Workiva Reports Q2 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Workiva (NYSE: WK ) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

The full earnings call is available at Summary Workiva Inc. reported strong Q2 2026 financial performance, exceeding revenue guidance with 19% growth in both subscription and total revenue. 8%, beating expectations and improving by 1,300 basis points year-over-year. Workiva raised its full-year 2026 non-GAAP operating margin guidance to 18%, achieving a 2027 target a year early.

Significant growth was observed in large contracts, with contracts valued over $300,000 annually growing 34% and those over $500,000 growing 33%. The company highlighted the transformation in the Office of the CFO and its impact on demand for Workiva's AI-integrated solutions. S. regional bank and a Global private equity firm, and new logos with a material science company and a government technology services firm.

Workiva introduced new AI capabilities and advanced solution tiers, enhancing data governance and operational efficiency. Q2 customer count rose to 6,750, with a gross retention rate of 97% and a net retention rate of 111%. 5%. Workiva's free cash flow margin outlook was raised to approximately 21% for 2026.

Full Transcript Harmony, Operator Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Workiva's Q2 2026 earnings call. My name is Harmony, and I will be your host operator on this call. After the prepared comments, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.

Instructions will be provided at that time. m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Katie White, Senior Director of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Katie White, Senior Director of Investor Relations Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Workiva's Q2 2026 conference call. During today's call, we will review our second-quarter results and discuss our guidance for the third quarter and full year 2026. Today's call will include comments from our Chief Executive Officer, Julie Iskow, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Barbara Larson.

We will then open up the call for a Q&A session. After market close today, we issued a press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website along with our quarterly investor presentation. This conference call is being webcast live, and following the call, an audio replay will be available on our website. During today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events and financial performance, including guidance for the third quarter and full fiscal year 2026.

These forward-looking statements are based on our assumptions as to the macroeconomic, political, and regulatory environment as of today, reflect management's current expectations and beliefs based on factors currently known to us, and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Workiva cautions that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements if the call is reviewed after today. The information presented during this call may not contain current or accurate information.

Please refer to the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC for factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements. Also, during the course of today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included in today's press release. With that, we'll begin by turning the call over to Workiva CEO Julie Iskow.

Julie Iskow, Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Katie, and thank you all for joining us today. Q2 2026 delivered another quarter of strong financial performance and continued demand for our trusted platform. We beat the high end of our revenue guidance with 19% growth in both subscription revenue and total revenue. 8%.

This was a 180 basis point beat on the high end of our guide and a 1,300 basis point improvement compared to Q2 of last year. Our Q2 results once again reflect broad-based, durable demand across our entire portfolio of solutions. It also reflects our unwavering commitment to operational efficiency as we scale our business. Because of our strong operating margin performance in the first half of the year, we're raising our full-year 2026 non-GAAP operating margin guidance to 18%.

This 18% operating margin target is an important milestone for Workiva. This was the target communicated in our 2027 operating model. And with this updated 2026 guide, we will be delivering on that operating margin target a full year early. This margin milestone reflects disciplined execution across every part of our business.

And it reflects deliberate changes to how we're organized, to how we deploy resources, and to where we direct those resources. This isn't a one-quarter result. It's a reflection of the operating model that we continue to improve as we grow, and our growth continues to be supported by the opportunities that we're seeing in the market. The Office of the CFO is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in decades.

Finance leaders are being asked to do far more than close books and report results today. They're also responsible for the data that their businesses rely on and how AI is governed. And they're helping their organizations navigate a more complex regulatory and risk environment. But that's only part of the story.

AI is also changing what's expected of the people that are doing the work. CFOs and their teams are expected to deliver insights in hours instead of days. They're expected to automate more of the work that's still manual, answer more questions with greater confidence, and respond faster. As regulations and business conditions continue to change, they're also no longer expected to simply use enterprise software.

There's now an expectation that they'll extend it and build upon it. Users are becoming builders. They're creating AI agents. They're automating complex processes.

