Cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh Q3 2026 của Blackbaud (BLKB): Tăng trưởng doanh thu, Lộ trình AI và Dự báo triển vọng

Điểm chính

• Doanh thu quý 3/2026 tăng 4,1% lên 293 triệu USD, nhờ nhu cầu tiếp tục duy trì đối với các giải pháp thiết yếu của Blackbaud và sự tăng trưởng của doanh thu từ giao dịch.
• EBITDA điều chỉnh đạt 111 triệu USD, tương ứng với biên lợi nhuận 38%. EPS phi GAAP tăng 24% lên 1,36 USD, trong khi dòng tiền tự do đạt tổng cộng 126 triệu USD.
• Ban lãnh đạo tái khẳng định dự báo cả năm và kỳ vọng doanh thu cùng EBITDA điều chỉnh sẽ nằm ở nửa trên của khoảng dự báo tương ứng. EPS và dòng tiền tự do dự kiến sẽ đạt hoặc vượt mức trần của khoảng dự báo.
• Blackbaud đã giới thiệu Platform for Good và Lantern, một mô hình ngôn ngữ tập trung vào hoạt động gây quỹ được phát triển cùng với Databricks. Các tính năng đầu tiên ứng dụng công nghệ Lantern dự kiến sẽ ra mắt vào năm 2027.
• Công ty đã mua lại hơn 7% số cổ phiếu đang lưu hành cuối năm 2025 trong 9 tháng đầu năm 2026. Số lượng cổ phiếu đang lưu hành đã giảm khoảng 16% kể từ quý 4/2023.
• Tập hợp hợp đồng gia hạn lớn hơn trong năm 2026 đang làm chậm lại đà tăng trưởng doanh thu định kỳ theo hợp đồng, nhưng ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng tập hợp hợp đồng nhỏ hơn trong năm 2027 sẽ hỗ trợ quá trình bình thường hóa trong nửa cuối năm sau.

Dữ liệu tài chính cốt lõi

Kết quả kinh doanh và hoạt động

Chiến lược sản phẩm của Blackbaud tập trung vào việc tích hợp các khả năng dữ liệu và AI vào các sản phẩm hiện có về gây quỹ, quản lý tài chính, giáo dục và thanh toán.

Platform for Good sẽ kết nối các sản phẩm, dữ liệu, AI và chuyên môn ngành của công ty thông qua ba lớp: lõi dữ liệu, lớp trí tuệ nhân tạo do Social Impact Signal Graph vận hành và lớp hành động bao gồm các trợ lý, đại lý thông minh và quy trình làm việc. Khách hàng hiện tại sẽ không cần phải chuyển đổi nền tảng để truy cập các năng lực mới khi chúng được phát hành.

Lantern, được phát triển thông qua sự hợp tác chiến lược với Databricks, được thiết kế đặc biệt cho hoạt động từ thiện và gây quỹ. Mô hình này được huấn luyện bằng các kịch bản tổng hợp dựa trên Social Impact Signal Graph của Blackbaud thay vì dữ liệu riêng của từng khách hàng. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng Lantern sẽ bắt đầu vận hành một số tính năng được lựa chọn của Raiser’s Edge NXT và Agents for Good vào năm 2027.

Development Agent đã triển khai được khoảng 7 tháng và đang thu hút sự chú ý của khách hàng cũng như tạo ra các thương vụ mới. Blackbaud cũng đang tuyển chọn những người dùng thử nghiệm sớm cho Data Health Agent và nền tảng tiếp thị AI mới của mình, với dự kiến phát hành rộng rãi vào đầu năm 2027.

Blackbaud cũng nhấn mạnh khoản đầu tư vào sản phẩm ngoài AI. Raiser’s Edge NXT đang được tái thiết kế thành một nền tảng điện toán đám mây nguyên bản tích hợp trí tuệ nhân tạo và tự động hóa. Các sản phẩm mới khác bao gồm Blackbaud Marketing, Payment Assist thế hệ mới được phát triển cùng với BILL, Deposit Connect và giải pháp Connected Campus dành cho giáo dục bậc cao.

Khoảng 90% doanh thu định kỳ theo hợp đồng gắn liền với các hợp đồng có thời hạn ít nhất 3 năm. Khoảng 25% hiện nằm trong các hợp đồng từ 4 năm trở lên, tăng so với mức 20% vào đầu năm 2026.

Các khách hàng mới thu hút được bao gồm Đại học Cal State, Chico (đơn vị đã chọn Raiser’s Edge NXT để thay thế một CRM toàn cầu) và một thỏa thuận doanh nghiệp nhiều năm trị giá hàng triệu USD với International Schools Partnership bao phủ các hoạt động tại Mỹ và Canada.

Dự báo của ban lãnh đạo

Blackbaud tái khẳng định các khoảng dự báo cho cả năm 2026. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng doanh thu và EBITDA điều chỉnh sẽ kết thúc năm ở nửa trên của khoảng dự báo tương ứng, trong khi EPS và dòng tiền tự do sẽ đạt hoặc vượt mức trần của khoảng dự báo.

Triển vọng năm 2026 không tính đến doanh thu đáng kể từ các sản phẩm AI mới hoặc bất kỳ sự kiện quyên góp lan tỏa nào. Ban lãnh đạo xem việc thương mại hóa Agents for Good và Lantern trong tương lai là triển vọng tăng trưởng tiềm năng hơn là yếu tố đã được đưa vào dự báo hiện tại.

