. Sellers can generate detailed, standardized vehicle condition reports with high-resolution images, while buyers benefit from analytics dashboards that track pricing trends, vehicle history, and demand signals. The company also provides supplemental offerings such as floor-planning integrations and risk-management solutions to help clients optimize working capital and accelerate the remarketing cycle.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Buffalo, New York, ACV Auctions was established by Will Evans and George Chamoun with the goal of modernizing a traditionally paper-based wholesale landscape. Since its initial public listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, the company has expanded its service footprint across the United States and into Canada. Under the continued leadership of its founders—Will Evans serving as Chief Executive Officer and George Chamoun as President—ACV Auctions remains focused on leveraging technology to drive efficiency, transparency and trust throughout the automotive remarketing ecosystem.

ACV Auctions Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue reached a record $214 million, up 10% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA of $21 million exceeded the high end of guidance. Adjusted EBITDA per unit increased 11% to a new record despite challenging market conditions.
• Negative Sentiment: Dealer wholesale market volumes declined about 6% year over year, while a 300–350 basis-point conversion-rate contraction pressured unit growth. Management attributed the weakness to falling used-car values creating a price disconnect between sellers and buyers, though it expects conditions to stabilize in the second half.
• Positive Sentiment: ACV is expanding field capacity and expects 15%–20% more sales personnel by year-end, with five emerging regions already delivering mid-teens unit growth. The company also launched commercial availability of VIPER, reported strong dealer interest, and expects commercial wholesale volumes to contribute more meaningfully beginning in the second half.
• Positive Sentiment: Management reaffirmed 2026 guidance for revenue of $845 million–$855 million, representing 11%–13% growth, and adjusted EBITDA of $73 million–$77 million, up approximately 27%. ACV ended the quarter with $242 million in cash and cash equivalents after a $50 million accelerated share repurchase, while continuing to target positive operating cash flow in the second half.

Presentation

[Operator]

Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tim Fox, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Tim. You may begin.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining ACV's conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 financial results. With me on the call today are George Chamoun, Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Zerella, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, please note that today's comments include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future financial guidance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and involve factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. A discussion of the risks and uncertainties related to our business can be found in our SEC filings and in today's press release, both of which can be found on our investor relations website. During this call, we will discuss both GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

A reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP financial measures is provided in today's earnings materials, which can also be found on our investor relations website. With that, let me turn the call over to George.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thanks, Tim. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with our second quarter performance and execution while facing a challenging market environment. We delivered record revenue with adjusted EBITDA exceeding the high end of guidance. In addition to solid financial results, we made significant progress on our three key objectives. First, we continue to gain market share and expand our dealer partner network to a new record. The combination of increasing our field capacity and penetration of our no-reserve offering contributed to our growth. Second, we had another strong quarter of performance in ACV Transportation and ACV Capital, along with growing adoption of our value-added dealer solutions. Third, we are gaining traction with our emerging growth initiatives, including very strong demand for VIPER and momentum in the commercial wholesale segment.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

While macro headwinds caused conversion rates to compress below expectations in June and July, we believe conditions will begin to stabilize and remain committed to delivering double-digit revenue growth and increased adjusted EBITDA while investing in our exciting growth objectives. We are confident that executing on this profitable growth strategy will create significant long-term shareholder value. With that, let's turn to a recap of our results on slide four. We delivered another record revenue quarter with growth of 10%, despite continuing headwinds in the dealer wholesale market, with volumes contracting approximately 6% year-over-year. We continued to gain market share, selling 211,000 vehicles in the quarter. Next, on slide five, we focus on the pillars of our strategy to maximize long-term shareholder value by delivering innovation that is driving growth and scale. I will begin with growth. On slide seven, I will highlight our growth initiatives in dealer wholesale.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

As we discussed last quarter, we are investing in additional field capacity to broaden our regional growth performance, which resulted in a record number of dealer visits, inspections, and dealers transacting on our marketplace. We expect that these investments, along with improving conversion rates, will yield accelerated unit growth in the coming quarters. We also continue to leverage machine learning, combining inspection data and market data to provide real-time pricing. Our platform powers ACV guarantees to sellers and delivers no reserve auctions to buyers. This offering remains the fastest-growing channel on our marketplace that benefits sellers, buyers, and ACV. We are removing seller market risk, accelerating bidder engagement, and increasing buyer satisfaction while delivering 100% conversion rate. We are confident our guaranteed offering will continue to be a key driver of market share gains. Turning to slide eight, let's review our marketplace service offerings.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

The transport team had strong execution in Q2, with 19% revenue growth and 125,000 transports delivered. By leveraging AI to optimize transport pricing, we continue to drive strong growth and operating efficiency. Despite the increase in diesel fuel during the quarter, the team executed incredibly well, delivering a transport revenue margin and attach rate that remained in line with our midterm target. Lastly, our off-platform transport service continues to gain traction from our dealer partners, creating additional growth opportunities. ACV Capital also delivered strong performance, with attach rates reaching a new record in the high teens. Our expanded go-to-market strategy, new product offerings, and process enhancements to manage portfolio risk resulted in another strong quarter for the ACV Capital team. On slide nine, we highlight how we are further differentiating ACV and creating additional growth opportunities with our suite of AI-driven products.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

