CLEAR Secure (YOU) Fiscal Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Revenue Up 27.8%, Cash Flow Outlook Raised

CLEAR Secure (NYSE: YOU) reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 revenue of $292.9 million, supported by continued CLEAR+ membership growth and expanding demand for its ClearOne identity platform. Profitability improved, while management raised full-year free cash flow guidance to at least $490 million.

Key Takeaways

• Fiscal Q3 revenue increased 27.8% year over year to $292.9 million, while total bookings rose 24.4% to $323.5 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA reached $103.9 million, representing a 35.5% margin and nearly 5 percentage points of year-over-year margin expansion.
• Active CLEAR+ membership grew 14.5% to 8.5 million. Total CLEAR members increased 30.7% to 46.7 million.
• ClearOne bookings were nearly three times their fiscal Q3 2025 level. CLEAR added nine healthcare systems and recorded its largest quarter for expansions among existing partners.
• Management raised fiscal 2026 free cash flow guidance to at least $490 million, implying growth of at least 42.8% year over year.
• Fiscal Q4 guidance calls for revenue of $299 million to $302 million and bookings of $335 million to $340 million, excluding potential large ClearOne contracts.

Key Financial Data

CLEAR said it has repurchased close to $650 million of shares at an average price of approximately $25 since its IPO, reducing net share count by approximately 11%.

Business and Operating Performance

CLEAR Travel and CLEAR+

CLEAR attributed CLEAR+ growth to stronger retention, new-member acquisition and improvements to its Home to Gate experience. Almost 80% of its airport network is covered by eGates, while Concierge is available at nearly 70% of its airports. More than 96% of travelers move through CLEAR lanes in under five minutes.

The company added Tampa Airport to its network and continued expanding the CLEAR mobile app. The app now adapts to a member’s trip, offering departure planning, ride booking, Concierge access, lane information and estimated gate walking times. Coffee ordering is available at 56 locations across 13 airports.

Management sees additional revenue opportunities from measured annual price increases, adjustments to discounted member pricing and new a la carte, premium or bundled packages. These pricing structures remain in the testing stage and will be paired with continued investment in the member experience.

CLEAR also plans to broaden distribution through travel partners, including online travel agencies and corporate channels. Management said these initiatives remain at an early stage. Airport enrollment still accounts for a disproportionate share of member growth, leaving digital and mobile acquisition as an underpenetrated channel.

ClearOne Identity Platform

ClearOne continued expanding across government, healthcare and workforce security. CLEAR renewed and expanded its multiyear contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and launched a pilot with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which serves a community of approximately 17 million veterans.

In healthcare, CLEAR said its technology is integrated into almost 10% of U.S. healthcare systems and into leading electronic health record platforms. The company added nine healthcare systems during the quarter. Management also highlighted cross-selling opportunities as customers expand from employee verification to patients, consumers and vendors.

CrowdStrike has integrated CLEAR’s verified identity technology into its Falcon platform for person-based verification when risks emerge. Management said growing concerns around AI-enabled fraud, synthetic identities and workforce access are supporting the ClearOne pipeline and close rate.

Management Guidance

The Q4 outlook excludes potential large ClearOne contracts because their signing dates are difficult to predict. Management expects significant full-year adjusted EBITDA margin expansion but did not provide a specific margin target.

Beginning in fiscal Q1 2027, CLEAR expects to make quarterly payments on its partnership liability under its renewed credit card partnership. Management expects this change to eliminate the large third-quarter cash outflow and produce more evenly distributed quarterly free cash flow.

Risks and Areas to Watch

• ClearOne bookings may be uneven because larger contracts can have unpredictable signing dates. Potential large deals are excluded from Q4 guidance.
• Pricing packages, digital customer acquisition and newer distribution partnerships remain in early testing or development stages.
• National TSA passenger volume declined 2% year over year in September, although management said CLEAR’s low market penetration limits the effect of modest industry fluctuations.
• Fiscal Q3 cash flow was affected by approximately $315 million in partnership liability payments. While management expects quarterly payments from 2027, the revised schedule changes the timing of future cash outflows.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

CLEAR+ growth and pricing: Management said retention and net new acquisition remain strong, with active membership growth running between approximately 13% and 15% year over year during 2026. Future pricing levers include standard annual increases, revised discounts and personalized packages for different traveler segments.

