APPIAN CORP (APPN)

Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical financial information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates, and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those contained in or implied by any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those under “Risk Factors” included in Part I, Item 1A or in other parts of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Overview

Appian is a software company that orchestrates business processes. The Appian Platform empowers leaders to design, automate, and optimize important processes from start to finish. With our industry-leading platform and commitment to customer success, Appian is trusted by top organizations to drive transformational process change.

We have generated the majority of our revenue from sales of subscriptions, which include (1) cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and (2) term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our subscription contracts are priced based primarily on the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or, alternatively, non-user-based single application licenses. Our subscription contract terms generally vary from one to three years with most providing for payment in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. Due to the variability of our billing terms and the episodic nature of our customers purchasing additional subscriptions, we do not believe changes in our deferred revenue in a given period are directly correlated with our revenue growth.

We have invested in our Customer Success organization to help ensure customers are able to build and deploy applications on our platform. We have several strategic partnerships, including with Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, and TCS, which allow them to refer customers to us in order to purchase subscriptions. Our partners then provide professional services directly to the customers using our platform. Additionally, they often go to market with their own pre-built solutions using our platform, delivering software license revenue to us. We intend to continue focusing on adding new customers with our strategic partners. In addition, over time we expect our professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decline as we increasingly rely on strategic partners to help our customers deploy our software. We believe our investment in professional services, including strategic partners building their practices around Appian, will drive increased adoption of our platform.

As of December 31, 2024, we had over 1,000 customers. Our customers primarily include financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation organizations. Generally, our sales team targets its efforts to organizations with over 2,000 employees and $2.0 billion in annual revenue. Revenue from government agencies represented 32.2%, 29.1%, and 26.1% of our total revenue in 2024, 2023, and 2022, respectively. No single end-customer accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in 2024, 2023, and 2022.

We offer our platform globally. Our platform supports multiple languages to facilitate collaboration and address challenges in multinational organizations. In 2024, 2023, and 2022, 36.6%, 35.8%, and 33.5%, respectively, of our total revenue was generated from customers outside of the United States. As of December 31, 2024, we operated in 16 countries. We believe we have a significant opportunity to continue to grow our international footprint, and we are investing in new geographies, including through investment in direct and indirect sales channels, professional services, and customer support and implementation partners.

We have experienced strong revenue growth, with revenue of $617.0 million, $545.4 million, and $468.0 million in 2024, 2023, and 2022, respectively. Our subscriptions revenue was $490.6 million, $412.3 million, and $340.2 million in 2024, 2023, and 2022, respectively, and includes sales of our cloud subscriptions, on-premises term license subscriptions, and maintenance and support. Our cloud subscriptions revenue was $368.0 million, $304.5 million, and $236.9 million in 2024, 2023, and 2022, respectively.

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We have invested in developing our platform, expanding our sales and marketing and research and development capabilities, and providing general and administrative resources to support our growth. As a result, we incurred net losses of $92.3 million, $111.4 million, and $150.9 million in 2024, 2023, and 2022, respectively. In 2024, cash provided by operations was $6.9 million, while cash used by operations totaled $110.4 million and $106.6 million in 2023 and 2022, respectively.

We intend to continue to invest in our business to take advantage of our market opportunity. In 2025, we will take a more balanced approach to growth, making ongoing, targeted investments that enhance our capabilities and competitive position, while ensuring we continue on our path to profitability.

Our Business Model

Our business model focuses on maximizing the lifetime value of customer relationships, which is a function of the duration of a customer’s deployment of our platform as well as the price and number of subscriptions of our platform a customer purchases. We incur significant customer acquisition costs, including expenses associated with hiring new sales representatives, who can take anywhere from six months to a year to become productive given the length of our sales cycle, sales commissions, and marketing costs, all of which, with the exception of certain types of sales commissions, are expensed as incurred.

At the same time, we believe the costs we incur to retain customers and drive additional purchases of software are lower than our customer acquisition costs on a relative basis. Over time, we expect a large portion of our customers to renew their subscriptions and purchase additional subscriptions as they continue to build more applications and add more users to our platform. Over the last three completed fiscal years, we had an average cloud subscription gross revenue renewal rate of 98%, which is calculated by dividing (i) the cloud subscriptions revenue from renewing cloud customers in the current 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of the prior 12-month period, giving effect to price increases but excluding additional cloud subscriptions for additional users, or upsells, by (ii) our cloud subscriptions revenue from all cloud customers in the corresponding prior 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of such prior 12-month period.

We also measure the effectiveness of our business model by comparing the lifetime value of our customer relationships to our customer acquisition costs. On a rolling 12-month basis, we estimate that for each of the past five fiscal years, the average lifetime value of a customer has been at least seven times greater than the associated average cost of acquiring them, including the year ended December 31, 2024.

Key Factors Affecting Our Performance

The following are several key factors that affect our performance:

•Market Adoption of Our Platform - Our ability to grow our customer base and drive market adoption of our platform is affected by the pace at which organizations digitally transform. We expect our revenue growth will be primarily driven by the pace of adoption and penetration of our platform. We offer a leading custom software platform and intend to continue to invest to expand our customer base. The degree to which prospective customers recognize the need for our software platform and its ability to enable their organizations to digitally transform, and subsequently allocate budget dollars to purchase our software, will drive our ability to acquire new customers and increase sales to existing customers, which, in turn, will affect our future financial performance.

•Growth of Our Customer Base - We believe we have a substantial opportunity to grow our customer base. We define a customer as an entity with an active subscription or maintenance and support contract or a legacy perpetual license as of the specified measurement date. Furthermore, we define a new customer as an entity that has entered into its first active subscription or maintenance and support contract within one calendar year of the specified measurement date. We have aggressively invested, and intend to continue to invest, in our sales team in order to drive sales to new customers. We continue to make investments to enhance the expertise of our sales and marketing organization within our key industry verticals of financial services, government, life sciences, and insurance. In 2024, we generated over 77% of our subscriptions revenue from customers in these verticals. In addition, we have established relationships

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with strategic partners who work with organizations undergoing digital transformations. Our ability to continue to grow our customer base is dependent, in part, upon our ability to differentiate ourselves within the increasingly competitive markets in which we participate.