ClearCar and ACV MAX are adding tremendous value to our dealer partners and also contributing to our wholesale market share gains. By enabling our dealer partners to optimize inventory and automate vehicle selling and buying, we strengthen their ability to source more vehicles from consumers. As a result, our top 100 ClearCar customers doubled the volume of quarterly wholesale transactions on ACV after launching ClearCar. While ClearCar has proven to be a highly effective sourcing tool for our dealer partners, while increasing wholesale volumes on ACV, we are confident that VIPER delivers even more value through a powerful suite of ACV-enabled solutions. We have received very positive feedback during our successful early access beta program and are pleased that today marks the official launch of commercial availability for VIPER.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

We are already engaged with half of the top 50 dealer groups in the country, and our pipeline continues to grow. Through VIPER, our industry-leading inspection data and vehicle pricing capabilities enables dealers to unlock consumer vehicle acquisition at scale in the service lane and seamlessly identify service upsell opportunities. We are also on track to integrate with the leading dealer software vendors to create a truly seamless experience in dealership service lanes. We remain on track to grow VIPER's footprint in coming quarters, offering a VIPER bundle with wholesale to create a powerful new lever to drive unit growth and expand our network. In addition, we have also started to leverage VIPER for vehicle inspections at our remarketing centers. While it is still early, we are confident that this solution will be an additional lever to drive improved unit economics.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Lastly, as we highlighted in recent quarters, the internal adoption of AI tools across ACV has enabled us to gain meaningful velocity and efficiency. As such, we have even more confidence in delivering our differentiated product roadmap to support our growth objectives. Next, on slide 10, I will wrap up the growth section with our commercial wholesale strategy, a large adjacent market with both upstream and downstream opportunities. Our team has made significant progress on our software platform, and we believe this new digital model and end-to-end experience will transform commercial vehicle remarketing. Our differentiated offering is attracting large commercial consignors. We recently began remarketing vehicles from a top five fleet consignor and are in the final stages of securing a second large-scale consignor. We are also integrating with a large captive finance off-lease company and adding another top four rental car consignor to our marketplace.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

The commercial segment provides another exciting growth lever for ACV, and we are confident that we can accelerate wholesale volumes in the coming quarters. With that, I will hand over to Bill to take you through our financial results and how we are driving growth at scale.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

Thanks, George, and thank you for joining us today. ACV's second quarter results reinforce our commitment to deliver profitable growth while investing to drive dealer wholesale market share gains and to support key growth initiatives. On slide 12, let us begin with a brief recap of our second quarter results. Revenue of $214 million was within our guidance range and grew 10% year-over-year compared to strong results in Q2 25. Adjusted EBIT of $21 million exceeded the high end of guidance, reflecting strong unit economics and expense discipline. Finally, Non-GAAP net income of $10 million was at the high end of our guidance range. Next, on slide 13, let us review additional revenue details. Auction and assurance revenue was 55% of total revenue and grew 6% year-over-year against a tough comparison of 20% growth in Q2 25.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

This performance reflects approximately flat unit growth in the context of a 6% decline in the dealer wholesale market. Auction and assurance ARPU of $554 grew 6% year-over-year. Marketplace services revenue was 41% of total revenue and grew 17% year-over-year, reflecting continued strong performance for ACV Transportation and ACV Capital. Lastly, our SaaS and data services products comprised 4% of total revenue, with growth of 3% year-over-year, driven by further adoption of ACV MAX. Next, I'll review Q2 costs on slide 14. Non-GAAP cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue increased approximately 300 basis points year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by a higher mix of no reserve sales on our marketplace. As a reminder, no reserve sales typically have modestly higher costs than standard auction sales.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

However, they drive strong blended conversion rates, improved marketplace liquidity, and importantly, are accretive to adjusted EBITDA. In fact, we delivered record adjusted EBITDA per unit increasing 11% year-over-year in Q2. Furthermore, our two most profitable regions continued to expand EBITDA per unit, with our most profitable region delivering over $300 per unit. Non-GAAP operating expense, excluding cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue, decreased approximately 300 basis points year-over-year, reflecting operating leverage in our model while continuing to invest in key growth initiatives. Moving to slide 15, I'll frame our investment strategy as we drive profitable growth. In 2026, we expect OpEx growth of approximately 6%, which is a decline from 12% in 2025. As a reminder, our 2026 OpEx includes additional go-to-market spending to support regional growth objectives.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

Even with these growth investments, adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to increase by approximately 100 basis points year-over-year. Next, I will highlight our strong capital structure on slide 16. We ended Q2 with $242 million in cash and cash equivalents and $205 million in debt. Note that our cash balance includes $175 million of marketplace float and reflects the $50 million accelerated share repurchase program we announced last quarter. In terms of operating cash flow, the year-on-year decline for the first half of 2026 was primarily driven by the change in marketplace float. The amount of float on our balance sheet will continue to fluctuate meaningfully based on business trends in the final two weeks of each quarter, which has a corresponding impact on operating cash flow.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