ClearOne momentum: Fiscal Q3 ClearOne bookings were nearly three times the prior-year level. Management cited a larger sales force, broader product portfolio and expansion within existing customers as key growth drivers.

Long-term margin profile: CFO Jennifer Hsu said the company sees additional margin upside as revenue scales faster than its cost base. CLEAR intends to balance margin expansion with investment in its identity platform and newer businesses.

Travel demand: Management remains constructive on travel and noted continued recovery in corporate travel and demand for experiences. It also emphasized that airport traffic patterns vary significantly by location and time of day.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to CLEAR's Fiscal Thirs Quarter 2026 conference call. We have with us today Caryn Seidman-Becker, Founder, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Barkin, President, and Jen Hsu, Chief Financial Officer.

As a reminder, before we begin, today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance. These are based on management's current expectations, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in the documents the company has filed and furnished with the SEC, including today's press release. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call.

During this call, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons will be against the comparable period of fiscal year 2025. Additionally, the company will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is provided in today's press release and the most recently filed Form 10-Q. These items can be found on the Investor Relations section of CLEAR's website.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Caryn.

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Identity is security and CLEAR Secure identity platform is extending from homeland security to cybersecurity on the ground and in the cloud. For 16 years, CLEAR has helped secure one of America's most critical checkpoints, the airport. Working alongside the Department of Homeland Security, we've proven hundreds of millions of times that you are exactly who you say you are. Today, that question has left the airport, extending to hospital portals, bank and crypto accounts, government programs, corporate networks and increasingly an AI agent is accessing those checkpoints on someone's behalf.

Our mission has always been about strengthening security and establishing trust. And in this world, both are more critical than ever. AI is industrializing fraud, deep fakes and personate employees, synthetic identities infiltrate institutions and AI agents are creating an entirely new frontier of identity risk. The world has evolved and the need for trusted identity has never been greater. CLEAR is built for this moment. Identity is the absolute foundation of security and CLEAR starts with extraordinary advantages, securities at our core with nearly 50 million members on the platform and a network of use cases across travel, workforce, health care and GovTech, our long-held vision of enroll once and use everywhere is rolling.

This quarter, we saw revenue of $292.9 million, up 27.8% year-over-year, bookings of $323.5 million, up 24.4% year-over-year. and we delivered adjusted EBITDA margins of 35.5%. This quarter's results reflect our growing member base and expanding network of use cases and nodes. In travel, we continue to expand the Home to Gate experience and welcome Tampa Airport to the clear network this week. Almost 80% of our network is now covered by eGates and Concierge is in almost 70% of our airports. Together, these assets help travelers win the day of travel consistently and predictably with over 96% of travelers through the lane in less than 5 minutes.

That certainty in a highly uncertain travel world is transformative, an all-time high lean experience scores are evidence that the Home to Gate promise is really resonating with members and driving enrollments, ARPU and retention. The CLEAR mobile app is the backbone of this journey, turning insights into action and giving members control of their travel day with personalized experience. Starting today, the app automatically adapts to each member's trip, planning mode tells you when to leave and books your ride. Travel mode takes over at the airport, helping book a concierge, find clear lanes and measure gate walk times, all while live activities provides real-time updates. Coffee is waiting near your gate at 56 store funds across 13 airports with more coming.

Moving from Homeland Security to cybersecurity, our platform continues to expand aggressively beyond travel and the TAM is enormous. A data compromises reported every 2.5 hours in the U.S. and 1 in 4 breaches are AI-enabled, each averaging a cost of $6 million. I've said it before, cyber criminals are not breaking in, they're logging in. If information can be researched bought on the dark web or generated by a model, it is not proof of identity.

