LegalZoom.com Q2 2026 Earnings Report

LegalZoom.com EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.16
• Consensus EPS: $0.15
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.15

LegalZoom.com Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $205.29 million
• Expected Revenue: $205.83 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$543.00 thousand
• YoY Revenue Growth: +6.60%

LegalZoom.com Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/5/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, August 5, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

LegalZoom.com (NASDAQ:LZ) (NASDAQ: LZ) operates as a leading online legal technology company that provides a broad range of legal and business services to individuals, families and small businesses. Through its digital platform, the company offers customized legal documents and filing services, including business formation (LLCs, corporations and nonprofits), estate planning (wills and trusts), intellectual property protection (trademarks and copyrights), and ongoing compliance support. LegalZoom also connects customers with independent attorneys for consultations on matters such as family law, immigration and real estate.

Founded in 2001 by entrepreneurs Brian Lee, Brian P. Liu and Edward Hartman, LegalZoom is headquartered in Glendale, California. The company was created to simplify access to legal assistance by leveraging online tools and standardized document templates. Over time, LegalZoom has expanded its product suite and introduced subscription-based offerings such as the LegalZoom Advisory Plan, which provides ongoing legal advice, document review and annual business maintenance services. In June 2021, LegalZoom completed its public listing on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol LZ.

LegalZoom primarily serves customers in the United States and has built a customer base that spans individuals seeking personal legal documents to entrepreneurs launching new ventures. Its technology-driven approach emphasizes ease of use, transparent pricing and self-service capabilities, complemented by a network of licensed attorneys for more complex needs. The company continues to invest in platform enhancements, digital intake processes and strategic partnerships to broaden its addressable market and support customers throughout the lifecycle of their legal and business requirements.

LegalZoom.com Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue rose 7% to $205 million and adjusted EBITDA increased 18% to $46 million, exceeding the high end of guidance. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 22%, while free cash flow reached $34 million.
• Positive Sentiment: Higher-value, human-in-the-loop offerings continued to gain traction: related subscription revenue grew approximately 20% year over year, represented 65% of subscription revenue, and legal-plan utilization increased more than 35%. Subscription revenue rose 11%, supported by pricing, stable retention, and greater adoption of legal, compliance, and expert services.
• Positive Sentiment: LegalZoom is diversifying customer acquisition beyond Google Search. Partnership orders increased to 11% of total orders from 4% a year ago, while traffic from AI platforms grew more than 250% sequentially and reached roughly 3% of LLC formation traffic in June.
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s shift toward AI-generated search answers reduced informational-search clicks, increased paid-search costs, and contributed to a 5% decline in business formations and a 1% decline in transaction revenue. Management expects this pressure to persist through year-end, guiding Q3 revenue growth to roughly 2% and full-year revenue growth to approximately 6% at the midpoint.
• Negative Sentiment: The company announced a company-wide workforce reduction of approximately 13%, following a 5% reduction earlier in the year. The actions are expected to generate about $7 million in net 2026 savings and $14 million annually, but will result in roughly $6 million of restructuring charges, primarily in Q3.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to LegalZoom's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You'll then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to your first speaker today, Madeleine Crane, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Madeleine Crane, Head of Investor Relations at LegalZoom]

Thank you, operator. Welcome to LegalZoom's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Jeff Stibel, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Noel Watson, our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements on this call. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as believe, expect, plan, anticipate, will, intend, and similar expressions, and are not and should not be relied upon as a guarantee of future performance or results. Such forward-looking statements are based on management's assumptions and expectations and information available to us as of today's date. These forward-looking statements are also subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements.