•Further Penetration of Existing Customers - Our sales team seeks to generate additional revenue from existing customers by adding new users to our platform. Many of our customers begin by building a single application and then grow to build dozens of applications on our platform. Generally, the development of new applications on our platform results in the expansion of our user base within an organization and a corresponding increase in revenue. As a result of this “land and expand” strategy, we have generated significant additional revenue from our customer base. Our ability to increase sales to existing customers will depend on a number of factors, including the size of our sales and professional services teams, customers’ level of satisfaction with our platform and professional services, pricing, economic conditions, and our customers’ overall spending levels.

•Mix of Subscriptions and Professional Services Revenue - We believe our professional services have driven customer success and facilitated the adoption of our platform by customers. During the initial period of deployment of our platform by a customer, we generally provide a greater amount of support in building applications and training than later in the deployment, with a typical engagement lasting from two to six months. At the same time, many of our customers have historically purchased subscriptions for only a limited set of their total potential end users. As a result of these factors, the proportion of total revenue for a customer associated with professional services is relatively high during the initial deployment period. Over time, as the need for professional services associated with user deployments decreases and the number of end users increases, we expect subscriptions revenue as a percentage of total revenue to increase. In addition, we continue to grow our base of strategic partners to provide broader customer coverage and solution delivery capabilities. These partners perform professional services with respect to any new service contracts they originate. As the usage of strategic partners expands, we expect the proportion of our total revenue from subscriptions to increase over time relative to professional services. In 2024, 2023, and 2022, 79.5%, 75.6%, and 72.7% of our revenue, respectively, was derived from sales of subscriptions, while the remaining 20.5%, 24.4%, and 27.3%, respectively, was derived from the sale of professional services.

•Investments in Growth - We have made, and plan to continue to make, investments for long-term growth, including investing in our platform and infrastructure to continuously maximize their power and speed, meet the evolving needs of our customers, and take advantage of our market opportunity. We will continue to prioritize investments in revenue generating areas and limit growth in corporate functions. In addition, we will continue to grow and leverage our product development center in India to gain efficiencies in research and development spending. We may pursue strategic acquisitions that enhance our product offerings. We also intend to continue to invest in sales and marketing as we further expand our sales teams, increase our marketing activities, and grow our international operations.

Seasonality

We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with customers. We typically enter into a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in the fourth quarter. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is attributable to large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry. Furthermore, we usually enter into a significant portion of agreements with customers during the last month of each quarter and often the last two weeks of each quarter. However, we recognize the majority of our subscriptions revenue ratably over the terms of our subscription agreements. As a result, a substantial portion of the subscriptions revenue we report in each period will be derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to agreements entered into during previous periods. Consequently, a decline in new sales or renewals in any one period may not be immediately reflected in our revenue results for that period. Such a decline, however, will negatively affect our revenue in future periods. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales, the market acceptance of our platform, or potential changes in our rate of renewals may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods.

While we will continue to recognize the majority of our subscriptions revenue ratably over the terms of our subscription agreements, we may experience greater variability and reduced comparability of our quarterly revenue

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and results with respect to the timing and nature of our term license subscription agreements due to the upfront revenue recognition. See Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements for further details on our revenue recognition policies.

Key Metrics

We monitor the following metrics to help us measure and evaluate the effectiveness of our operations. All dollar amounts are presented in thousands.

Cloud Subscriptions Revenue

Cloud subscriptions revenue includes cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services. In 2024, 2023, and 2022, 75.0%, 73.8%, and 69.7%, respectively, of subscriptions revenue was cloud subscriptions revenue. Our cloud subscriptions revenue for any customer is primarily determined by the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or by the number of application licenses purchased, as well as the price paid. We believe increasing cloud subscriptions revenue is an indicator of the demand for our platform, the pace at which the market for our solutions is growing, the productivity of our sales team and strategic relationships in growing our customer base, and our ability to further penetrate our existing customer base.

Cloud Subscriptions Revenue Retention Rate

A key factor to our success is the renewal and expansion of subscription agreements with our existing customers. We calculate this metric over a set of customers who have been with us for at least one full year. To calculate our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate for a particular trailing 12-month period, we first establish the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue for the previous trailing 12-month period. This effectively represents recurring dollars we should expect in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period without accounting for any expansion or contraction. We subsequently measure the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period. Cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate is then calculated by dividing the aggregate recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period by the previous trailing 12-month period. This calculation includes the combined impact on our revenue from customer non-renewals, pricing changes, and growth in the number of users on our platform. Our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate can fluctuate from period to period due to large customer contracts in any given period.

Key Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We generate revenue primarily through sales of subscriptions to our platform as well as professional services. We typically sell our software on a per-user basis or through non-user-based single application licenses. We generally bill customers and collect payment for subscriptions to our platform in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis.

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Our revenue is comprised of the following:

Subscriptions

Subscriptions revenue is primarily derived from cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and on-premises term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our maintenance and support agreements provide customers with the right to unspecified software upgrades, maintenance updates, patches released during the term of the maintenance and support agreement on a when-and-if-available basis, and technical support. On-premises term license subscriptions are offered when the customer prefers to self-manage the deployment of our platform within their own infrastructure. When our platform is delivered as a cloud subscription, we manage operational needs in third-party hosted data centers.

Professional Services

Our professional services revenue is comprised of fees for consulting services, including application development, deployment assistance, and training related to our platform. Over time, we expect professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decrease as the usage of our partner network expands.

Cost of Revenue

Subscriptions

Cost of subscriptions revenue consists primarily of fees paid to our third-party managed hosting providers and other third-party service providers, personnel costs, including payroll and benefits for our technology operations and customer support teams, amortization of acquired technology, and allocated overhead costs. We expect cost of revenue to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as our customer base grows.

Professional Services

Cost of professional services revenue includes all direct and indirect costs to deliver our professional services and training, including employee compensation for our global professional services and training personnel, third-party contractor costs, allocated overhead costs, and the costs of billable expenses such as travel and lodging. The unpredictability of the timing of providing services related to significant professional services agreements sold on a standalone basis may cause significant fluctuations in our cost of professional services which, in turn, may impact our financial results.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit and gross margin (defined as gross profit as a percentage of total revenue), have been, and will continue to be, affected by various factors, including the mix of cloud subscriptions and on-premises term license subscriptions, the mix of total subscriptions revenue and professional services revenue, subscription pricing, the costs associated with third-party hosting providers, and the extent to which we expand or reduce our professional services to support future changes in our growth. Our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period based on the preceding factors.