CLEAR proves the real person behind the interaction. Cybersecurity is national security, the threats have emerged at the federal state and local level, all places that clear is active from the public sector to the private sector. CrowdStrike has integrated CLEAR's verified identity into its Falcon platform for person-based verification when risks emerge, reducing threats without unnecessary friction. The continued focus on reducing fraud waste and abuse creates significant opportunities for ClearOne. When cyber criminals are hacking water systems and power grids, there's a sense of urgency for federal, state and local governments to get identity right.

CMS is a powerful example of where fraud reduction is a mandate and identity is crucial. This quarter, we expanded to a multiyear contract with CMS building on the secure seamless sign-on we power for medicare.gov. Companies are facing enormous challenges, securing their workers from hiring to document signing to getting on a zoom and now agents are creating exponential workforce growth. This urgent need to secure the workforce is driving our pipeline and our close rate.

Health care systems and businesses are using ClearOne to secure access to their people, systems and data. we are integrated into almost 10% of U.S. health care systems and directly into leading electronic health record platforms, which makes the integration into clinical workflows and patient portals far easier for doctors and nurses. The power of the platform is creating cross-sell and upsell opportunities as current customers that start by verifying employees expand to patients, consumers and vendors. This growth builds on our leading position in the market. security at our core, a trusted brand, a scaling network and an absolute obsession with our member experience. We are taking clear from the physical airport checkpoint to digital and physical entry points across so many industries. What began a secure identity is now essential security infrastructure.

With that, I'll turn it over to Jen.

Jennifer Hsu

Thank you, Caryn. Our third quarter performance is a direct reflection of the accelerating demand for clear secure identity offering. We reported strong results across the board, maintaining significant year-over-year top line growth while delivering over 35% adjusted EBITDA margins and strong flow-through to the bottom line. We are increasing our full year free cash flow expectations to nearly $0.5 billion and over 40% year-over-year growth.

Q3 revenue of $292.9 million was up 27.8% and total bookings reached $323.5 million, up 24.4%. In CLEAR travel, ongoing improvements and member experience supported by our Home to Gate strategy are translating into robust customer acquisition and retention. Active CLEAR+ members grew 14.5% year-over-year to $8.5 million. Network expansion of frictionless experience driven by innovative technology, hospitality and premium offerings like Concierge give us multiple levers to drive both member and ARPU growth in clear Travel.

Q3 was a milestone quarter for ClearOne. Total CLEAR members grew 30.7% year-over-year to $46.7 million. Demand is broadening across our verticals, and GovTech is a great example. We renewed and expanded a multiyear partnership with CMS, the federal agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid. We also announced a pilot with the VA, and we are off to a strong start. The VA supports a community of approximately 17 million veterans and operates the largest integrated health care system in the United States. Only about half of veterans are enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration to access the benefits they have earned.

We believe ClearOne has a meaningful opportunity to modernize and improve the veteran experience. This administration reported an estimated $186 billion of fraud in fiscal 2025 and across 64 federal programs. Our partnerships with CMS and the VA highlight the power of CLEAR's network and the opportunity we have in front of us. ClearOne is an increasingly important contributor to our bookings, and we are still in the early innings of addressing a vast and expanding market.

The third quarter underscored our ability to deliver both strong top line growth and strong profitability while investing in product and experience. Operating income was $82.9 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached $103.9 million, representing a 35.5% adjusted EBITDA margin and nearly 5 percentage points of margin expansion year-over-year. For the full year, we remain on track to deliver significant year-over-year adjusted EBITDA margin expansion, supported by the scalability of our model and continued operating rigor. Third quarter cash flows followed our historical cadence due to the annual settlement of our accrued partnership liabilities.

Net cash used in operating activities was $98.6 million, and free cash flow was negative $103.8 million. Both reflect the approximately $315 million settlement of our accrued partnership liabilities, which primarily relate to merchant credit card benefits.

We do not expect any further payments related to our crude partnership liabilities in fiscal 2026. Under our renewed agreement with our credit card partner, beginning with the first quarter of 2027, we will make quarterly payments on our partnership liability. This means that on a go-forward basis, we will no longer have a large cash outflow in our third quarter and expect to be free cash flow positive and more evenly distributed on a quarterly basis.