[Madeleine Crane, Head of Investor Relations at LegalZoom]

These risks and uncertainties are referred to in the press release we issued today and in the Risk Factors section of our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of any new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. We use non-GAAP measures in making decisions regarding our business, and we believe these measures provide helpful information to investors. These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

[Madeleine Crane, Head of Investor Relations at LegalZoom]

Reconciliations of all non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure are set forth in our investor presentation, which can be found on the investor relations section of our website at investors.legalzoom.com. I will now turn the call over to Jeff.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Thank you, Madeleine, and thank you all for joining our call. LegalZoom continues to execute against our strategy of building the leading services and expertise platform for small businesses, combining AI with trusted human expertise. We delivered second quarter revenue of $205 million, up 7% year-over-year, and in line with our guidance. Adjusted EBITDA of $46 million, increased 18% year-over-year, well ahead of the high end of our guidance. Q2 also marked our fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit subscription growth. Since late 2024, we've steadily increased the mix of recurring subscription revenue in our business by acquiring customers who find ongoing value in our platform.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

These results reflect the momentum of the growth levers we've been building for the last year, expanding our portfolio of expert and service offerings, accelerating the use of AI across the business, and intentionally diversifying how we acquire customers, making our go-to-market model more resilient and less dependent on any single channel. Those investments in diversification were built for exactly this moment. During the quarter, Google accelerated their shift to AI-powered search, with AI-generated answers increasingly replacing traditional clicks. This is affecting top-of-funnel traffic across our industry. I want to be specific about what it means for us, because there are two very different currents underneath it. The first is the pressure in our updated outlook, and it is concentrated in one place. The majority of our traditional search traffic, both organic and paid, has historically run through Google.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

As AI-generated answers replace clicks on informational queries, fewer of those visits reach us, and paid inventory has become more expensive. That pressure is real, and we are feeling it now. To be clear, this is the repricing of a single legacy channel. It is significant but bounded. The second current runs the other way. Across the AI platforms where discovery is moving, we start from essentially zero, so every visit is incremental. That traffic grew more than 250% quarter-over-quarter. Today, we have the highest brand references across AI platforms of any competitor. Our exposure to the old channels is being repriced. Our position in the new channels represents upside. Our outlook reflects the full weight of the first and very little of the second. This is a change in how customers find us, not in what they need from us.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We've responded by doubling down on channel diversification, expanding partnerships, strengthening our brand, and increasing our presence across AI-driven channels. I'll discuss those efforts in more detail shortly. Across each of our key growth levers, one principle remains constant. AI has made answers abundant, but it hasn't made them accountable. When entrepreneurs move from asking questions to completing important legal, compliance, and business tasks, human expertise, accountability, and trusted execution still matter. We've seen this directly in our engagement data. That is where LegalZoom has differentiated itself for more than 25 years. Our first growth lever is expanding our portfolio of human-in-the-loop offerings. We've discussed these offerings for several quarters, but we now have real scale and real growth to show for it. We want to give more color on both. This lever is working, increasingly displacing our older, lower-value products.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We believe this remains one of our strongest competitive advantages and one of our most attractive long-term growth opportunities. Our portfolio spans two complementary layers across our subscription and transaction offerings. First, our service layer, including Registered Agent and Virtual Mail subscriptions, which provides the operational infrastructure businesses rely on to stay organized and operate with confidence. Second, our expert layer. This includes legal plans, IP-related services, and our Do It For Me Concierge offerings that have now been rebranded as Business Manager. This layer combines professional guidance with technology to help customers solve more complex business needs. In Q2, revenue from our human-in-the-loop subscription services grew approximately 20% year-over-year and now represents 65% of subscription revenue. On a total company basis, our human-in-the-loop subscriptions are now over 40% of total revenue.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

That growth reflects both increased adoption of our higher-value products and our ability to thoughtfully price services like Registered Agent and Business Manager as we continue expanding our service offerings. We also experienced significant growth in our legal plans, where bundling legal subscriptions into formation packages is introducing more customers to ongoing legal guidance and driving higher engagement with attorney consultations. We believe AI is educating customers more, but they are still turning to us for answers. This is evidenced by an over 35% year-over-year increase in customer utilization of our legal plans this past quarter. We are seeing similar demand in our transactional expert services, including attorney-assisted trademark filings and Business Manager reinstatements. Early evidence that customers will pay for expertise at each stage of the business life cycle. Ultimately, our human-in-the-loop portfolio is allowing us to address a greater portion of our addressable market beyond business formations.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