Looking forward, we are expecting to generate positive operating cash flow in the back half of the year, reflecting continued adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion. Turning to guidance on Slide 17, we are reaffirming our 2026 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance, despite uncertain macroeconomic conditions and our expectation that the dealer wholesale market will begin to stabilize in the back half of this year. Now for the details. Third quarter revenue is expected to be $219 million-$225 million, growth of 10%-13%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $21 million-$24 million, reflecting a 10%-11% margin. We continue to expect 2026 revenue of $845 million-$855 million, growth of 11%-13%. Note that full year revenue guidance assumes that our go-to-market investments are expected to drive modestly higher growth in the second half of the year.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

We continue to expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be $73 million-$77 million, growth of approximately 27% year-over-year. We are expecting 2026 cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue to be modestly higher than in 2025, more than offset by OpEx efficiencies. Lastly, we are expecting Non-GAAP OpEx, excluding cost of revenue, to grow approximately 6% year-over-year as we continue to drive further cost optimizations. With that, let me turn it back to George.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thanks, Bill. Turning to slide 18, I will summarize. We are pleased with our Q2 execution, delivering record adjusted EBITDA of $21 million while navigating through challenging market conditions. We continue to enhance our technology and operating models, ultimately making us more resilient. We are attracting new dealer and commercial partners to our marketplace and expanding our addressable market, which positions ACV for attractive growth as market conditions improve. We are delivering on an exciting product roadmap powered by ACV AI to further differentiate ACV and drive operating efficiencies. With VIPER now available and our commercial offering ready, we are entering an exciting new phase of growth. We are focused on achieving strong adjusted EBITDA growth and delivering on our midterm targets that we believe will drive significant shareholder value. We are committed to achieving these results while building a world-class team to deliver on our goals.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Before we begin the question-and-answer session, I would like to thank Bill for his partnership and the contributions he has made during his tenure as Chief Financial Officer. He has been instrumental in our evolution, supporting the company through its IPO and scaling ACV into the industry leader we are today. We wish him the best in his next chapter. I am also very pleased to welcome Tim into his new role of Chief Financial Officer. Tim is exceptionally well suited, bringing proven financial acumen and a deep understanding of ACV strategy, operations, and growth opportunities. He has played a pivotal role in shaping our financial strategy and communicating our vision to the investment community. We are confident he is the right leader to help advance our strategy to create value for shareholders. In turn, I will turn it over to Tim so he can share closing thoughts.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thank you, George. Look, I am very honored to be named Chief Financial Officer and to continue working with you and the ACV leadership team to further propel our growth trajectory and build on a really strong foundation. There are really four key themes that I would like to stress. One, our business model continues to deliver with adjusted EBITDA per unit setting a new record in the quarter. Secondly, our new field investments are beginning to pay dividends. If we look at the five emerging regions where we have leaned in mostly on go-to-market capacity, we delivered mid-teens unit growth in the second quarter. It is starting to really pay off. Thirdly, VIPER is at an exciting inflection point as we begin to secure commercial agreements and scale production to support strong growth in 2027.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Lastly, our differentiated commercial strategy is gaining real traction with major commercial consignors, and we are confident it will be another meaningful growth driver going forward. Lastly, of course, I am supported by an incredible team here at ACV and look forward to executing on our strategy. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator to begin our question-and-answer session.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. 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. Our first question comes from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I want to wish Bill best of luck and also congratulate Tim on the appointment. I look forward to working with you more closely. Maybe, just on the quarter, it looks like you beat EBITDA numbers slightly. You are reiterating the full-year EBITDA guidance, revenue guidance, but OpEx was lowered. I am curious if you could help understand the moving pieces there and if it is why gross margins are trending lower. Maybe if you could help clarify that. I will have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Sure, Rajat. I will start, and then I will have Tim chime in a little bit more. So really, we are really showing commitment to hitting our EBIT numbers, regardless of all the macro challenges, regardless of whatever is going on. We mentioned that there was a dip in conversion rates. But even with some of these challenges, you are just seeing strong execution. We have been really informing our investors that revenue margin has changed a little bit over time, but EBIT is growing. I think also Bill shared on the call that in our largest regions, we hit all-time highs in EBIT per unit. So very strong business model, very strong management from an overall OpEx perspective. You are starting to see AI help us become more efficient. So lots of benefits over here, but Tim, any more you want to chime in?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yeah, I think that covers it. We mentioned revenue margin is compressing a little bit more than we had originally thought, but that's being more than offset by OpEx efficiencies. Given the current market headwinds, we really just want to be prudent about our cost structure and continue to drive the focus on the adjusted EBITDA expansion.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on that philosophy. I know, George, we had this conversation a few quarters ago on an earnings call around this philosophy on EBITDA versus maybe going for growth. You clearly have a competitor who's scaling pretty rapidly. It's a big TAM. Why wouldn't you prefer to accelerate some of the investments around go-to-market to maybe just target growth a little more aggressively? Just on a related point, would the company still be open to partnering with a strategic partner in order to maybe just help accelerate those investments if that is a philosophy you're leading with to protect EBITDA right now? Thanks.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yes. Rajat, thanks for asking. I think this is going to help clarify. We are hiring pretty maturely on the field from a sales perspective. We have a number of roles open. We've been hiring throughout the year. Tim shared in his remarks that in a handful of our regions, we really grew well year-over-year. When you look at the overall expense envelope, we will have more salespeople across ACV out in the field selling. Probably somewhere in the nature of, let me just do the quick math, 15%-20% at least more salespeople by the end of the year, maybe even a little bit higher than that. There will be more people out there selling. There will be more inspectors out there in the market, hitting the market. Year-over-year, you'll see increase in inspectors. You'll see an increase in salespeople.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