Subscriptions Gross Margin

Subscriptions gross margin is primarily affected by the growth in our subscriptions revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, costs to support such revenue. We expect to continue to invest in customer support and cloud operations to support growth in our business, and the timing of those investments is expected to cause subscriptions gross margin to fluctuate on a quarterly basis.

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Professional Services Gross Margin

Professional services gross margin is affected by the growth in our professional services revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, the costs of our Customer Success organization as well as by consultant utilization rates. Professional services gross margin is also impacted by the amount of services performed by subcontractors and partners as opposed to internal resources. In 2025, we expect professional services gross margin to be consistent with 2024; however, the margin remains subject to fluctuation based on the factors discussed above.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses consist of sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses. Personnel-related costs such as salaries, bonuses, commissions, payroll tax payments, severance costs, and stock-based compensation expense are the most significant components of each of these expense categories. Other components of each category include professional fees for third-party services such as legal, software development resources, contractors, and cloud computing services. In addition, operating expenses include allocated overhead costs, which are primarily comprised of facility costs such as rent, employee medical benefits, employee relations expense, and certain information technology costs.

In general, our operating expenses are expected to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we invest resources in enhancing our product and growing our business, although such growth is expected to be at a more measured rate than prior years. In 2024, our total employee headcount decreased from 2,257 employees at December 31, 2023 to 2,033 employees at December 31, 2024. In 2025, we expect overall headcounts to rise slightly as we hire new employees in key growth areas while maintaining headcounts at or near current levels in non-customer facing teams.

Sales and Marketing Expense

Sales and marketing expense primarily includes personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, commissions, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs related to sales teams. Additional major expenses in this category include travel and entertainment, marketing activities and promotional events, subcontracting fees, and allocated overhead costs.

The number of employees in sales and marketing functions decreased from 666 at December 31, 2023 to 509 at December 31, 2024. While headcount declined in 2024 due to changes in our go-to-market functions, we expect sales and marketing headcount to marginally increase from current levels in 2025 due to expected growth in our principal markets and strategic growth areas. Furthermore, we expect sales and marketing expense to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest in acquiring new customers, further expand usage of our platform within our existing customer base, and broaden our efforts to build on our brand reputation and increase market awareness of our platform.

Research and Development Expense

Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel costs for our employees who develop and enhance our platform, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs. Also included are non-personnel costs such as subcontracting, consulting, professional fees to third party development resources, certain information technology expenses, and allocated overhead costs.

Our research and development efforts are focused on enhancing the capabilities, speed, and power of our software platform. The number of employees in research and development functions increased from 681 at December 31, 2023 to 702 at December 31, 2024. Most of this increase was attributable to continued expansion at our product development center in India that we opened in August 2022. Although we expect research and development expense to continue to increase in absolute dollars as such costs are critical to maintain and improve the quality of applications and our competitive position, we believe our product development center will result in cost efficiencies over time.

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General and Administrative Expense

General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs for our administrative, legal, information technology, human resources, finance and accounting teams as well as our senior executives. Additional expenses included in this category are non-personnel costs such as travel-related expenses, contracting and professional fees for such services as audits, taxation, and legal, insurance and other corporate expenses, including allocated overhead costs, and bad debt expenses.

The number of employees in general and administrative functions decreased from 280 at December 31, 2023 to 267 at December 31, 2024. In 2025, we expect general and administrative expense to increase in absolute dollars largely due to investments in our information technology team.

Other Non-Operating Expense

Other Expense (Income), Net

Other expense (income), net, consists primarily of gains and losses related to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, interest income on our cash and cash equivalents and investments, and other sources of income or expense not related to our core business operations.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consists primarily of interest on our debt, amortization of deferred financing fees, unused credit facility fees, and commitment fees on our letters of credit.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations (in thousands):

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The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations data expressed as a percentage of total revenue:

Year Ended December 31, 2024 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2023

Revenue

Total revenue increased $71.7 million, or 13.1%, in 2024 compared to 2023 due to an increase in our subscriptions revenue of $78.2 million, which was partially offset by a decrease in our professional services revenue of $6.6 million. The increase in subscriptions revenue was driven by a $63.5 million increase in cloud subscriptions revenue, a $9.9 million increase in on-premises software revenue, and a $4.8 million increase in maintenance and support revenue. With respect to new versus existing customers, $63.3 million of the increase in subscriptions revenue was derived from expanded deployments and corresponding sales of additional subscriptions to existing customers while $14.9 million was driven from sales of subscriptions to new customers. The decrease in professional services revenue was due to an $18.7 million decrease in revenue from existing customers, which was partially offset by a $12.1 million increase in sales to new customers.

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Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue increased $6.9 million, or 4.8%, in 2024 compared to 2023, primarily due to an $8.5 million increase in hosting costs and a $0.2 million increase in professional services and product support personnel costs, both of which were partially offset by a $1.5 million decrease in contractor costs. Hosting costs increased due to an increase in sales of our cloud offering during 2024. Although professional services and product support personnel headcount decreased 11.9% from December 31, 2023 to December 31, 2024, personnel costs increased due to a $1.2 million increase in severance costs and slightly higher salaries and benefits, which were substantially offset by a $0.7 million decrease in bonus expense and a $0.5 million decrease in stock compensation expense. Contractor costs decreased in 2024 compared to 2023 due to a decrease in the usage of subcontractors for professional service engagements.

Subscriptions gross margin was 89.1% in 2024, consistent with an 89.4% margin in the prior year as increases in subscriptions revenue were offset by a corresponding increase in hosting costs. Professional services gross margin decreased to 23.5% in 2024 as compared to 25.0% in 2023 due to a decline in professional services revenue and a marginal increase in personnel costs, both of which were partially offset by lower contractor costs. Total gross margin increased to 75.7% in 2024 as compared to 73.7% in 2023 driven largely by the increase in subscriptions revenue.