We ended Q3 with $633 million of cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet. We repurchased 3.7 million shares for $171 million at an average price of $46.19. This quarter reflects the largest quantum of share repurchases within a quarter in our history, reflecting our confidence in CLEAR's trajectory and the opportunity we have to drive growth and free cash flow on both sides of our business. We have proven to be disciplined stewards of capital, having repurchased close to $650 million of shares at an average price of approximately $25 per share, resulting in a net share count reduction of approximately 11% since our IPO.

Turning to guidance. For Q4, we expect revenue of $299 million to $302 million and total bookings of $335 million to $340 million, representing 24.8% and 17.6% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, respectively. This guidance excludes potential large ClearOne contracts given the timing of those deals is difficult to predict. We are also increasing our 2026 full year free cash flow guidance from at least $480 million to at least $490 million, which would represent an increase of at least 42.8% year-over-year.

The efficiency of our business model is reflected in our results. We are delivering margin expansion as we scale while investing to drive long-term returns. The CLEAR platform is expanding from Homeland Security to Cybersecurity, and we are well positioned to capitalize on our opportunity set as we close out the year and enter 2027.

We will now open the call for Q&A.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs.

Question-and-Answer Session

Eric Sheridan

I wanted to start on CLEAR+. How are you thinking about some of the learnings about the scaling of CLEAR+? And what sort of translates into in terms of a long-term view of what the scope of the opportunity is, whether you're measured by gross additions churn or pricing power around CLEAR+ over the medium to long-term?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Eric, thank you. So yes and yes. Look, we've been at this now for CLEAR+ for 16 years, and I think there's a lot of lessons because we've seen a lot of cycles. And so today, as we cover almost 80% of the U.S. as we have more products to both bundle and sell separately as we have a record high lane experience score from members as we have 3,500 ambassadors out there. And I think when you're bringing technology together with hospitality, that is actually the really powerful solution.

And as we're focused from Home to Gate and can deliver as we said, 96% of members are getting through in less than 5 minutes. That is a predictability and consistency, which has moved us from a line to an experience because whether or not there's a line, it's like we did a study with UOP and you sleep better when you have CLEAR because you can be more planful and in control of your travel day.

And so I think there are a lot of learnings, number one, it starts with the experience, and we have to continue to deliver greater value to members from Home to Gate. I think that's a lesson that we've all learned from great companies over time. And so whether it be the mobile app or whether it be Concierge or whether it be the coffee weighting, it is -- we've moved far from the security checkpoint, because that's table stakes, right? That's always like the wall that you have to get through in order to drive the experience to this absolute experience -- from beginning to end, wherever you are.

And so for us, that learning, and I think now with better data analytics and better cohorts to study, we really understand or we're getting a better understanding of who our customers want how we can communicate with them. We used to only quite frankly, have e-mail. So now whether it's text or in the app or social media, there's all different ways to communicate with our members. And I still don't think we're great at this. We have a ways to go and understanding what traveler wants what. A family group in Orlando want something different than an author who's on a 10-city road trip over 12 days.

And so understanding the customers and the personas and being able to deliver different packages and pricing to them, the calendar thing. We've had over 1 million members since their calendars. We never knew early days yet, but we never knew when you were coming. Now we can know who's coming and when and how to serve them better. And so that's really game changing. And again, when we look at travel, either you have people or you have technology and just having a kiosk there does not serve a customer. So it's the hospitality and the technology continuing to push on innovation.

And I also think working hand in glove with our federal, state and local partners who are very aligned to drive customer experience who are very aligned to continue to drive travel no matter shutdowns or no shutdowns. There's so much more we can be doing on the technology front. And so it is about retention, but retention is about customer experience and it is about driving member growth in ARPU, all of which come from both customer experience and innovation and continuing to grow our network. So I think it's a really exciting time.

Jennifer Hsu

And Eric, maybe if I could just add to that a bit in terms of the components of our CLEAR+ growth, you hear from Caryn, this really comes down to our CLEAR+ member outlook as well as our pricing opportunity going forward. We feel our product and experience have never been better. You can see that reflected in our NPS, as Caryn shared, and ultimately, the underlying drivers of Active CLEAR+ growth, which are member retention and net new acquisition are both strong. Year-to-date, you've seen us grow that metric, call it somewhere between 13% and 15% year-on-year, and we expect healthy trends in that metric going forward.