By combining technology with trusted human expertise, we believe we're well-positioned to serve both new entrepreneurs and the millions of established small businesses that need ongoing legal and compliance support as their business evolves and grows. Moving to our next growth lever. As a reminder, over the past year, we've been intentionally diversifying our customer acquisition channels by expanding partnerships, strengthening our brand, and investing in AI-driven distribution. The evolving search landscape reinforces the importance of that strategy. To clarify the mechanics behind what I described earlier, in the second quarter, we saw fewer high-intent visits from Google's informational search queries as AI-generated answers reduced click-through to websites, while competition for paid inventory increased, driving higher cost per click and making paid search less efficient. Those dynamics have translated into lower customer acquisition through our traditional search channels and ultimately lower business formation volume.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Importantly, the pressure is most concentrated in informational search traffic and does not reflect a structural change in the underlying opportunity we see across partnerships, brand, and AI-driven channels. We're accelerating execution on each of those fronts. At the same time, our objective is not simply to maximize formation volume. It is to acquire new and existing small businesses who are more likely to build long-term relationships with LegalZoom. One of the clearest examples is our partnerships business. 12 months ago, partnerships represented a relatively small portion of our acquisition strategy. Today, leveraging our category leadership, we've created meaningful momentum as we continue to expand both the breadth of our partner ecosystem and the depth of those relationships. Customers who come through our partners typically arrive with higher intent and stronger engagement, creating better opportunities to introduce our subscription offerings and build deeper customer relationships.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

In Q2, total order volumes from partnerships increased to 11% of total orders, up from 4% a year ago. We achieved this through the continued expansion of our partner portfolio, deeper embedded integrations, and investing in our partner go-to-market program. We continue to see a healthy pipeline of opportunities and remain confident this channel will play an increasingly important role in our growth over time. We've recently welcomed new partners, including USAA, AAA, PayPal, and Adobe, further expanding LegalZoom's presence across trusted brands serving small businesses. We're systematically building this new acquisition engine, one focused on repeatability, attractive unit economics, and growing customer lifetime value. Our marketing investments remain focused on improving both awareness and customer quality. In response to the recent traffic changes, we are deepening our investments beyond traditional search into new channels, including strategic partnerships, emerging AI referral channels, and upper funnel media.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We are closely monitoring and aggressively adapting to new AI-enabled features within the traditional search space, such as AI Max. We're focused on widening our competitive differentiation through attorney-backed experiences, bundled offerings, and industry-leading guarantees, giving customers more reason to choose LegalZoom. Returns from our brand investments remain strong. In Q2, unaided brand awareness increased approximately 10% year-over-year, while aided awareness increased 18%. Today, more than 70% of U.S. households are familiar with LegalZoom. As awareness grows, we're experiencing improvements in the efficiency of our performance marketing, helping us attract more qualified customers across our paid channels. Our approach to emerging AI channels. Over the past year, we've announced integrations across ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Perplexity. We've also been testing, selling, and onboarding AI products directly to small business customers through our Business Managers.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We view these as components of a broader AI distribution strategy rather than standalone partnerships. As entrepreneurs incorporate AI tools into how they form, operate, and grow their businesses, our objective is simple: ensure they look to LegalZoom as the legal layer of AI throughout the small business life cycle. This approach has three components. First, we're investing in visibility, helping ensure LegalZoom's position as one of the most trusted and frequently referenced brands for business formations and compliance across leading AI platforms. Much like we previously established our position in traditional search, we've been deliberately focused on generative engine optimization, or GEO, over the past year to ensure we surface favorably inside AI-generated answers. We are doubling down on that investment. What differentiates our approach is authority, a factor we know carries significant weight in how AI platforms rank and surface brands.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