Sales and Marketing Expense

Sales and marketing expense decreased $11.5 million, or 4.7%, in 2024 compared to 2023, primarily due to a $15.3 million decrease in sales and marketing personnel costs and a $1.5 million decrease in information technology costs. These decreases were partially offset by a $3.6 million increase in marketing costs and a $1.7 million increase in travel and entertainment expenses. Personnel costs decreased due to a 23.6% decrease in sales and marketing personnel headcount from December 31, 2023 to December 31, 2024 and a $2.6 million decrease in stock compensation expense, both of which were partially offset by a $3.5 million increase in sales commissions driven by both contracts with new customers and renewals with existing customers. Information technology costs decreased primarily due to lower cloud computing expenses. Marketing costs increased due to a $3.2 million increase in spending on marketing events, in addition to increases in digital marketing and public relations expense. Travel and entertainment expenses rose due to increases in airfare and lodging associated with a higher number of in-person events and engagements relative to the prior year.

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Research and Development Expense

Research and development expense increased $1.9 million, or 1.2%, in 2024 compared to 2023, primarily due to a $1.9 million increase in employee medical benefits and a $1.8 million increase in information technology costs. These increases were partially offset by a $1.6 million decrease in research and development personnel costs. Information technology costs increased primarily due to higher cloud computing expense. Although research and development personnel headcount increased 3.1% from December 31, 2023 to December 31, 2024, personnel costs decreased due to realized cost savings from our product development center in India, a $1.0 million decrease in severance expense, and a $0.8 million decrease in stock compensation expense.

General and Administrative Expense

General and administrative expense increased $27.3 million, or 23.8%, in 2024 compared to 2023, primarily due to a $9.8 million increase in amortization expense related to our judgment preservation insurance policy. Additionally, professional fees increased $7.4 million, which was the result of higher net legal fees driven by a $5.7 million decrease in insurance reimbursements associated with our litigation against Pegasystems as a result of receiving reimbursements in the prior year compared to none in the current year. Rent expense also increased $6.9 million, primarily attributable to a $5.5 million in lease impairment charge recognized in the second quarter of 2024. These increases were partially offset by a $1.8 million decrease in general and administrative personnel costs, driven largely by a 4.6% decrease in general and administrative headcount from December 31, 2023 to December 31, 2024.

Other Expense (Income), Net

*** - Indicates a percentage change that is not meaningful

Other expense, net was $6.8 million in 2024 compared to other income, net of $17.6 million in 2023. There were $16.8 million in foreign exchange losses in 2024 compared to $8.7 million in foreign exchange gains in 2023. Additionally, there was a $2.1 million decrease in interest income across the comparative periods. These decreases were partially offset by a $3.2 million increase in other income attributable to payments received in 2024, including a payment from a local government as a result of achieving certain economic development criteria and payments related to a short-swing profit disgorgement paid to us by a public shareholder of our Class A common stock.

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Interest Expense

Interest expense increased $5.7 million in 2024 as compared to the corresponding period in 2023, primarily due to interest expense attributable to higher outstanding balances on our credit facility related to amendments we entered into during the fourth quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024.

Income Tax Expense

Income tax expense decreased by $2.2 million in 2024 as compared to the corresponding period in 2023. This change was primarily driven by decreased pre-tax book income in certain international subsidiaries in 2024. The change in pre-tax book income was primarily attributable to increases in unrealized foreign exchange losses.

Year Ended December 31, 2023 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2022

For a discussion and analysis of changes in financial condition and results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, refer to our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on February 15, 2024.

Backlog

Backlog represents non-cancellable future amounts to be recognized under cloud and on-premises term license subscription agreements and is representative of our remaining performance obligations. As of December 31, 2024 and 2023, we had backlog of $546.0 million and $489.7 million, respectively. Approximately 34% of our backlog as of December 31, 2024 is not expected to be recognized in 2025. Additionally, we expect backlog to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to increase the number of cloud agreements we enter into. However, the amount of backlog relative to the total value of our contracts can change from quarter to quarter and year to year for several reasons, including the specific timing and duration of cloud and on-premises term license subscription agreements with large customers, the specific timing of customer renewals, changes in customer financial circumstances, and foreign currency fluctuations. Additionally, we often sign multiple-year subscription agreements, and backlog may vary based on changes in the average non-cancellable term of our cloud and on-premises term license subscription agreements.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we provide investors with certain non-GAAP financial performance measures. We use these non-GAAP financial performance measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Management believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance by excluding certain expenses that may not be indicative of our recurring core business operating results. We believe both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when planning, forecasting, and analyzing

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future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management’s internal comparisons to historical performance as well as comparisons to competitors’ operating results. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors both because (1) they allow for greater transparency with respect to measures used by management in its financial and operational decision-making and (2) they are used by institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business.

Our non-GAAP financial performance measures include the following: non-GAAP subscriptions cost of revenue, non-GAAP professional services cost of revenue, non-GAAP total cost of revenue, non-GAAP total operating expense, non-GAAP operating loss, non-GAAP income tax expense, non-GAAP net loss, and non-GAAP net loss per share, basic and diluted. These non-GAAP financial performance measures exclude the effect of stock-based compensation expense, certain non-ordinary litigation-related expenses consisting of legal and other professional fees associated with the Pegasystems cases (net of insurance reimbursements), or Litigation Expense, amortization of the judgment preservation insurance policy, or JPI Amortization, severance costs related to involuntary reductions in our workforce, or Severance Costs, lease impairment and lease-related charges associated with actions taken to reduce the footprint of our leased office spaces, or Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges, and a short-swing profit disgorgement paid to us by a shareholder, or Short-Swing Profit Payment. While some of these items may be recurring in nature and should not be disregarded in the evaluation of our earnings performance, it is useful to exclude such items when analyzing current results and trends compared to other periods as these items can vary significantly from period to period depending on specific underlying transactions or events that may occur. Therefore, while we may incur or recognize these types of expenses in the future, we believe removing these items for purposes of calculating our non-GAAP financial measures provides investors with a more focused presentation of our ongoing operating performance.

We also discuss adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial performance measure we believe offers a useful view of the overall operation of our business. We define adjusted EBITDA as net loss before (1) other expense (income), net, (2) interest expense, (3) income tax expense, (4) depreciation expense and amortization of intangible assets, (5) stock-based compensation expense, (6) Litigation Expense, (7) JPI Amortization, (8) Severance Costs, and (9) Lease Impairment and Lease-Related Charges. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to adjusted EBITDA is net loss. Users should consider the limitations of using adjusted EBITDA, including the fact this measure does not provide a complete measure of our operating performance. Adjusted EBITDA is not intended to purport to be an alternative to net loss as a measure of operating performance or to cash flows from operating activities as a measure of liquidity.