And then on pricing opportunity, we've talked about in the past, I think we have multiple levers to drive pricing over time. The first is just measured annual price increases to our standard pricing. The second is we believe we have adjustments to our discounted price points for certain member cohorts.

And then finally, Caryn spoke a bit about how we're testing our way into new pricing structures and pricing packages. And so just to elaborate on that a bit, I think we are learning our way into different methods of pricing, whether that be a la cartes or premium or bundled packages, and we expect to continue refining that over time.

Operator

Our next question comes from Joshua Reilly with Needham & Co.

Joshua Reilly

Nice job on the quarter here. If we look at the ClearOne pipeline for Q4, last year in Q4, the ClearOne business really accelerated, including the CMS deal and you had a very strong quarter, which we presume sets up a difficult comparison for Q4. How are you thinking about that dynamic as you set bookings guidance for Q4? Can you still grow at scale on ClearOne in the near term against that tough comp?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Thanks, Josh. So we're still dealing with the law of smaller numbers for ClearOne and have a lot of exciting opportunities in front of us. And so last year, you didn't have cyber criminals taking money out of crypto companies. You didn't have North Korean's infiltrating critical infrastructure and having the Wall Street Journal do 30-minute documentaries on it. You didn't have a country that was focused on health care interoperability and building out that network. And you also didn't have a fraud task force focused on reducing fraud, waste and abuse.

And so these are such early days at ClearOne, and we have a more robust product portfolio than ever before and a bigger customer base, which creates that opportunity for net revenue retention rate and upselling and cross-selling our current customers as well as selling new customers. I would also tell you that we have a bigger sales force on ClearOne, and then there's the power of technology to help you sell -- so we couldn't be more excited about our opportunities there.

Jennifer Hsu

And Josh, I'll provide a bit more of a quantitative overlay. So our Q3 ClearOne bookings this quarter were close to 3x that of what they were in Q3 of 2025 last year. And underneath that, we are continuing to see strong new partners signing at a healthy rate. As an example, in health care, we added 9 new health systems in this quarter. And we're also seeing a large -- we saw our largest quarter actually of partner expansions in our history. We define that as incremental ARR from existing partners. CMS is one example of that, but that's an important metric for us as we think about our ability to grow our use cases with partners over time.

Joshua Reilly

Got it. That's super helpful color there. I appreciate that. If we look at the trends around the CLEAR+ business, Eric's question touched on this a bit since the TSA surge earlier in the year. One of the questions I get quite a bit is -- how do you think about what is a normalized and sustainable growth rate for CLEAR+ moving forward as we kind of revert following that TSA surge earlier in the year, do you think it's a little bit higher going forward in terms of the sustainable growth rate relative to prior to the surge. Did that something fundamentally changed there? Or should we expect more reversion downward on CLEAR+?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Yes, Josh, I won't probably perfectly satisfy that answer, but I'll come back to, I think, the levers that we have to drive both Active CLEAR+ members and our pricing opportunities.

Again, I think our retention rates are incredibly strong at the moment. I think that is representative of the work that we've done around innovation and our product. And we also believe that we have significant net new active CLEAR+ member growth in front of us. Our traveler awareness for CLEAR+ is much lower than we think it should be. We have network growth. We're currently about 80% covered in the U.S. network. And so there's opportunity there as well as internationally as well as just market penetration in our existing MSAs.

So again, retention and net new acquisition, I think, are both opportunities for us on the member front. And pricing, we -- I spoke to this earlier on the call, but I think there are multiple levers for us to continue growing on the pricing front as well.

Jennifer Hsu

And the one thing I would add there is that still a disproportionate amount of our member growth comes from in airport. And we think that there's a lot of ways to continue to grow that piece of the business. But where I think we also have significant opportunity that we have not penetrated as well as I would like us to is on the digital ads and the mobile ads, if you told us 3 years ago that you could enroll on your couch with your mobile phone and your passport, both as a U.S. citizen and 42 Visa waiver countries, that really expands the TAM, and I think that there's a lot of opportunity there. It's still really early days there.