But in other parts of the organization, we've needed a little bit less folks on some of the other roles here. What you saw here on our overall expense, we are a lot more efficient leveraging AI. We are a lot more efficient in building software. We're seeing us just be overall leveraging the benefits of scale. Yes, to your point, we are definitely leaning in more on the sales between now and the end of the year. We do think our unit number will look better in the back half of the year, is sort of our belief, and we're out there going to execute on that. On your other point, I think, talking about strategic partners and things like that on a public call, I don't think this is the right time for that. Yeah, no comment on that.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

But I would say on these other efforts, Rajat, we're out there. We're feeling very good about these incremental investments we're making in the field. If you go to our website right now, you'll see we're out there recruiting for a bunch of roles, and so far so good.

[Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Understood. Great. Thanks for all the color, and good luck, and I'll get back in queue.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thank you.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thanks, Rajat.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bob Labick with CJS Securities. Please go ahead. Bob, you may begin.

[Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Can you hear me? Sorry. Can you hear me?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Oh, we can hear you now, Bob. Yep.

[Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Okay. Super. Sorry about that. I'm not in my office, so I'm clearly confused here. Anyway, congrats to Tim and Bill. It's been a real pleasure working with you, so good luck going forward. I appreciate you guys taking the time.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Hi, Bob.

[Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities]

To call and for my questions. I wanted to kind of dig in on the last topic we were just talking about, the number of VCIs and territory managers kind of added. You talked about by year-end, you will have 15%-20% more of TMs, and you will be adding the inspectors as well. Where do you stand? Can you walk us through the ramp for these people? How much of the benefit has been seen so far, or when does that benefit of this hiring kind of show up in the numbers? Not the P&L, not their costs, but in the sales numbers and in the units and things like that.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thanks, Bob. I will try to go a little bit deeper into this since we have had multiple questions. One is, we are doubling down by not only having our traditional territory manager role, but we are also adding in very focused sales executives who are just opening up new rooftops. We found that as an additional area of need. As we grow out there in the field, many of our territory managers who are selling 500 cars-1,000 cars a month, well, they end up, at the end of the day, spending a lot of their time farming and a little bit less hunting. So we did some work across the country, opening up some sales roles, and we are finding that to be a help. So the role of the territory manager, the role of these new sales executives collectively are getting us more touch points with dealers.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Between the two of them, the expansion of the two, we believe we are going to have a back half of the year that is going to give us the growth that we need. Was there a second question there?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yeah. Just to follow up and put that final point, just to reiterate a comment I made towards the end of the prepared remarks. Bob, we had talked earlier in the year about basically five or six emerging regions that we needed to get a little bit more field capacity out there, including VCIs. What I shared was that in five of these regions where we really leaned in quite a bit on go-to-market investment, we had mid-teens growth. Now granted, some of them are on the smaller side of the region, but some of them are still growing at a really nice pace. We had one that grew in the 30s. I would say it is starting to show up in certainly some of these emerging regions.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

We are clearly expecting it to pick up in the third quarter and then the fourth quarter, as you can infer from our guidance. That is really kind of a back half story and certainly into 2027.

[Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Okay, great. Then just as it relates to the VIPER rollout, can you kind of remind us your goal for where you will end this year with units out there? Then really the bigger point is the acceleration in 2027 and if you are set to bring that on and if there is any goals for the number of units that will be rolled out in 2027.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah, certainly. The feedback has been tremendous. We mentioned on the call that of the top 50 dealer groups, over 50% of them today are in some type of significant conversation with us or either have already ordered VIPER or are about to order VIPER. So we are feeling really good about the pipeline that is developing. What we said on prior calls is that we are building over 100 of them this year, and we are starting to deploy those units. Some dealer groups have ordered seven, some dealer groups have ordered 20. They are all different stages of ordering VIPER. The business model is both a subscription model and also a commitment for wholesale, where they start to commit to selling some wholesale volume with ACV. So there is sort of two benefits of the business model.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Next year, although it's obviously a little early now, I would say our goals are over 500 units next year. I don't know. It could be significantly more than that. But it's still early. I would say it's going to be a big number for us. With the amount of enthusiasm we have right now, I don't know if it could be 1,000 units. Who knows? But it's going to be over 500 units. It's going to be out there. We're going to listen to our customers, and if they want us to build a lot of these, which it looks like they do, we're just going to build, go out there, be the leader in the category overnight.

[Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Sounds great. Thank you very much.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thank you, Bob.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Andrew Boone with Citizens. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Boone, Analyst at Citizens]

Thanks so much for taking the questions. I wanted to talk about macro and just the conversion rate issues that you guys saw in the quarter. Can you unpack that and then just be very specific about the stabilization that you guys talked about for the guidance for the back half? Is that an improvement from current levels, or what exactly does stabilization mean? On the commercial opportunity, it would be great to just understand what you guys are seeing today. What is attracting new large consigners to the marketplace, and what has to take place for this to be a larger portion of the business on a go-forward basis? Thank you.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yes. First, on the price disconnect between sellers and buyers, what was it? 500 basis points or 600 basis points.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

600 basis point impact on unit growth.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah. 600 basis points impact. Why would this happen is many of you read that used car values continue to go down. As these used car values go down, sellers are asking for more than the buyers are willing to pay. But this dislocation is not new to us. We have seen in the past. It is typically temporary. I will tell you why we believe it is temporary. Dealers are not here to collect cars on their lots. These values are going down. They are paying floor plan fees, and they got to sell these cars. So we do think there will be a shift back to wholesale and being serious about wholesaling these vehicles. So we feel good that we are out there. We are reaching all-time highs the number of dealers we are out inspecting cars with, number of sellers, number of touchpoints.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

We really had the listings number coming into the last quarter. If we would have just had a little bit higher of a conversion rate, we would all have been jumping up and down, and this usually corrects itself. Tim, you want to add in?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yeah, just to emphasize the point about listings. We actually nailed the forecast with listings, which in this kind of market is a real testament to the team, the growing team out there, the kind of value that we're bringing. We did mention we had a record number of sellers and buyers. That top of funnel momentum has been great, and it's very important. You get about a 300 basis points-350 basis points contraction in the conversion rate for the quarter. Unfortunately, it has a pretty dramatic effect on units. But again, as George said, we've seen this playbook before. It's going to be temporary. It's self-correcting over a month or two, typically. We do expect the market will be better certainly from a conversion rate perspective and from a year-over-year growth perspective, the comps actually get a little bit easier in the back half.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Whether they're flat to maybe just slightly down, but definitely better than we saw in June was down 6, July just came out, that was down 8.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

If I can double down on that's dealer wholesale.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Dealer wholesale, right.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah. Tim's speaking to third-party data from AAA, which said dealer wholesale was down 8%.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

In July, yeah. I think the direct reflection of that price dislocation out there. We do certainly expect the market to be at least supportive in the back half and not be a continued headwind like this.

[Andrew Boone, Analyst at Citizens]

Anything on commercial?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Oh, that is right, your other question. Commercial has been very exciting. I should have led with that question. We have had a great few months in commercial. We have got some of the largest fleet companies starting to sell cars. At least two of the big guys are starting to sell cars on our platform, which is very exciting. Important vehicles because the buyers love these cars. Great diversification of our marketplace. We have had further momentum in the repo category, further momentum across the board, both upstream and downstream. What am I forgetting here, Tim?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

I would say that we are expecting, to your question about growth, we are expecting commercial volumes to begin to contribute more meaningfully in the back half, particularly in the fourth quarter.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

But the software release I have been here talking about for too many quarters

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yes

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

is now live and out there operationalizing, and we are selling cars. This really unique integration we have done with AutoIMS, where we can inspect a car upstream at a fleet location. You have heard me talk about assessing what type of reconditioning needs to be done or not with that vehicle. It is a very unique integration we have done. We can now go upstream to a fleet location, inspect the car, not even have to send it downstream. That software now works. We are out there leveraging it for the first time over this past period.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

We are feeling really good about it. And then also another important milestone is we are opening up our second Greenfield Chicago over the next 30 days. We are very excited. As you know, we have opened up one in Houston, and now this one we are opening up in Chicago. Great market opportunity. Looking forward to expanding both our upstream and downstream opportunities.

[Andrew Boone, Analyst at Citizens]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Eric Sheridan, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks for taking the question. I'll let go of the thanks everything for Bill, and congrats, Tim, on the new role. Look forward to keep working with you with the new responsibilities. I'll have to ask a capital allocation question. Bill's too used to me asking it over the years. You've been returning capital, but you're also trying to grow the business and assess the mix of value-added services. How are you guys thinking about the various return profiles of returning capital, against where the stock is today, as opposed to the potential return profile that presents itself over maybe a longer duration period of time if you continue to invest in the business and keep driving some of the key platform initiatives, especially value-added services forward, and just how you're thinking about striking that right balance in the years ahead. Thanks so much, guys.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

I don't know, Tim or George, you want me to take this one?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Why don't you start since he asked you, and then Tim could chime in? Sure.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