The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and our non-GAAP measures may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies.

The following tables reconcile our non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures (in thousands, except per share data):

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(a) Per share amounts do not foot due to rounding.

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The following table reconciles GAAP net loss to adjusted EBITDA for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023, and 2022 (in thousands):

Liquidity and Capital Resources

The following table presents selected financial information and statistics pertaining to liquidity and capital resources as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 (in thousands):

* Defined as current assets net of current liabilities.

We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments and marketable securities, together with any positive cash flows from operations and available borrowings under our line of credit, will be sufficient to support working capital and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next twelve months.

We have in the past, and may in the future, enter into investments in or acquisitions of complementary businesses, products, or technologies, which could also require us to seek additional equity financing, incur indebtedness, or use cash resources. We have no present binding agreements or commitments to enter into any such acquisitions. If we are unable to raise additional capital when desired, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Sources of Funds

We have historically financed our operations in large part with equity financing arrangements. Our last public offering was completed in June 2020. Through these public offerings, we received net proceeds of $344.8 million.

To further help strengthen our financial position and support our growth initiatives, in November 2022 we entered into a Senior Secured Credit Facilities Credit Agreement, or the Credit Agreement, which, as amended to date, provides for a five-year term loan facility in an aggregate principal amount of $200.0 million and, in addition, up to $100.0 million for a revolving credit facility, including a letter of credit sub-facility in the aggregate availability amount of $20.0 million and a swingline sub-facility in the aggregate availability amount of $10.0 million (as a sublimit of the revolving loan facility).

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The Credit Agreement matures on November 3, 2027. We have been using the proceeds to fund the growth of our business and support our working capital requirements. As of December 31, 2024, we were in compliance with all covenants, had used borrowing capacity of $62.0 million under our $100.0 million revolving credit facility, and had outstanding letters of credit totaling $14.6 million in connection with securing our leased office space.

We expect future sources of funds to consist primarily of cash generated from sales of subscriptions and the related professional services. We may also elect to raise additional sources of funding through draws on our revolving credit facility, entering into new debt financing arrangements or conducting additional public offerings. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, the timing and extent of spending to support research and development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, the introduction of new and enhanced product solutions and functions as well as platform enhancements and professional services offerings, and the level of market acceptance of our product.

Uses of Funds

Our current principal uses of cash are funding operations and other working capital requirements. Historically, we have also utilized cash to pay for the acquisition of businesses that were complementary to ours, and we may pursue similar opportunities in the future. Over the past several years, revenue has increased significantly from year to year and, as a result, cash flows from customer collections have also grown. However, as we continue to invest in growing our business, operating expenses have also increased.

In 2023, we entered into a Judgment Preservation Insurance policy in connection with our $2.036 billion judgment against Pegasystems. See Note 13 to the consolidated financial statements for additional details. The total cost of the policy was $57.3 million, which we paid with operating cash on hand. In addition, in February 2024 our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program, under which we repurchased approximately 1.3 million shares of our common stock for approximately $50.0 million during the first quarter of 2024.

Outside of the above items and cash used by operations, other uses of cash in 2024 included capital expenditures related to the expansion of the recently leased facility for our research development center in India and principal repayments of our term loan debt.

Furthermore, we have a non-cancellable cloud hosting arrangement with Amazon Web Services that contains provisions for minimum purchase commitments. Specifically, purchase commitments under the agreement total $220.0 million over five years. The agreement, which was originated in July 2021 and amended in October 2024, currently contains minimum annual spending requirements of $44.0 million from November 2024 to October 2029. Spending under this agreement for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023, and 2022 totaled $41.2 million, $36.6 million, and $33.1 million, respectively. The timing of payments under the agreement may vary, and the total amount of payments may exceed the minimum depending on the volume of services utilized. We expect to meet our minimum annual spending requirement during the term of the arrangement.

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Historical Cash Flows

*** Indicates a percentage that is not meaningful.

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities was $6.9 million for 2024 as compared to net cash used by operating activities of $110.4 million for 2023. The increase in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to the prior year payment of $57.3 million for our judgment preservation insurance policy. Additionally, there were stronger cash collections from accounts receivable as a result of increased revenues as well as reduced expenditures stemming from headcount reductions and other cost management activities in 2024 as compared to 2023.

Investing Activities

Net cash used by investing activities was $35.4 million for 2024 as compared to $28.6 million in net cash provided by investing activities for 2023. This change was primarily driven by a decline of $71.6 million in proceeds from investments. This decrease was partially offset by a $5.8 million decrease in capital expenditures and a $1.8 million decrease in purchases of investments.

Financing Activities

Net cash used by financing activities was $0.3 million for 2024 as compared to $79.2 million in net cash provided by financing activities for 2023. This change was primarily due to a $50.0 million increase in share repurchases, a $42.0 million decrease in proceeds from borrowings, and a $2.7 million increase in principal payments on the term loan, partially offset by a $13.7 million increase in proceeds received from the exercise of stock options and a $1.8 million decrease in payments for employee tax withholdings associated with the net settlement of stock awards.

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For a discussion and analysis of net cash used by or provided by operating, investing, and financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022, refer to our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on February 15, 2024.

Critical Accounting Estimates

The preparation of our consolidated financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the amounts reported in those financial statements and accompanying notes. Although we believe the estimates we use are reasonable, due to the inherent uncertainty involved in making those estimates, actual results reported in future periods could differ from those estimates.

We believe the following accounting estimates embedded in our revenue recognition involve a high degree of judgment and complexity. Accordingly, we believe the estimates included in our revenue recognition accounting are the most critical to aid in fully understanding and evaluating our consolidated financial condition and results of operations. This commentary should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the remainder of this Form 10-K.