Operator

Our next question comes from Wyatt Swanson with D.A. Davidson.

Wyatt Swanson

I appreciate it. But the new distribution channels for CLEAR+ that you've announced over the past few months, corporate Expedia stuff of that sort, could you provide any color on what early trends look like and whether this is maybe capturing incremental clears subscribers that may have otherwise not subscribed?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Sure. The power of partnership has been an important hallmark for clear since the early days. That's partners with airports, that's partnerships with airlines. That's the partnership with our credit card partner and expanding those partnerships into other parts of travel, OTAs being one is a big and very early opportunity for us.

And I do think, look, we sell point-to-point, right, customer to customer. We have not done both buys. And so whether it be for CLEAR+, whether it be for Concierge, whether it be for CLEAR+ plus preset, like I think we have a lot of opportunities to continue to expand our distribution network. I would tell you, it's just very early.

Wyatt Swanson

Got it. Yes, that's fair. And maybe a follow-up on Josh's question related to related to the digital and mobile ads. Could you maybe give some color on what your strategy might be to expand additions there? Like how do you approach that instead of just adding members in airport?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Sure. Well, as we talked about, we have almost 50 million members on our platform today. And what I said is that we have -- and right, I think we gave you our new sub number for the quarter. So I think you see that not a large percentage of them have since their calendar so far, right? So getting people to engage in the mobile app, you will find soon that it's easier than ever to send guest passes from the mobile app, and so raising awareness of the mobile app for our member base, not to mention we have big real estate in airports to let nonmembers know about it.

Not to mention, again, we have a large database of members who have joined us in different ways to raise awareness with them. We have partners I think that it really is a new day in digital marketing when you look at video and things of that nature, you really don't find us there. We are just starting. And so I think the good news is that the members who have joined having come from those channels, and we think that there's a lot of ways to share the clear story, the home to gate experience, the customer testimonials as well as with our partners. So untapped opportunity.

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian [indiscernible] with JPMorgan.

Unknown Analyst

Great. Caryn, could you just elaborate a bit more around potential pricing tests? I think you mentioned in response to Eric's question, ability to do some discounted pricing adjustments and test into new pricing structures. And then I guess just for Jan as well, can you just help us think about overall LTV to cat curves across cohorts here just given you're approaching, right? Obviously, the 35% plus adjusted EBITDA margins.

Jennifer Hsu

Sure. Maybe, Brian, I'll take that and Caryn may add. On your pricing question, I think we have more assets and a better understanding of who our members and our potential members are than we ever had in our history. So for example, a family traveler has very different needs and than those of a business travel and traveler. And so our Home to Gate strategy is all about expanding our set of services whether it be Concierge or Concessions to really serve different types of members in a personalized and relevant way. So we are learning our way into that.

Right now, Concierge is a transactional a la carte, pricing model. What would a premium bundle package look like for our members. Those are the types of things that we are, again, early days but exploring, I think, as we look ahead.

Caryn Seidman-Becker

If I can just add to that, which is we have -- going back to, I think, the first question, we have a lot of member insights from a 16-year history. We know our members very well and are have more assets today to serve them in a more personalized way. And what -- I mean we're all travelers, right? What we want on a business trip or a road show is different than what we want when we show up at the airport with all of our luggage and our children.

And so understanding what people want and being able to do a la carte or all you can eat and think through those to drive that frictionless experience to drive that predictability and consistency no matter where you are or how you're traveling is just opportunities that we never had. And there's certainly great ways to test pricing today that, again, you didn't have a few years ago. So we are going to be testing and learning.

Jennifer Hsu

And Brian, I'm sorry, could you repeat your second question? Was it around the EBITDA margin profile over time?

Unknown Analyst

Yes. Just curious in terms of right now at 35% plus adjusted EBITDA margins. Curious as you think about harvesting margins versus redeploying it into the business going forward. And I guess, like really curious just given the continued scale of the business more broadly, what is the LTV to CAC curve look like across some of the more like recent cohorts that you're onboarding.