As the only online formations provider with an owned law firm, we have a structural advantage our peers cannot replicate. Attorney-written content. That positions us to earn citations and AI-generated responses in a way that is genuinely unique to LegalZoom. Second, we're testing and scaling customer acquisition within emerging AI experiences, including paid AI environments as new distribution models develop. As I noted earlier, traffic from AI platforms grew more than 250% quarter-over-quarter and accounted for approximately 3% of our LLC formations traffic in June. These visitors also arrive with high intent and convert at higher rates than traditional organic search traffic. Third, we're embedding LegalZoom directly into AI workflows through integrations like ChatGPT, Claude, and most recently, Microsoft Copilot, making it easier for customers to move seamlessly from asking questions to taking action.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We recently announced a new agent integration directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot, allowing users to evaluate business formation options, manage business compliance, and connect with attorneys without leaving their daily Microsoft workflow. We're pleased with our early progress. Today, LegalZoom is partnered with the leading AI companies and is at the forefront of AI integrations, giving us confidence that we're well-positioned as AI becomes an increasingly important source of customer discovery. Lastly, we continue to focus on leveraging AI to improve both the customer experience and how we operate our business. Today, we announce the next step in our organizational evolution, a transformation we began more than a year ago. We are simplifying how LegalZoom is organized, sharpening our strategic focus, and aligning resources behind our highest priority growth opportunities.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

That work is enabled in part by AI, which is now embedded across our operations, allowing us to serve customers with greater speed and consistency. As part of these changes, we've reduced our workforce by approximately 13%. These decisions are never easy, and I want to thank our departing colleagues for their many contributions to LegalZoom. We believe these changes position us to execute with greater focus, quality, and speed while continuing to invest behind our key growth initiatives. Stepping back, while the current search environment has created near-term pressure, it reinforces, not changes, the strategy we've been building. We're growing higher value, human-in-the-loop subscription relationships. We're expanding beyond traditional customer acquisition through partnerships, brands, and AI. We're using AI not only to help customers succeed, but to make LegalZoom a faster, more efficient, and more agile company.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

We believe the companies that win in this next chapter won't simply be the ones that answer questions. They'll be the ones that help customers take action with confidence. For more than 25 years, that's been LegalZoom's role. We believe our combination of technology, trusted expertise, and long-term customer relationships positions us well for the future. I am personally proud of our team for their unwavering dedication to our company and to one another. To each of you continue showing up for our customers, and that says everything about who you are. I'm grateful to be part of LegalZoom. Thank you, and I'll now turn it over to Noel to discuss our second quarter financial results and updated outlook in more detail. Noel?

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Thanks, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone. We continue to make disciplined investments to drive higher quality subscription revenue growth, diversify customer acquisition, and improve operating efficiency while delivering strong profitability. Our second quarter results demonstrate meaningful progress across each of these priorities. In Q2, subscription revenue represented 65% of total revenue, an increase of 300 basis points year-over-year, supported by stable retention and ARPU growth. Adjusted EBITDA of $46 million came in above the high end of our guidance range, driven by a significant improvement in gross margin as we leverage AI and automation to improve both the quality and efficiency with which we deliver our services to our customers. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22%, which translated into strong free cash flow generation of $34 million. Turning now to our second quarter results in more detail. Unless otherwise stated, all comparisons will be on a year-over-year basis.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Revenue for the quarter was $205 million, representing 7% growth and in line with the midpoint of our guidance range. Subscription revenue increased 11% to $133 million. We're continuing to shift the composition of our business toward recurring revenue streams as we aim to drive stronger customer lifetime value and more durable long-term growth. Subscription revenue showed continued momentum across our human-in-the-loop subscription portfolio, including our legal advisory subscriptions, reflecting increased bundling within select formation offerings. Registered Agent, building on last year's pricing and value initiatives, and continued growth in Virtual Mail and Business Manager. As a result, ARPU increased 5%, benefiting primarily from higher pricing in our human-in-the-loop offerings. We continue to expect ARPU to be the primary driver of subscription growth throughout the year.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