Yeah. Thanks, Eric. Look, we still have a really strong liquidity position. We had about $250 million in the bank at the end of the quarter, and that's after dispersing the $50 million for the ASR, which we're progressing on. The way we think about this is we are continuing to invest in the business. We think it's the right level of investment. As George mentioned, we're starting to get much more efficient on the OpEx side. That's why we exceeded the high end of our EBITDA guidance for the quarter, despite being towards the lower end for revenue. We think we've got the right balance in place. The company is continually looking to make sure we maximize our investments as needed to drive share gains and unit growth.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

As Tim said, that is starting to show up in a number of regions where we can already start to see some of that improvement in unit volume. I think we've got the right balance today. But at the same time, we made the decision to buy back some stock because we thought the company was undervalued and wanted to take advantage of that, and put more shares back into the treasury. I don't know, George or Tim, if you want to add something to that.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

No, I think that covers it. Maybe just one point about kind of incremental margins, where obviously the incremental margin profile, EBITDA margin for this year is basically flattish. That is really reflecting that 10-ish million of investment into the field capacity. If you kind of pro forma that out, incremental margins would have been around 30% from an EBITDA perspective. We do expect to start driving much more material incremental margins heading into 2027. There is a lot of investment being done this year. VIPER investment will continue, but plowing a lot of investment there. The commercial software, as George mentioned, is largely complete from an upstream perspective. So we have got a lot of opportunity for leverage in this business going forward.

[Eric Sheridan, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Appreciate that. Thanks, guys.

[Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV]

Yeah.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. If I just kind of look at the model, I guess I just want to understand, if we look at marketplace services revenue per unit, it is very possible I am doing the math wrong, but it seems like there was a hefty jump up there. Is that just increased transport penetration and increased capital penetration, or was there something else like pricing action within the quarter there?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah, I think one is, Chris, as we have talked about in the past, that we have been very successful in time getting a great take rate for transport, consistently growing over the years. There is a big reason why to take ACV Transportation. The buyers not only get a commitment on when vehicles are delivered, which is a huge advantage, but also they get additional days for arbitration and other rights. So taking ACV Transportation has been a great advantage. ACV Capital, we also mentioned on the call the actual take rate of ACV Capital has gone up. We have done a great job of both growing ACV Capital from a take rate perspective, but also being disciplined on our approach of really backing the right dealers and having all the right process behind the scenes. So both teams.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

One more thing on transport is, ARPU did increase in the quarter. As you know, diesel prices did go up, and I do not think everyone in the industry necessarily did as well as we did on being disciplined on how do you handle the price changes and still hitting your margin objectives. But with the use of AI and really an incredible team here, we were able to absorb the challenges with diesel prices changing, make sure we are charging the right amount per move. So I would say all in all, just incredible execution, both on the transport team and the capital team.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay, perfect. Thank you. The 6% OpEx growth, the new guidance there, should we expect that to be higher in 2027 because of all these hirings you are making in ops and tech, or SG&A, and that this year you are able to sort of squeeze down expenses because of the hiring that has happened midway through the year, and you will have a larger expense base next year on top of the additional hiring you are doing right now? Or how do you balance that?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

This, I think more to come as a new norm, but I would say AI efficiency here is significant. We can have a larger sales team, field team, while also having additional efficiency across the broader base of ACV. If you think about in context, there's several thousand teammates here across the board in a lot of different roles. We had several parts of our company that as we've grown, we haven't had to hire additional folks because of the use of technology, because of the leveraging AI. Chris, I think more to come, but generally, I would say you're starting to see the new norm of a much more effective company really not needing as much personnel as we're growing.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. Just one last one for me. I know we used to talk about the SaaS and data business more and ACV MAX and things like that, but it seems like VIPER has sort of stolen the spotlight. Should we think about that inventory management system that's sort of helping dealers, what to source, how much to pay for it? I guess, is that less of a priority? Is that a space that's getting more crowded as lead gen players try to get into that space? I just kind of want to take your temperature there.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah. Chris, I'll answer that in two ways. One, please have everyone watch the video that Tim posted and the team posted. It's a recent dealer in the Brooklyn area who has one of the more successful dealership, one of these malls where you have a bunch of rooftops. You got to watch this. What's fascinating about how he articulates on how and why he's using ClearCar, how and why he's using ACV MAX, and then why VIPER just doubles down on that more. When you look at how exciting this is, he talks about how the only way for him to get to his objectives of selling a one-to-one new to used ratio is to actually be able to appraise every vehicle.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

So really listen into the words he's talking about on this video, how he's leveraging now VIPER to operationalize what he was already using ClearCar for. We also mentioned on the call that our top 100 customers using ClearCar have doubled their wholesale volume in ACV. Basically, when you start to think about why it's a win-win, they're buying more cars from consumers. If we can get 10 incremental or pick a number more wholesale cars per month because of this product suite, we've already seen this with ClearCar. We're very confident that the bundling and the integration of MAX, ClearCar, and VIPER together offers tremendous value. We have hardware companies we compete with, they don't have this benefit. We have software companies we compete with, they don't have this benefit.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Unless you have this total package, you can't appraise cars quickly on the fly and do the things you're going to hear about in this video. We'll kind of keep sharing with investors what we're up to. If you think about the new ACV, this is not just ACV as a wholesale company, a standalone one sort of one trick shop here. This is going to be the leading AI automotive company in the world. That's what we're going for. When you watch these videos and you hear it from the voice of the customer, you can see that we are way ahead of competition on helping them leverage AI, streamline buying cars out of their service drive, have the right inventory, and at the end of the day, make the right decision. Yeah, we feel very good in where we're at.

[Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. I'm glad I asked. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Good luck, and happy trails to Bill.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Naved Khan with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Powell, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Great. Hi. Thank you for taking the question. This is Ryan Powell in for Naved. I wanted to ask a couple on VIPER. First off, congrats on the launch of commercial availability. Of adopting dealers to date, how has usage trended? We understand there are multiple benefits outside just units, but any insight into how many incremental vehicles dealers are acquiring per month with VIPER? Also second, the share of dealers that are opting for the wholesale commitments versus paying the flat fee. Thank you.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah, certainly. The types of things we're hearing from dealers are, one, and you'll see this in the video. They're going from appraising some of the vehicles that come to their rooftop to appraising all the vehicles. That's one theme. That's a huge difference. Some of the feedback we've heard, our dealers are buying 20 more cars a month. One told us 50 more cars a month. These are big numbers. If they start acquiring 20 cars, 30 cars, 40 cars, 50 more cars a month from consumers, there's one or two that are saying even bigger numbers. I don't want to put that out in the ecosystem yet because we'll see what the average ends up being. One, yes, dealers are buying more cars. What else they're seeing is they're also catching potential issues.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Some of the other customer testimonials you'll see out there, dealers found issues on the undercarriage, on other related issues where they would have bought a car for the wrong amount of money because of issues with the vehicle. So catching issues. Starting to upsell consumers on opportunities within their service department. For example, a car may need tires. They no longer need a human to go around and actually measure the tires. We can automatically detect if the vehicle needs tires. So starting to do those opportunities. All in all, dealers are seeing this prove out. What they're asking for, which we also mentioned on the call, is better integrations with the third parties. What you'll hear is, and what we're hearing directly is there are a handful of vendors who run the service department software for the dealers. Those vendors are all key integrations.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

These are companies like myKaarma, Tekion, and others. We have integrations going on with several of these vendors. They don't want VIPER just running independently. They want it to be totally seamless, and we are in process with just about almost all of the leading software vendors today. Getting those done between now and the end of the year will be the key to us seeing many hundreds of these being delivered next year. That's what we're working on.

[Ryan Powell, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Thank you. I had a follow-up on no reserve sales. I am not sure if I heard a portion of sales that were guaranteed. Wondering if you could quantify that, and also potential long-term mix. Thank you.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah. We grew no reserve. Quarter-over-quarter, we have been growing it reasonably well. What you saw is the overall units that were sold in the no reserve were in the mid-20% range. So growing it well. We see it as probably as a long term, somewhere around 30% of our overall units. Could be more, but somewhere in that range, you will see no reserve continue to go up over the next few years is the thought process here, and continue to be a differentiator.

[Ryan Powell, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Great. Thanks for the color, George.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Sure. Of course.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from John Babcock with Barclays. Please go ahead.

[John Babcock, Analyst at Barclays]

Hey. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess just first of all, are you able to quantify the impact of the higher diesel cost in the quarter, recognizing it was offset by pricing?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Do you have that on hand?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

I don't. We can follow up with you on that. I'd have to unpack that for you.

[John Babcock, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay. Then second, just on the rental car side of things, because you did talk about potentially adding some business here. I was just wondering how we should think about quantifying that on a go-forward basis. I do not know the extent to which it is meaningful or not meaningful, but any commentary there would be useful.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah, at this point, first and foremost is we have got agreements with most of the top rental car companies. We are starting to sell units both upstream and downstream. If you look at this as step one in the process is live. We are doing these integrations. We are starting to become another strong partner for the rental car companies, but I do not have any numbers to share at this time. But I am happy that we are getting these agreements in place. I am happy we are starting to sell cars with most of the leading rental car companies.

[John Babcock, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay. Then just my last question, I was wondering if you might be able to provide a number around how much you are investing on go-to-market spending this year. I recognize the efficiencies that you are trying to gather through on the OpEx side of things, but that might be a useful number, I think, for all of us.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yeah, John, think in terms of around $10 million for the full year on various go-to-market roles, including VCIs and some of the sales roles that George was highlighting earlier.

