DOCU · Forward model · Subscription · Thygesen case
What has to happen in Subscription
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Subscription
Basis quarter$811M
Final quarter$1.24B
Implied CAGR+9%
Final revenue mix98%
97.7% of revenue and the whole argument. Docusign sells ratable one-to-three-year subscriptions to its IAM platform, e-signature and CLM products, billed a year in advance, to approximately 284,000 direct-sales accounts drawn from a base of nearly 1.9 million total customers. The line has grown every year and decelerated every year: 49% in the pandemic fiscal 2021, 8% in fiscal 2026, a guided 9% for fiscal 2027 of which the company says about 1.3 points is currency. The reacceleration case is Intelligent Agreement Management, which went from 2.3% of annual recurring revenue at January 2025 to 10.8% at January 2026 and 12.6% at April 2026 - but no filing carries an IAM revenue line, and guided ARR growth of 8.25-8.75% is not yet faster than the revenue it is replacing. So the driver here is the thing Docusign does publish every quarter: how many direct accounts it has, and what each one is worth.
Last four quarters
2026 Q2
$784M
Reported
2026 Q3
$801M
Reported
2026 Q4
$819M
Reported
2027 Q1
$811M
Reported
Subscriptions to the Docusign IAM platform, the e-signature product and the CLM product, sold through direct sales, the partner channel and digital self-service, including customer support. No revenue is disclosed by product, channel or customer tier anywhere in Docusign's filings, so nothing inside this line may be sized separately.
Subscribers
284K
14.9% of a 1.9M addressable base
Approximately 284,000 direct-sales customers at 30 April 2026, from the fiscal 2027 Q1 10-Q.
Addressable subscribers
1.9M
the S-curve ceiling
Nearly 1.9 million total customers - the pool direct sales converts from. It never binds inside the horizon.
Net adds
4K/qtr
ramping toward 3K/qtr, throttled as the base approaches the TAM
Nine disclosed quarters run 3,000-8,000 adds; 4,200 is the central recent rate and reproduces the guide.
Net-add ceiling
3K/qtr
what supply can deliver at full rate
Adds fade as the direct base matures. Nothing disclosed sets a floor, so this is judgement.
ARPU
$971.27/mo
drifting +0.8% per quarter, floor $0.00
Deseasonalised subscription revenue over 284,000 accounts over three months: $971.27, or $11,655 a year.
Non-subscriber revenue
$0/qtr
growing 0.0% per quarter
Zero: professional services is its own vertical, so nothing sits outside the subscriber calculation.
Subscription
Latest: $1.24B (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024Q1 | $639M |
| 2024Q2 | $669M |
| 2024Q3 | $682M |
| 2024Q4 | $696M |
| 2025Q1 | $691M |
| 2025Q2 | $717M |
| 2025Q3 | $735M |
| 2025Q4 | $758M |
| 2026Q1 | $746M |
| 2026Q2 | $784M |
| 2026Q3 | $801M |
| 2026Q4 | $819M |
| 2027Q1 | $811M |
| 2027Q2E | $850M |
| 2027Q3E | $873M |
| 2027Q4E | $898M |
| 2028Q1E | $891M |
| 2028Q2E | $932M |
| 2028Q3E | $956M |
| 2028Q4E | $982M |
| 2029Q1E | $973M |
| 2029Q2E | $1.02B |
| 2029Q3E | $1.04B |
| 2029Q4E | $1.07B |
| 2030Q1E | $1.06B |
| 2030Q2E | $1.11B |
| 2030Q3E | $1.13B |
| 2030Q4E | $1.16B |
| 2031Q1E | $1.15B |
| 2031Q2E | $1.20B |
| 2031Q3E | $1.22B |
| 2031Q4E | $1.26B |
| 2032Q1E | $1.24B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Every quarter of this history is a filed number, not an allocation. The first twelve are the Subscription line of the condensed consolidated statements of operations in each quarterly earnings release; the thirteenth is the Subscription revenue line of the revenue note in the fiscal 2027 Q1 Form 10-Q, because Docusign combined the two revenue lines on the face of the income statement effective that quarter. Nothing here is estimated and nothing was apportioned.
- The 52.6% EBITDA margin is a CALIBRATED CASH margin, not a reported one, and reading it as an operating margin will mislead. Docusign's non-GAAP EBITDA margin is 33.7% - non-GAAP operating income of $967.9m plus $116.1m of depreciation over $3,219.5m of fiscal 2026 revenue. Free cash flow ran nine points above that, at $1,058.6m or 32.9% of revenue, because $622.3m of stock compensation is non-cash and contract liabilities grew $177.2m. This engine has no concept for either, so the calibration lives in the margin: solving 32.9% = (E - 3.5%) x (1 - 21%) gives 45.1% consolidated, and adding back the 7.5% corporate overhead line gives 52.6% here.
- Margin and capex are the consolidated figures. Docusign operates one operating and one reportable segment whose chief operating decision maker reviews consolidated net income, so no line-level profitability exists to model and this spec asserts no margin difference between subscription and services.
- Direct customer counts are disclosed each quarter but with an 'approximately' or 'over' qualifier at three significant figures - 268,000, 271,000, 276,000, 280,000, 284,000 across the last five quarters. The level is dependable; a single quarter's net adds carry about a thousand customers of rounding noise, which is why the driver uses a fitted central rate rather than the last disclosed delta.
- The 284,000 direct accounts are the monetised base, but this revenue line also contains the self-service revenue of the other roughly 1.6 million customers. ARPU here is therefore a monetisation index for the direct base, not an average contract value; it is internally consistent because it is derived from, and reconciles back to, the same disclosed revenue line.
- The seasonal factors are fitted by ratio to a centred four-quarter moving average and have a mechanism behind them, not just a shape: Docusign's fiscal Q1 runs 1 February to 30 April and is 89 or 90 days against 92 for each of the other three, and subscription revenue is ratable. Pure day count predicts 0.977 / 1.006 / 1.006 / 1.006 against the fitted 0.980 / 1.003 / 1.006 / 1.011. The signal is 3.06% against a worst window-to-window spread of 0.67%.
- Because the basis quarter is fiscal Q1 and carries the 0.9803 factor, the ARPU input is set on the DESEASONALISED base: $971.27 a month, against $952.14 if the basis quarter is read straight. The engine applies the seasonal factor after the driver, so using the seasonalised figure would understate every projected quarter by about 2%.