We focus on shifting our mix towards higher value offerings, we are seeing an expected decline in lower value subscriptions bundled within the formation package, which we expect to continue through the remainder of the year. As a result, we ended the quarter with approximately 1.9 million subscription units, down 3%. Importantly, retention remains stable, supported by strength across our compliance offerings and human-in-the-loop services and ongoing improvements to our customer experience. Transaction revenue was $72 million, down 1%, reflecting lower business formations, partially offset by continued growth in our consumer and IP-related offerings. Once again, the growth in IP reflects increasing demand for our expert-led services. Transaction units increased 1% to approximately 281,000, driven primarily by higher annual report filing volumes for our compliance customers. We processed approximately 125,000 business formations during the quarter, a decline of 5%, reflecting the shift to AI-powered search that Jeff described earlier.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Importantly, formations from strategic partnerships continued to offset a portion of that pressure and represented a growing share of overall formation volume. Transaction AOV was $256, down 2%, primarily due to changes in composition of our bundled small business offerings, resulting in an increased allocation of order value shifting to subscription products. This decrease was partially offset by an increase in higher value consumer and IP-related offerings. Finally, deferred revenue declined $2 million sequentially. Turning to profitability, where all metrics are on a non-GAAP basis. We continue to expand profitability while investing behind the long-term growth priorities Jeff outlined. Gross profit increased to $146 million, while gross margin expanded approximately 250 basis points to 71%. This improvement reflects a favorable subscription mix and continued customer care and fulfillment efficiencies due to increasing automation across our operations.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Sales and marketing expenses increased 14%, including a 13% increase in customer acquisition marketing, reflecting the dynamic search environment and investment in our diversified customer acquisition initiatives. Consistent with our focus on customer quality over volume, we are prioritizing acquisition spend in channels we believe will have the strongest defensibility in unit economics over the long term. Non-CAM sales and marketing expenses increased $3 million or 20%, largely from targeted investments in our sales organization, which is supporting the expert-led revenue growth you're seeing in these results. Technology and development expenses declined 4%, while G&A declined 10%, improving overall operating leverage. Those efforts resulted in Adjusted EBITDA of $46 million, an increase of 18%, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding approximately 220 basis points. Our balance sheet remains a source of strength and continues to provide us with significant financial flexibility.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

During the quarter, we generated $34 million of free cash flow, an increase of 7%, reflecting the continued profitability and cash-generating nature of our business. We maintain a debt-free balance sheet, and our $100 million revolving credit facility remains fully undrawn. We ended the quarter with $167 million in cash and cash equivalents. The sequential decline from the first quarter includes approximately $46 million or 7.3 million shares repurchased, partially offset by the free cash flow generation. As of June 30th, 2026, we had approximately $80 million remaining under our authorization. Looking ahead, we continue to expect strong free cash flow generation for the full year, providing the flexibility to execute a balanced capital allocation strategy. That includes investing behind our key growth opportunities, evaluating strategic M&A opportunities, and the ability to return excess capital to shareholders. Turning now to our outlook.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

For the full year, we expect revenue in the range of $795 million to $805 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 6% at the midpoint. Our guidance assumes the continued scaling of our subscription growth initiatives and ongoing momentum from our partner channel, partially offset by a more cautious view of customer acquisition for the remainder of the year. This is based on the impact of the experience changes Google implemented during the quarter, that have persisted through today. Our outlook assumes the current search environment remains broadly consistent through year-end. As customer discovery continues to evolve, we expect to be navigating increased uncertainty with regard to the performance of traditional search channels. While we're encouraged by the progress we're making through partnerships, increased investment in our brand and emerging AI distribution channels, those initiatives will take time to fully compensate for the near-term impact of these recent changes.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

For the third quarter, we expect revenue of $192 million to $196 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 2% at the midpoint. Our guidance assumes a high single to low double-digit decline in transaction revenue based on the aforementioned acquisition trends. Turning to profitability, we continue to execute against the AI-enabled operating model we've been building for more than one year. As we've discussed in prior earnings calls, our profitability outlook has assumed continued productivity improvements from AI, disciplined cost management, and the evolution of our operating model. The organizational actions we announced today represent the next phase of that evolution. Over the past year, we've invested in AI capabilities, redesigned workflows, and simplified how work gets done across the company. Earlier this year, we announced a 5% workforce reduction as part of that effort.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Today's actions continue that work by further simplifying our organizational structure and aligning resources behind our highest priority growth initiatives, resulting in a 13% headcount reduction. Over time, we expect this to further strengthen operating leverage and support sustained profitable growth. We expect these workforce actions to result in approximately $7 million of net in-year savings, or approximately $14 million on an annualized basis. We also expect approximately $6 million of restructuring and related charges, primarily in the third quarter. We now expect full-year adjusted EBITDA of $190 million-$195 million, representing an Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 24% at the midpoint. Our profitability outlook expects continued gross margin improvement, focused expense management, and the benefits of our evolving AI-enabled operating model.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