Revenue Recognition

We generate subscriptions revenue primarily through the sale of cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. We generate professional services revenue from fees for our consulting services, including application development and deployment assistance and training related to our platform. Significant judgments and estimates inherent in our revenue recognition are as follows:

Determining the Transaction Price

The transaction price, or the amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to receive in exchange for transferring services to our customers, includes both fixed and variable components. The variable components of our contracts, which have been nominal to date, include performance penalties, extended payment terms or implied price concessions, and warranty refunds. If necessary, we estimate these components using the expected value method, which estimates variable consideration as the sum of probability-weighted amounts in a range of possible consideration amounts. We believe this method is the most appropriate to utilize because our variable components could vary by contract, leading to multiple potential outcomes.

Our variable consideration estimates are subject to subsequent true-up adjustments which may result in changes to transaction prices, but such true-up adjustments are not expected to be material. Variable consideration is also included in the transaction price only to the extent it is probable a significant reversal will not occur. Factors considered when determining to incorporate variable consideration in the transaction price include, but are not limited to, whether the variable consideration is highly susceptible to factors outside of the Company's influence, the length of time the uncertainty surrounding reversal is expected to last, our experience levels with similar types of contracts, our historical practices for similar contracts in similar circumstances, and the number and range of possible consideration amounts. The amount of variable consideration excluded from the transaction price for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023, and 2022 was immaterial.

Allocating the Transaction Price Based on Standalone Selling Prices

We allocate the transaction price to each performance obligation in a contract based on its relative standalone selling price, or SSP. The SSP is the observable price at which we sell the product or service separately. In the absence of observable pricing, we estimate SSP using the residual approach. We establish SSP as follows:

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1.Cloud subscriptions - Given the highly variable selling price of our could subscriptions, we establish the SSP of our cloud subscriptions using a residual approach after first determining the SSP of consulting and training services.

2.On-premises term license subscriptions - Given the highly variable selling price of our term license subscriptions, we have established the SSP of term license subscriptions using a residual approach after first determining the SSP of maintenance and support. Maintenance and support is sold on a standalone basis with renewals of our legacy perpetual software licenses and within a narrow range of the net license fee, resulting in a defined economic relationship existing between the license and maintenance and support.

3.Maintenance and support - We establish the SSP of maintenance and support as a percentage of the stated net subscription fee based on observable pricing of maintenance and support renewals from our legacy perpetual software licenses.

4.Consulting services and training services - The SSP of consulting services and training services is established based on the observable pricing of standalone sales within each geographic region where the services are sold.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2 of our consolidated financial statements for information related to recently issued accounting standards.

Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical financial information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates, and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those contained in or implied by any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include those under “Risk Factors” included in Part I, Item 1A or in other parts of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Overview

Appian is a software company that automates business processes. The Appian AI Process Platform includes everything you need to design, automate, and optimize even the most complex processes, from start to finish. The world's most innovative organizations trust Appian to improve their workflows, unify data, and optimize operations—resulting in better growth and superior customer experiences.

We have generated the majority of our revenue from sales of subscriptions, which include (1) cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and (2) term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our subscription contracts are priced based primarily on the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or, alternatively, non-user-based single application licenses. Our subscription contract terms generally vary from one to three years with most providing for payment in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. Due to the variability of our billing terms and the episodic nature of our customers purchasing additional subscriptions, we do not believe changes in our deferred revenue in a given period are directly correlated with our revenue growth.

We have invested in our Customer Success organization to help ensure customers are able to build and deploy applications on our platform. We have several strategic partnerships, including with Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, and TCS, which allow them to refer customers to us in order to purchase subscriptions. Our partners then provide professional services directly to the customers using our platform. We intend to continue focusing on adding new customers with our strategic partners. In addition, over time we expect our professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decline as we increasingly rely on strategic partners to help our customers deploy our software. We believe our investment in professional services, including strategic partners building their practices around Appian, will drive increased adoption of our platform.

As of December 31, 2023, we had approximately 1,000 customers. Our customers primarily include financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation organizations. Generally, our sales team targets its efforts to organizations with over 2,000 employees and $2 billion in annual revenue. Revenue from government agencies represented 21.3%, 19.2%, and 19.6% of our total revenue in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively. No single end-customer accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in 2023, 2022, and 2021.

We offer our platform globally. Our platform supports multiple languages to facilitate collaboration and address challenges in multinational organizations. In 2023, 2022, and 2021, 35.8%, 33.5%, and 34.0%, respectively, of our total revenue was generated from customers outside of the United States. As of December 31, 2023, we operated in 16 countries. We believe we have a significant opportunity to continue to grow our international footprint, and we are investing in new geographies, including through investment in direct and indirect sales channels, professional services, and customer support and implementation partners.

We have experienced strong revenue growth, with revenue of $545.4 million, $468.0 million, and $369.3 million in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively. Our subscriptions revenue was $412.3 million, $340.2 million, and $263.7 million in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively, and includes sales of our cloud subscriptions, on-premises term license subscriptions, and maintenance and support. Our cloud subscriptions revenue was $304.5 million, $236.9 million, and $179.4 million in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively.

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We have invested in developing our platform, expanding our sales and marketing and research and development capabilities, and providing general and administrative resources to support our growth. We intend to continue to invest in our business to take advantage of our market opportunity. As a result, we incurred net losses of $111.4 million, $150.9 million, and $88.6 million in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively. We also used cash in operations of $110.4 million, $106.6 million, and $53.9 million in 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively.

Our Business Model

Our business model focuses on maximizing the lifetime value of customer relationships, which is a function of the duration of a customer’s deployment of our platform as well as the price and number of subscriptions of our platform a customer purchases. We incur significant customer acquisition costs, including expenses associated with hiring new sales representatives, who can take anywhere from six months to a year to become productive given the length of our sales cycle, and marketing costs which, with the exception of certain types of sales commissions, are expensed as incurred.

At the same time, we believe the costs we incur to retain customers and drive additional purchases of software are lower than our customer acquisition costs on a relative basis. Over time, we expect a large portion of our customers to renew their subscriptions and purchase additional subscriptions as they continue to build more applications and add more users to our platform. Over the last three completed fiscal years, we had an average cloud subscription gross revenue renewal rate of 98%, which is calculated by dividing (i) the cloud subscriptions revenue from renewing cloud customers in the current 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of the prior 12-month period, giving effect to price increases but excluding additional cloud subscriptions for additional users, or upsells, by (ii) our cloud subscriptions revenue from all cloud customers in the corresponding prior 12-month period that were cloud customers during the entirety of such prior 12-month period.