They're connecting trusted business data with the rest of their technology ecosystem. They're extending the platforms they already rely on every day. And they're expected to do all of this while maintaining the governance, the security, the accuracy, and the auditability that the Office of the CFO demands. And as AI becomes more embedded in more business processes, trusted, connected, and traceable data matters more than ever.

This is exactly where Workiva can make the biggest difference. Our customers shouldn't have to assemble AI models and agents and enterprise systems and governance tools just to meet these new expectations. And they shouldn't have to choose between adopting the latest AI capabilities and maintaining the trust that their organizations depend on. They should be able to do both.

That's why we're building intelligent capabilities that customers can put to work immediately. Some customers will use these capabilities as they are, others will want to go further. They'll connect Workiva with more of their systems, build their own agents, extend workflows, or use Workiva as part of a broader AI ecosystem. Our approach supports both.

We deliver the AI capabilities that our customers need today while giving them the flexibility to build, to connect, and to extend those capabilities inside Workiva and beyond it, all grounded in the trusted data governance and controls that they already manage within the Workiva platform. We believe this combination will help finance organizations meet the rapidly rising expectations of the Office of the CFO. It's what our customers are asking for, and it's what we're building. And we believe no one is better positioned to deliver it than Workiva.

This value proposition is resonating at the highest levels of the enterprise. Our largest customers are standardizing on Workiva, and it shows in our large contract cohorts. In Q2, contracts valued over $300,000 annually grew 34% and contracts above $500,000 annually grew 33%, both compared to Q2 of 2025. This growth reflects both continued expansion within our existing customer base and the landing of larger multi-solution new logos.

I'd like to highlight a few of our Q2 deals that demonstrate how our platform is winning in the market and to solve our customers' most complex reporting challenges. First, we signed a mid six-figure account expansion deal with a global digital banking and fintech leader for private company reporting, multi-entity reporting, connected bank reporting, and sustainability. The bank is on a multi-year private to public journey while expanding globally and transitioning to a full-service regulated bank.

The investment in Workiva as a core financial and regulatory reporting platform is central to supporting this transformation across tax reporting, sustainability disclosures, and Basel Pillar 3 regulatory compliance. -based global material science company. The customer purchased four solutions: SEC Reporting, Management Reporting, Controls Management, and Sustainability. Following a highly competitive process, they chose Workiva over a multiple point-solution vendor approach because of our ability to serve as their definitive system of truth.

They recognized that no combination of disparate vendors could replicate our platform without sacrificing data connectivity, collaboration, and trust. Workiva will support this company's rapid expansion through acquisition and their increased focus on global distribution. The deal was a co-sell and will be delivered by a regional advisory firm. I'll turn now to financial reporting.

Demand continues to build as companies modernize complex global operating models, and the bar for what that requires keeps rising. Organizations need continuous access to accurate and traceable data to stay report-ready and audit-ready not just at quarter end, but continuously throughout the quarter. Here are a few of the many Q2 wins worth highlighting. -based global government and defense technology services company.

This customer purchased SEC Reporting, Multi-Entity Reporting, Management Reporting, and Sustainability. The primary driver for this opportunity was a global enterprise reporting transformation initiative that spans the company's operations in more than 90 countries. With complex and evolving reporting requirements across numerous jurisdictions, the customer sought a single platform capable of supporting the global governance and local compliance.

They selected Workiva because our unified platform enables them to meet the unique reporting mandates in the markets in which they operate while empowering distributed teams worldwide to modernize and streamline their critical reporting processes. S. regional bank. This loyal customer upgraded to our advanced tiers for both SEC Reporting and Sustainability, and they expanded across three additional: Tax Reporting, Living Will, and Stress Testing.

The primary catalyst for this expansion was the bank's reclassification as a Category 3 institution. This significantly expanded its regulatory reporting obligations. The deal was a co-sell with a regional advisory firm. I'll move on now to one of our key vertical-specific solution categories, Financial Services.

We continue to see strong demand as institutions navigate increasingly complex regulatory requirements. Here are a few highlights from the quarter in this vertical. First, we signed a high six-figure account expansion deal with a large global private equity firm for fund reporting. This company signed on as a Workiva customer in Q3 of 2024.

