Toast, Inc. (NYSE:TOST) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Stephen Sheldon: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. And then just on the sales force investments you’re making. I guess do you need to keep adding significantly to the sales force to keep location growth when you think about sequential additions of last quarters you have to keep adding sales headcount to keep location growth or in recent quarters? And maybe talk about the mix of investments you’re making there between new location wins and maybe the upside.

Aman Narang: Yes. Good question, Stephen. Look I think if you look year-over-year our net location adds are up 20%. And so a lot of our investment in sales and marketing are cold with that. And back to what Elena mentioned in terms of making sure that we’re tracking towards the vectors. I think we’re trying to be strategic in terms of where we see opportunity to invest whether it’s on new business or it’s an upsell to continue to gain market share and continue to grow the business. But we’re always trying to be balanced in terms of making sure that we’re managing to economics across the board. There are some new areas we’re investing in. We’ve talked about before whether it’s upmarket in enterprise international right where we are still earlier. But overall I think the bulk of the growth in the business is coming through our core assets.

Elena Gomez: Yes, I would just add we’re set up to have a strong Q4 and on track to our expectations. And to just build on what Aman said that consistent execution thanks to our sales team is really showing through and we’ve got a healthy pipeline as well. So, when you put that all together, I think we’re going to continue that acquisition momentum into 2024 which will be a big driver of our ARR growth.

Stephen Sheldon: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question is from Will Nance with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Will Nance: I also wanted to ask a question on the subscription side or on the ARPU side. You made some comments related to the TPV per location maybe putting the macro stuff aside sounds like there’s a little bit of mix shift going on. And if I’m interpreting that right it’s kind of smaller locations coming on weighing down on GPV per location. Is there a similar trend playing out on the software ARPU per location i.e. like smaller location using less software? And I guess maybe in prior quarters you provided some color on sort of what front book ARPUs are looking like. Any color on where that’s trending now? And then just your thoughts on how that progresses from here?

Elena Gomez: Yes, fair question. So, look our SMB remains our core at the highest level and our success in SMB is hopefully actually frankly more opportunities across the entire TAM. So, as we’re leveraging our product innovation we’re going after those opportunities. And we’re seeing really good progress in segments like e-com or international, right? And so as we get into the segments and extended that TAM, we’re going to see both different GPV and ARPU dynamics. But at the highest level, just kind of zooming out, ARR continues to be earnout from a trick. And we’ll always see balancing location ARPU growth on an ongoing basis. And right now is a great example of us capitalizing on that location acquisition momentum. So, delivering $200 million in SaaS ARR year-over-year balancing those — I think 2023 is a great example.

To your question on the front book I’d actually reframe you back to ARR because as we’re trying to optimize our land and expand motion and we’ve talked a lot about the upsell team. And as we’re extending it to different parts of the TAM like I mentioned international e-com. The mix is less comparable than what we are a couple of quarters ago. So, for us our North Star and how we operate the business is really on ARR basically. And that’s through and through. So — and it’s also just reflect our financial performance but also how the reps are comped rep goals are all around ARR goals. Our company bonus program is on ARR growth. So it’s truly how we manage the business as well.