[John Babcock, Analyst at Barclays]

All right. Thank you.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jeff Lick with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

[Jeff Lick, Analyst at Stephens]

Thanks for taking my question. Bill, best of luck in your new role, and Tim, congrats very much. I just want to drill down on the conversion issue. You talked about, Tim, the listings being there, but a 600 basis points spread. I am just curious if you can kind of drill into, is it the seller that is pricing too high, the buyer being a little stingy? To the extent units do not sell and you have a listing, presumably, if it is not selling on your marketplace at that price, it is probably not going to sell on anyone else's. But where are these units going? Are you able to track it to maybe help you out with how to fix the conversion issue?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah, Jeff, we have ACV MAX, which is a subset of dealers. We see how many cars dealers are wholesaling, how many they are listing. You also can tell how many of them are they really serious about wholesaling, or they are still debating between wholesaling and retailing. I have also seen that with dealers over the past few weeks that they are taking our advice more often, meaning the sellers.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

I am starting to see that dealers are starting to change. It is something that we have seen over time. We are not the only ones that has reported this. Black Book has reported this, and AAA has reported this. We are not the only ones, but at the end of the day, you do need to consult the dealers on helping them understand that used car values have gone down and continue to go down. Again, we have seen this before. I hate talking about it, but it is what it is. It is sort of, we have seen this. You go out there, you lean in, and my team is out there leaning in, educating dealers, and then it typically, over the course of a few months, addresses itself.

[Jeff Lick, Analyst at Stephens]

Then a follow-up on the five markets or the five or six markets that are seeing mid-teens growth. I wonder maybe if you could just elaborate on what you are seeing there that you might be able to apply elsewhere. Are some of these just smaller markets, so it is the law of smaller numbers putting up a big percent? Or what are some of the things you are learning in these five markets that are seeing the growth that you could apply to some of your other markets?

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Yeah, Jeff, it is Tim. I would say that there are several markets that are a little bit smaller, so it is the law of small numbers. There are actually a couple markets here that are decent size, but we still think of them as emerging markets. At the end of the day, it is about getting in front of dealers. It is about pitching the story, building relationships, test driving the platform, showing the value that we can deliver, and frankly, we just need to get more bodies in the field. Dealer visits were another record in the quarter. There is still some ramping of that capacity that we will see into Q3, into Q4, but very pleased with the progress there.

[Jeff Lick, Analyst at Stephens]

Great. Thanks very much and look forward to catching up later.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our final question comes from Josh Beck with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Glenn Shell, Analyst at Raymond James]

Great, thanks. This is Glenn Shell. I am for Josh Beck, and I will just keep it to one question. First, congrats, Tim, and Bill, we will miss you. But confirming that I heard correctly that you intend to build 500 units-1,000 units of VIPER in 2027, is that supposed to be one VIPER per rooftop? And then what is that going to take to scale production, and how much investment is required to hit that 1,000 units next year?

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Yeah. Just to be clear, I first said 500 units, and then I think I also said it could be 1,000 units. My simple answer is we have not done next year's plan yet. We are still working it. The demand is high. At this point, so I am looking around the room right at my team. I think the demand could be at over 500 units already, but we are still a little bit early. My team has told me that the demand could be as much as 1,000 units. But just so I am clear, we do not have 500-1,000 folks or rooftops right now that are ready to sign a contract. This is early in the process. We just announced general availability today. I do want to try to answer some of these questions instead of just saying no answer.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

But there's tremendous enthusiasm, so I'm trying to give you all a range. Then your other question is, could there be more than one per rooftop? There is one of the top 10 dealer groups that has ordered a number of VIPER, and they're actually doing two per rooftop. I haven't seen that as often. Another top five dealer group is doing one per rooftop thus far, and it's going to do around 20 of them. So we're not yet seeing a theme of whether there's going to be two or one per rooftop. We're seeing a part of this is you first got to get out of your beta period, which we just did, and kind of get to really commercial availability. We just started to put these contracts in front of customers. We're seeing fantastic feedback.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Then on pricing and business model, it's up to the dealer if they're going to pay a larger subscription or give us more wholesale cars. So the pricing for their subscription goes down as they wholesale more cars with us. So it's a total win-win for both companies. But you got to all think about this. We are solving their number one problem, which is sourcing more cars. So when you hear us so enthusiastic right now, and you hear the customers so enthusiastic, it's because we're not just solving a little pain point like, who's my auction? That's just one pain point. This is, how am I going to source more cars as the world has changed? And that's a huge problem for these dealers.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

So we are positioned extremely well to go out there and add value to these dealers, and I think we will be rewarded by today, we are the largest dealer digital wholesale market. I think not only will we remain, but it's going to give us an opportunity to add more value than anyone else.

[Glenn Shell, Analyst at Raymond James]

Okay. Super helpful. Thank you.

[George Chamoun, CEO at ACV]

Thank you.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Dylan for closing comments.

[Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV]

Thank you, Dylan. Thanks everybody for joining and all the kind words on the call today. We look forward to engaging with you on the conference circuit, hopefully this quarter. Again, I really appreciate your support and interest in ACV. I hope everybody has a great evening. Thank you.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• George Chamoun, CEO

Analysts

• Tim Fox, VP of Investor Relations at ACV
• Bill Zerella, CFO at ACV
• Rajat Gupta, Analyst at JPMorgan
• Bob Labick, Analyst at CJS Securities
• Andrew Boone, Analyst at Citizens
• Eric Sheridan, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Chris Pierce, Analyst at Needham & Company
• Ryan Powell, Analyst at B. Riley Securities
• John Babcock, Analyst at Barclays
• Jeff Lick, Analyst at Stephens
• Glenn Shell, Analyst at Raymond James