DOCU · Forward model · Subscription

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%.