For the third quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA of $49 million-$51 million, or a margin of approximately 26% at the midpoint, inclusive of the impact from the workforce actions announced today. As we look ahead, our focus is on what's within our control, driving high value, human-in-the-loop subscriptions growth, accelerating our partnerships momentum, deepening our brand presence, and converting our early AI channel traction into durable opportunity. We're executing against each of those fronts while staying focused on customer quality, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation. Finally, I'd like to thank all of our employees for their continued resilience and commitment to our customers and our organization. Your hard work and focus have been instrumental in executing our strategy and positioning LegalZoom for long-term success. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. As mentioned, at this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile our Q&A roster. Your first question comes to the line of Ella Smith with JPMorgan Chase. Your line is now open.

[Ella Smith, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. First, I was hoping to ask about the higher value initiatives. It seems like they're taking longer to benefit the top line. What have you learned about the go-to-market motion on those new higher value products like Concierge in the last few months? I'm just wondering, are they coming with any higher churn or a tougher go-to-market motion than your existing subscription products?

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Sure. Thanks, Ella. We're actually pretty encouraged with the higher value products. If you look at our human-in-the-loop offerings, generally, both service and expertise, those are growing at orders of magnitude faster than the rest of the business. We're actually seeing real strength there. They're now approaching 20% in terms of growth and 40% of total revenues. We're actually seeing what we believe is good strength there. We're just coming up on renewal cycles. We're just starting to reevaluate how we package, how we promote, and how we engage. We're pretty encouraged.

[Ella Smith, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Perfect. Thank you, Jeff. For a follow-up, you were early to partner with some of the AI majors, so I'm just curious what you envision that you could still do to drive improvement in business formation traffic from those AI majors.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. Great question. We continue to be excited. I think we were very early to adopt generally and likely first in our category. I think there's three key areas, and we're starting to see proof points in each of them. The first from our standpoint is just visibility and brand recognition. We know we have the authority advantage and are driving positive results there. The second is with respect to going in through GEO and AEO, where we're having significant strength. Then paid opportunities as those start to emerge, particularly right now with ChatGPT. I think you're seeing that growth already. It's starting from a small base, but we're talking about 250% growth, and now approaching 3% of traffic. It's material, and it has the opportunity for us to lap that structural step down from Google much more quickly.

[Ella Smith, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Great. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Noel.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Thank you, Ella.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your next question comes on the line of John Byrne with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

[John Byrne, Analyst at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks very much. This is John Byrne from Brent Thill at Jefferies. Just two question, I guess on the shift in traffic that you mentioned. It looked like some of it had been happening for some time. Wondering, did it accelerate during the quarter? Is there a point in time during Q2 when this became much more noticeable? Is it possible it could get worse at this time? I have a quick follow-up.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Yeah, you bet. That's a fair question. Let me answer directly. We've obviously seen that slow, steady shift away from Google Search into AI native environments. What happened most recently was a structural shift. Google alone literally called it the biggest change to their search box since they introduced the search box. This was a material change and a step down. We believe we understand it. We believe we've fully taken into account that change into our guidance. We're trying to be proactive here. We think it's the right thing to do because we're seeing this industry wide. This is a structural shift in terms of what Google is doing.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. John, just to build on that, the impact that we saw was really in the back half of the quarter. The performance that we've seen after that structural step down has been relatively consistent since then and quarter to date. That extrapolation is what we've included as a baseline expectation in our guidance. The expectation is that it's consistent through the end of the year, not building in any expectation around recovery or further degradation.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

That's what gives us confidence in our guidance.