It first invested in our fund reporting solution in Q4 of 2025. Within six months, they have more than tripled the number of funds supported by the platform, and they now spend more than $1 million with Workiva. This deal is a great example of how our metric-based licensing model drives the opportunity for ARR expansion in a single solution. The deal was sourced and will be delivered by a regional advisory firm.

Second, a Big Four professional services firm operating in Europe's largest investment fund market signed a mid six-figure expansion deal for fund reporting. The firm is expanding its use of Workiva across its fund administration business to support financial statement preparation and other fund reporting for a growing population of fund entities. This expansion enables the firm to consolidate reporting processes onto Workiva, driving greater standardization and scalability as its business grows. Next, I'd like to cover Governance, Risk, and Compliance.

Risk and audit teams are navigating accelerating AI governance, geopolitical uncertainty, and changing regulations, often with leaner teams than ever before. Many are finding that siloed approaches are no longer sustainable. Organizations are choosing Workiva to centralize enterprise risk, transform audit and controls, and streamline compliance. With AI embedded across our GRC platform, including our flowchart visualizer and GRC intelligence agents, we help teams identify emerging risks faster, uncover patterns earlier, and respond with greater confidence.

Let me share a few Q2 GRC deal highlights. First, we signed a mid six-figure account expansion with a Fortune 500 specialty insurance holding company. This company added multiple solutions including Enterprise Risk, Compliance Management, and Management Reporting. Three years ago, this customer had just two Workiva solutions totaling just over $100,000.

Today, they have expanded to nine platform solutions, spending high six figures annually with Workiva. The additional GRC expansion was driven by the need to eliminate significant manual effort, consolidate technology across teams, and establish a unified enterprise data strategy. The opportunity also displaced a standalone GRC point solution, further reinforcing the value of a connected platform. S.

Farm Credit bank to build and scale its GRC program across Audit Management, Controls Management, Compliance Management, Enterprise Risk, and Operational Risk Management. This opportunity centered on displacing an incumbent GRC point solution in favor of the more comprehensive Workiva platform. The deal was a co-sell with a regional advisory firm. Another area worth highlighting is Sustainability.

As sustainability requirements move into implementation, we're seeing an important shift in the market. Organizations are moving beyond preparing for compliance to operationalizing trusted, audit-ready reporting. As a result, responsibility is increasingly shifting to the Office of the CFO. CFOs expect sustainability disclosures to be held to the same standards as financial reporting, with the same traceability, governance, internal controls, assurance, and auditability.

That's changing buying behavior. Standalone sustainability solutions are no longer enough. Increasingly, customers are choosing Workiva as the unified platform to manage financial and non-financial reporting together using the same trusted data governance and reporting processes. Our deal activity reflects this trend.

S. filers, or increasingly Multi-Entity Reporting. The business driver is straightforward. Companies reporting under CSRD, ISSB, California's SB253, and other sustainability reporting requirements are often large multinational organizations with complex legal entity structures.

They need trusted data, consistent governance, and reporting processes that span both financial and non-financial information. This is where Workiva is differentiated. We are uniquely positioned to bring these reporting processes together in a single trusted platform. Let me highlight a few sustainability deals from Q2.

First, we signed a mid six-figure new logo deal with one of Europe's largest state-owned energy companies serving roughly 20 million customers. This company purchased Sustainability Reporting and Controls Management. The deal was driven by CSRD compliance requirements and was a competitive win over multiple point solutions. Workiva was the only solution to address the financial reporting, GRC, and sustainability requirements on a single platform.

The deal was a co-sell and will be delivered by a Big Four firm. Second, a global healthcare technology company signed a mid six-figure expansion deal, upgrading to Sustainability Advanced. This customer also extended sustainability across multiple entities and added multi-entity financial reporting. The driver for this opportunity was ISSB compliance and the need to connect financial and non-financial data across their global legal entity structure.

This was a competitive displacement of a standalone sustainability point solution. This is exactly the consolidation dynamic that we're seeing across our customer base. To conclude our customer highlights, let's turn to capital markets. Following the momentum we saw earlier in the year, the IPO market demonstrated continued strength in Q2.