Jennifer Hsu

Sure. Yes, of course. So this is the second quarter. We're at 35.5% this quarter, second quarter, we've exceeded our target. I think the short answer is that we do see long-term upside in our margin profile over time as our business scales. Our top line growth rate has significantly outpaced the rate of our growth of our cost base, even as we've been making I would say judicious, but quite meaningful investments behind demand in our identity platform and also scaling some of our newer businesses. So I think that just highlights both visibility and the recurring nature of our model, both in B2C CLEAR Travel as well as B2B CLEAR+.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo.

Unknown Analyst

Okay. This is Rachel Chang on for Michael. I just wanted to ask one on your 4Q bookings guide, kind of what are the assumptions factored in there? And then if you could walk the different growth drivers, maybe how the Amex partnership and price increases work into that. And then how all of this informs your visibility into 2027 revenue growth at this stage?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Sure. So I guess I would start. I think our Q4 guidance reflects continued momentum in both our Travel business and our ClearOne business. I would call out -- recall out that the note we made in the earlier portion of our call, which is that our guidance does not include potential large ClearOne contracts. As we think about ClearOne, our average deal sizes are increasing. You can see that from partners like CMS and as we scale the ClearOne business, our bookings realization there could be lumpy just depending on the timing of when certain deals get signed. So large contracts will have smaller impact over time as we grow that business, but we're obviously running and building that business for the long-term.

I think your question on Amex, I guess I would just confirm that we are into the renewed partnership with our credit card partner at this point. nothing kind of additional there to highlight or call out at this point.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Group.

Dana Telsey

Nice to see the progress. As you think about the macro environment out there, Caryn and Jen, anything you would note as we head into 2027 in terms of what you're seeing with levels of demand? And then on the pricing component, given the new business lines that you're getting in new categories or whatever, is it -- do you think at all, is it a one-fits-all pricing structure or do different industries that become customers capture different pricing? How do you see the pricing metrics moving forward?

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Dana, I assume that when you're talking about pricing metrics, you're talking about Clear Travel?

Dana Telsey

Correct.

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Okay. So let me start with the macro travel trends just some data. So nationally, TSA volume was down 2% year-over-year in September. But airports like Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta were up 5% and 4%. And so net-net, we've talked about the fact that up or down a few percent because we still have low penetration doesn't impact us, and we separate ourselves from that and see a lot of opportunities nationwide and then in any specific market. So that is the first piece.

And just interestingly, what you're seeing when you listen to the airlines is perhaps less light but bigger planes, right, different times of day. So if you're banking them early in the morning for efficiency or route planning purposes, you're seeing airports that have chunkier crowds than ever, right? So 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. can be crazy, 9:00 a.m. to 11 a.m. can be like soft. And so you actually have to divide it down into all of those things across the country. With over 170 lanes, I really think about each one of them as a store. And so how we create opportunities in each one of those. I still think is really separate from travel trends up or down a few percent.

I remain bullish on travel. We remain bullish on travel. I think you are seeing corporate travel continue to pick up. I think you're seeing the experience economy continue to push forward. People love traveling. And so we still see a lot of opportunities there, and I think you saw that in this quarter.

And in terms of pricing, and then I'll let Jen talk more about it, we do think for a long time, like for 16 years. We took the peanut butter approach. We just offer everybody the same thing. And again, different travelers for different times for different purposes who want different packages. And so we don't think that everyone wants the same thing, and we do think we have a lot of opportunities to better personalize the experience, the package and the pricing.

Jennifer Hsu

And just to add on that, I think what you're hearing from us is we are just -- we are experimenting into pricing elasticity. I think the macro point is that we will always pay our pricing actions with continued investment in member experience, but we do think that there is a big opportunity to better serve our members depending on their priorities. But I think our first and foremost focus will always be around building the value proposition because ultimately, that drives loyalty retention in our business for the long-term.

Operator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Caryn Seidman-Becker for closing comments.

Caryn Seidman-Becker

Thank you for joining our call, and a big thank you to the CLEAR team that is working tirelessly to make the CLEAR vision, all of our reality every day. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.