[John Byrne, Analyst at Jefferies]

Great. Thank you very much for that. The 13% RIF, just wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about the timeline. Is that pretty much complete? Is it broad-based? Any particular departments that are more impacted? Thank you.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. The workforce reduction was effective today. That was the announcement. We included specifics on the size of impact, both in year and annualized. It was a company-wide reorganization. We really looked cross-functionally at everywhere in terms of how we can reimagine work streams and speed up decision-making and improve execution. You will see it impact all the functions across the organization.

[John Byrne, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes on the line of Matt Condon with Citizens Bank. Your line is now open.

[Matt Condon, Analyst at Citizens]

Thank you so much. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, just on the Google Search trends that you are seeing, are there any quantitative stats you can give us, either as a percentage of business formations or anything that we can get comfortable with just the size of Google as far as your traffic today? If anything gets worse in the future, we can start to think about what the impact could be.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. Google obviously historically has been one of our primary channels. It speaks to the effort and the strategic focus that we've had around channel diversification here for a number of quarters. We've been heavily focused on investing in brand, heavily focused on our partner channel and driving new partnerships and investing in existing partnerships. Jeff talked earlier about the progress we're making with GEO, AEO, and even spending into LLMs to drive progress. If you think about the guidance that we provided, that's really a reflection of the impact that we're seeing from a new acquisition standpoint. We guided to high single digit to low double digit declines in transaction revenue in the back half of the year. I think you can size it off of that characterization.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

more broadly on the stats with what's happening with Google traffic generally. Our confidence in part comes from the fact that this was rolled out, we believe, fully in the U.S. first, and it's now being rolled out internationally with a de minimis amount of international traffic. We think we've got a good handle on that.

[Matt Condon, Analyst at Citizens]

That's very helpful. Then just as we think about some of the brand investments that you guys are making, why do you feel like that now is the time to do that? There's some impacts to the Google Search traffic, and that could ultimately affect the effectiveness of your brand spend, the return on your brand spend?

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. I would argue that brand recognition and the power and authority of our brand is one of our biggest strengths. We're able to see the improvement in that recognition and that authority very quickly with brand recognition. That immediately translates to authority with AI. It helps significantly with AIO and GEO. From our standpoint, it is critically important as we migrate away from Google and into the partnership and AI channels to have strength in brand and have our brand be recognized as the trusted brand in the space.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

It also helps on the partnership front and in direct-to-site traffic, as well as when you think about search engines, there's a brand component of spend there that is a very high returning spend. Anything that can enhance our brand in today's environment, I think is hugely positive for us.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

I'll close with the fact that when you look at our higher value services, particularly human in the loop, and them now at and above that 40% mark, our goal is to push that further, both in terms of the value that we offer and ultimately the price that we're able to receive. A lot of that comes from being a trusted brand.

[Matt Condon, Analyst at Citizens]

Thank you so much.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

You bet. Thanks, Matt.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your next question comes to the line of Pat McIlwee with William Blair. Your line is now open.

[Pat McIlwee, Analyst at William Blair]

Hi, team. Thanks for taking the questions. Given the fluidity around Google Search, can you just talk about how you evaluate the CAM spend and the overall marketing spend looking into the back half of the year? I think we had already expected less CAM in the back half given some of the front-loading you did, but just any thoughts on how your spending plans have evolved would be helpful.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. I think a couple of questions there. First, in terms of our spend level, it's definitely an area where we're making some investment, especially as we make this transition around channel diversification. Again, brand is a slower returning spend, as we ramp up spend there, we expect it to take more time for that to generate the same ROAS. In our partner channels, as we onboard new partners, those start sub-optimized, and we iterate and optimize those relationships over time. We've built in some space for us to make some investment in CAM. We expect overall CAM on the full year to step up a couple points relative to the prior year. Strategically, as we think about spend on the whole, we first are performance-oriented, but we are looking clearly at opportunities to be shifting spend away from Google wherever possible.