We also measure the effectiveness of our business model by comparing the lifetime value of our customer relationships to our customer acquisition costs. On a rolling 12-month basis, we estimate that for each of the past five fiscal years, the average lifetime value of a customer has been at least seven times greater than the associated average cost of acquiring them, including the year ended December 31, 2023.

Key Factors Affecting Our Performance

The following are several key factors that affect our performance:

•Market Adoption of Our Platform - Our ability to grow our customer base and drive market adoption of our platform is affected by the pace at which organizations digitally transform. We expect our revenue growth will be primarily driven by the pace of adoption and penetration of our platform. We offer a leading custom software platform and intend to continue to invest to expand our customer base. The degree to which prospective customers recognize the need for our software platform and its ability to enable their organizations to digitally transform, and subsequently allocate budget dollars to purchase our software, will drive our ability to acquire new customers and increase sales to existing customers, which, in turn, will affect our future financial performance.

•Growth of Our Customer Base - We believe we have a substantial opportunity to grow our customer base. We have aggressively invested, and intend to continue to invest, in our sales team in order to drive sales to new customers. We continue to make investments to enhance the expertise of our sales and marketing organization within our key industry verticals of financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, and manufacturing. In 2023, we generated over 76% of our subscriptions revenue from customers in these verticals. In addition, we have established relationships with strategic partners who work with organizations undergoing digital transformations. As of December 31, 2023 our total customer count was approximately 1,000. Our ability to continue to grow our customer base is dependent, in part, upon our ability to differentiate ourselves within the increasingly competitive markets in which we participate.

•Further Penetration of Existing Customers - Our sales team seeks to generate additional revenue from existing customers by adding new users to our platform. Many of our customers begin by building a

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single application and then grow to build dozens of applications on our platform. Generally, the development of new applications on our platform results in the expansion of our user base within an organization and a corresponding increase in revenue. As a result of this “land and expand” strategy, we have generated significant additional revenue from our customer base. Our ability to increase sales to existing customers will depend on a number of factors, including the size of our sales and professional services teams, customers’ level of satisfaction with our platform and professional services, pricing, economic conditions, and our customers’ overall spending levels. We have also re-focused some of our professional services personnel to become customer success managers. Their role is to ensure customers realize value from our platform and support strategic partners and the “land and expand” strategy versus delivering billable hours.

•Mix of Subscriptions and Professional Services Revenue - We believe our professional services have driven customer success and facilitated the adoption of our platform by customers. During the initial period of deployment of our platform by a customer, we generally provide a greater amount of support in building applications and training than later in the deployment, with a typical engagement lasting from two to six months. At the same time, many of our customers have historically purchased subscriptions only for a limited set of their total potential end users. As a result of these factors, the proportion of total revenue for a customer associated with professional services is relatively high during the initial deployment period. Over time, as the need for professional services associated with user deployments decreases and the number of end users increases, we expect subscriptions revenue as a percentage of total revenue to increase. In addition, we continue to grow our base of strategic partners to provide broader customer coverage and solution delivery capabilities. These partners perform professional services with respect to any new service contracts they originate. As the usage of strategic partners expands, we expect the proportion of our total revenue from subscriptions to increase over time relative to professional services. In 2023, 2022, and 2021, 75.6%, 72.7%, and 71.4% of our revenue, respectively, was derived from sales of subscriptions, while the remaining 24.4%, 27.3%, and 28.6%, respectively, was derived from the sale of professional services.

•Investments in Growth - We have made, and plan to continue to make, investments for long-term growth, including investing in our platform and infrastructure to continuously maximize their power and speed, meet the evolving needs of our customers, and take advantage of our market opportunity. In addition, we may pursue strategic acquisitions that enhance our product offerings. We also intend to continue to invest in sales and marketing as we further expand our sales teams, increase our marketing activities, and grow our international operations.

Seasonality

We have historically experienced seasonality in terms of when we enter into agreements with customers. We typically enter into a significantly higher percentage of agreements with new customers, as well as renewal agreements with existing customers, in the fourth quarter. The increase in customer agreements for the fourth quarter is attributable to large enterprise account buying patterns typical in the software industry. Furthermore, we usually enter into a significant portion of agreements with customers during the last month of each quarter and often the last two weeks of each quarter. However, we recognize the majority of our subscriptions revenue ratably over the terms of our subscription agreements. As a result, a substantial portion of the subscriptions revenue we report in each period will be derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to agreements entered into during previous periods. Consequently, a decline in new sales or renewals in any one period may not be immediately reflected in our revenue results for that period. Such a decline, however, will negatively affect our revenue in future periods. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales, the market acceptance of our platform, or potential changes in our rate of renewals may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods.

While we will continue to recognize the majority of our subscriptions revenue ratably over the terms of our subscription agreements, we may experience greater variability and reduced comparability of our quarterly revenue and results with respect to the timing and nature of our term license subscription agreements due to the upfront revenue recognition. See Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements for further details on our revenue recognition policies.

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Key Metrics

We monitor the following metrics to help us measure and evaluate the effectiveness of our operations. All dollar amounts are presented in thousands.

Cloud Subscriptions Revenue

Cloud subscriptions revenue includes cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services. In 2023, 2022, and 2021, 73.8%, 69.7%, and 68.0%, respectively, of subscriptions revenue was cloud subscriptions revenue. Our cloud subscriptions revenue for any customer is primarily determined by the number of users who access and utilize the applications built on our platform or by the number of application licenses purchased, as well as the price paid. We believe increasing cloud subscriptions revenue is an indicator of the demand for our platform, the pace at which the market for our solutions is growing, the productivity of our sales team and strategic relationships in growing our customer base, and our ability to further penetrate our existing customer base.

Cloud Subscriptions Revenue Retention Rate

A key factor to our success is the renewal and expansion of subscription agreements with our existing customers. We calculate this metric over a set of customers who have been with us for at least one full year. To calculate our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate for a particular trailing 12-month period, we first establish the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue for the previous trailing 12-month period. This effectively represents recurring dollars we should expect in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period without any expansion or contraction. We subsequently measure the recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period from the cohort of customers from the previous trailing 12-month period. Cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate is then calculated by dividing the aggregate recurring cloud subscriptions revenue in the current trailing 12-month period by the previous trailing 12-month period. This calculation includes the combined impact on our revenue from customer non-renewals, pricing changes, and growth in the number of users on our platform. Our cloud subscriptions revenue retention rate can fluctuate from period to period due to large customer contracts in any given period.