[Pat McIlwee, Analyst at William Blair]

Okay, thanks, Noel. I understand it's a dynamic environment, but your Q3 guide points to a pretty sharp decel to growth, I think, in the low single-digit range. Can you just talk about what signals you're looking for before you can talk a little bit more confidently about optimizing your top of funnel and inevitably getting back to a re-acceleration towards your prior growth targets?

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. Look, I'll say at a high level, this happened relatively abruptly. Google very recently made this announcement, so I think it behooves us and others to be conservative in the short run in terms of the opportunities and that shift. That said, our focus has been for quite a long time, north of 18 months, to diversify our channels, and we knew that Google was a very large concentration risk for us, and we have been diversifying away from it over time. Because this was abrupt, we weren't able to overcome it as quickly as we would like right now.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

I think that we put ourselves in a position with this guide to give ourselves the flexibility and the time that we need to execute and continue the efforts that we've already done, both from shifting our partnerships from 4% to now 11%, which is up from 10% last quarter. AI going 250% increase, which is now representing 3% of traffic. That should continue to accelerate. We are going to push on those diversification channels. We wanted to make sure that we had the risk built in immediately. Left room for, without baking into, the opportunity that we believe we will achieve.

[Noel Watson, COO and CFO at LegalZoom]

Yeah. In the meantime, as we focus on the acceleration on channel diversification, it's worth reminding that the business is almost two-thirds subscription, so there's a durability and a bit of an insulation there that helps while we're making this shift. We continue to make investments on the subscription side as well. Jeff mentioned the higher value services and expert-led services that we're focused on in driving subscription. Also, we continue to make improvements in engagement that we think will lead to retention. We've also shown that we've had pricing power across numerous subscriptions.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

While the impact from Google is structural, at least for now, and we'll continue to try to optimize against that, it does have some impact on new customer acquisition, which creates some pressure in the back half of the year and into 2027, especially since there's some lag effect on the subscription side. All of these efforts we are excited about and feel confident that we can work to offset that impact.

[Pat McIlwee, Analyst at William Blair]

Okay. Thank you both for the thoughts.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

Thank you, Pat.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your last question comes to the line of Kishan Patel with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

[Kishan Patel, Analyst at Raymond James]

Hey, this is Kishan Patel on for Josh Beck. Can you elaborate on the differences in conversion and acquisition costs you see between AIO reviews and AI mode versus the traditional 10 blue link referral traffic within the Google Search channel? What are you seeing in terms of SMB adoption for AI tools on your platform, and what are key opportunities and risks to keep in mind? Thank you.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

You bet. Kishan, for now, paid AI is still quite small and really coming largely from ChatGPT and to a lesser extent, Google with some of their native AI search. It's largely similar in terms of conversion and in other metrics and dynamics. We find that we've got higher intent customers generally. That's going to change as this scales, and we expect it to scale, but it is higher intent. The important thing there is what it means is people are going through an education process, which works very well for what we're doing with human in the loop. What we hope and expect is we're going to find increasing opportunities to be able to upsell and cross-sell those customers to service-oriented and expert-oriented services.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

I think that's part of the reason why that cohort has accelerated in terms of growth, which I think is pretty important. In terms of the adoption of AI and being able to sell that directly to our SMBs, we actually just started testing that. The tests have been pretty encouraging so far. It is early. We've started that largely this quarter with a partner. I think that this is a product that people are looking for, and the subset of our customers are going to be encouraged to go through us to do it, in part because you need a service layer. You've got to remember, these are naive small businesses who are curious about how to use and adopt AI, but they need an onboarding process. If we do this right, we could in effect become the small business operating system.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

That's something that is both encouraging and exciting for us, but quite early.

[Kishan Patel, Analyst at Raymond James]

Thanks very much.

[Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom]

You bet. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session. We want to thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Noel Watson, COO and CFO

Analysts

• Madeleine Crane, Head of Investor Relations at LegalZoom
• Jeff Stibel, Chairman and CEO at LegalZoom
• Ella Smith, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase
• John Byrne, Analyst at Jefferies
• Matt Condon, Analyst at Citizens
• Pat McIlwee, Analyst at William Blair
• Kishan Patel, Analyst at Raymond James