Key Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We generate revenue primarily through sales of subscriptions to our platform as well as professional services. We generally sell our software on a per-user basis or through non-user-based single application licenses. We generally bill customers and collect payment for subscriptions to our platform in advance on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. In certain instances, we have had customers pay their entire contract value up front.

Our revenue is comprised of the following:

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Subscriptions

Subscriptions revenue is primarily derived from cloud subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support and hosting services and on-premises term license subscriptions bundled with maintenance and support. Our maintenance and support agreements provide customers with the right to unspecified software upgrades, maintenance releases and patches released during the term of the maintenance and support agreement on a when-and-if-available basis, and rights to technical support. On-premises term license subscriptions are offered when the customer prefers to self-manage the deployment of our platform within their own infrastructure. When our platform is delivered as a cloud subscription, we manage operational needs in third-party hosted data centers.

Professional Services

Our professional services revenue is comprised of fees for consulting services, including application development, deployment assistance, and training related to our platform. Over time, we expect professional services revenue as a percentage of total revenue to decrease as the usage of our partner network expands.

Cost of Revenue

Subscriptions

Cost of subscriptions revenue consists primarily of fees paid to our third-party managed hosting providers and other third-party service providers, personnel costs, including payroll and benefits for our technology operations and customer support teams, amortization of developed technology, and allocated overhead costs. We expect cost of revenue to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as our customer base grows.

Professional Services

Cost of professional services revenue includes all direct and indirect costs to deliver our professional services and training, including employee compensation for our global professional services and training personnel, third-party contractor costs, allocated overhead costs, and the costs of billable expenses such as travel and lodging. The unpredictability of the timing of providing services related to significant professional services agreements sold on a standalone basis may cause significant fluctuations in our cost of professional services which, in turn, may impact our financial results.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Gross profit and gross margin (defined as gross profit as a percentage of total revenue), have been, and will continue to be, affected by various factors, including the mix of cloud subscriptions and on-premises term license subscriptions, the mix of total subscriptions revenue and professional services revenue, subscription pricing, the costs associated with third-party hosting providers, and the extent to which we expand our professional services to support future growth. Our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period based on the above factors.

Subscriptions Gross Margin

Subscriptions gross margin is primarily affected by the growth in our subscriptions revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, costs to support such revenue. We expect to continue to invest in customer support and cloud operations to support growth in our business, and the timing of those investments is expected to cause subscriptions gross margin to fluctuate on a quarterly basis.

Professional Services Gross Margin

Professional services gross margin is affected by the growth in our professional services revenue as compared to the growth in, and timing of, the costs of our Customer Success organization as we continue to invest in the growth of our business, as well as by consultant utilization rates. Professional services gross margin is also impacted by the amount of services performed by subcontractors and partners as opposed to internal resources. In

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2022, we had a lower usage of subcontractors and performed fewer in-person professional services engagements and deployments, both of which reduced certain classes of expenses and improved professional services margins. In 2023, these margins began to decline. In 2024, we expect professional services gross margin to be consistent with 2023; however, the margin remains subject to fluctuation based on the factors discussed above.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses consist of sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses. Personnel-related costs such as salaries, bonuses, commissions, payroll tax payments, and stock-based compensation expense are the most significant components of each of these expense categories. Other components of each category include professional fees for third-party services such as legal, software development resources, and contractors. In addition, operating expenses include allocated overhead costs, which are primarily comprised of facility costs, employee medical benefits, employee relations expense, and certain information technology costs for such items as infrastructure, software, and cloud computing services.

In general, our operating expenses are expected to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we invest resources in growing our various teams. During 2023, our total employee headcount remained relatively consistent, decreasing from 2,307 employees at December 31, 2022 to 2,257 employees at December 31, 2023. In 2024, we expect to hire new employees in key growth areas, although at a more measured rate than prior years.

Sales and Marketing Expense

Sales and marketing expense primarily includes personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, commissions, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs related to sales teams. Additional major expenses in this category include travel and entertainment, marketing activities and promotional events, subcontracting fees, and allocated overhead costs.

The number of employees in sales and marketing functions decreased from 730 at December 31, 2022 to 666 at December 31, 2023. While headcount declined in 2023, we expect to grow sales and marketing headcount during 2024 in our principal markets and strategic growth areas. We expect sales and marketing expense to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest to acquire new customers and further expand usage of our platform within our existing customer base. We will continue our efforts to build on our brand reputation and increase market awareness of our platform.

Research and Development Expense

Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel costs for our employees who develop and enhance our platform, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs. Also included are non-personnel costs such as subcontracting, consulting, professional fees to third party development resources, and allocated overhead costs.

Our research and development efforts are focused on enhancing the capabilities, speed, and power of our software platform. The number of employees in research and development functions grew from 652 at December 31, 2022 to 681 at December 31, 2023. Most of this increase was attributable to expansion at our product development center in India that we opened in August 2022. Although we expect research and development expense to continue to increase in absolute dollars as such costs are critical to maintain and improve the quality of applications and our competitive position, we believe our product development center will result in cost savings over time.

General and Administrative Expense

General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation, and other personnel costs for our administrative, legal, information technology, human resources, finance and accounting teams as well as our senior executives. Additional expenses included in this category are non-personnel costs such as travel-related expenses, contracting and professional fees for such

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services as audits, taxation, and legal, insurance and other corporate expenses, including allocated overhead costs, and bad debt expenses.

The number of employees in general and administrative functions decreased from 316 at December 31, 2022 to 280 at December 31, 2023. In 2024, we expect general and administrative expense to increase in absolute dollars largely due to amortization expense associated with the judgment preservation insurance as discussed in Note 13 to the consolidated financial statements and investments in our information technology team.

Other Non-Operating Expense

Other Expense (Income), Net

Other (income) expense, net, consists primarily of gains and losses related to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, interest income on our cash and cash equivalents and investments, and other sources of income or expense not related to our core business operations.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consists primarily of interest on our debt, amortization of deferred financing fees, unused credit facility fees, and commitment fees on our letters of credit.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations (in thousands):