Giai đoạn từ năm 2026 đến năm 2030, Blackbaud mục tiêu:

• Tăng trưởng doanh thu hữu cơ hàng năm từ 4% đến 6%.
• Tăng trưởng EBITDA điều chỉnh hàng năm từ 6% đến 8%.
• Biên EBITDA điều chỉnh trên 40%.
• Tăng trưởng EPS hàng năm ở mức hai chữ số.
• Dành ít nhất 50% dòng tiền tự do tích lũy để mua lại cổ phiếu.

Công ty dự kiến đóng cửa hai trung tâm dữ liệu dùng chung cuối cùng do công ty tự vận hành vào cuối năm 2026. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng các lợi ích về chi phí liên quan sẽ bắt đầu từ năm 2027 và tăng dần theo thời gian.

Rủi ro và các yếu tố cần theo dõi

Tập hợp hợp đồng gia hạn doanh thu định kỳ theo hợp đồng năm 2026 của Blackbaud lớn hơn khoảng 40% so với năm 2025. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết điều này sẽ tiếp tục làm chậm đà tăng trưởng doanh thu định kỳ theo hợp đồng cho đến quý 4/2026 và nửa đầu năm 2027.

Tập hợp hợp đồng gia hạn năm 2027 dự kiến sẽ nhỏ hơn gần 25% so với năm 2026. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng điều này sẽ làm giảm áp lực rời bỏ của khách hàng và giúp tỷ lệ giữ chân doanh thu gộp trở lại mức lịch sử từ 91% đến 92% vào cuối năm 2027.

Doanh thu từ giao dịch có thể biến động theo từng quý và phụ thuộc vào khối lượng quyên góp, học phí và các khoản thanh toán trường học, cũng như hoạt động trên JustGiving. Dự báo của công ty dựa trên mô hình giao dịch lịch sử và không bao gồm các sự kiện quyên góp lan tỏa.

Chi phí chuyển đổi lực lượng lao động cả năm hiện dự kiến tổng cộng khoảng 8 triệu đến 10 triệu USD, so với ước tính trước đó là 6 triệu đến 8 triệu USD. Hầu hết tác động tiền mặt từ chương trình tự nguyện thôi việc dự kiến diễn ra vào quý 4/2026, với các hoạt động chuyển đổi tiếp tục kéo dài sang năm 2027.

Những điểm chính trong phần Hỏi & Đáp với chuyên gia phân tích

Thương mại hóa AI: Ban lãnh đạo cho biết Development Agent đang tạo ra các thương vụ và cũng có thể hỗ trợ bán các sản phẩm cốt lõi vì khách hàng cần Raiser’s Edge NXT để sử dụng sản phẩm này. Việc đăng ký dùng thử nghiệm sớm đang diễn ra đối với Data Health Agent và nền tảng tiếp thị AI mới, nhưng AI vẫn đang ở giai đoạn thương mại hóa ban đầu.

Doanh thu từ giao dịch: Phí nền tảng được áp dụng trong quý 3 đã đóng góp một phần nhỏ trong quý. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng phí này sẽ hỗ trợ tăng trưởng doanh thu từ giao dịch cho đến nửa đầu năm 2027. Blackbaud báo cáo không có sự kiện quyên góp lan tỏa đáng kể nào trong quý 3.

Gia hạn và giữ chân khách hàng: Ban lãnh đạo cho biết tập hợp hợp đồng gia hạn lớn năm 2026 đang tiến triển theo đúng kế hoạch. Các sản phẩm AI mới đang bắt đầu tạo ra các cơ hội bán chéo, trong khi tập hợp hợp đồng nhỏ hơn năm 2027 dự kiến sẽ cải thiện xu hướng doanh thu định kỳ vào cuối năm sau.

Hiệu quả hạ tầng: Việc đóng cửa các trung tâm dữ liệu dùng chung còn lại sẽ giúp Blackbaud chủ yếu vận hành trên Microsoft Azure và AWS từ tháng 1 năm 2027. Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng lợi ích tài chính sẽ phản ánh dần vào kết quả theo thời gian thay vì xuất hiện ngay lập tức.

Toàn văn biên bản cuộc họp kết quả kinh doanh

Toàn văn cuộc gọi công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Phần trình bày của ban lãnh đạo

Operator

Good day, and welcome to Blackbaud's Q3 2026 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tom Barth, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Tom Barth

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Blackbaud's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are Mike Gianoni, Blackbaud's Chief Executive Officer, President and Vice Chairman; and Chad Anderson, Blackbaud's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Please note that our comments today contain forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please refer to our most recent Form 10-K and other SEC filings for more information on those risks.

Today's discussion will focus on non-GAAP results. Please refer to our press release and investor materials posted to our website for full details on our financial performance, including GAAP results, full year guidance and long-term aspirational goals. We believe that a combination of GAAP and non-GAAP measures provides a more representative view on how we measure our business. Unless otherwise specified, we will refer only to non-GAAP financial measures on this call. Please note that non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for GAAP measures.

We've also provided a slide presentation with supplemental data and additional highlights and financial metrics. The earnings release, supplemental tables and presentation are available in the Investor Relations section of our website on blackbaud.com.

And with that, let me turn the call over to you, Mike.

Michael Gianoni

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. We delivered another quarter of solid execution against our operating plan with earnings per share and cash flow coming in better than expected as we continue to focus on a balanced financial profile driven by productivity efficiencies and a rapidly accelerating pace of product innovation. These results reflect the leadership position Blackbaud holds at the intersection of innovation and community.

We understand the organizations we serve, the people who do the work and the communities that depend on them. We are equally committed to the technology and the transformation they need and proud of how we lead in both. We convene the sector, we share what we learn and we build the products it runs on. This foundation took 4 decades to build. And as AI changes how social impact organizations operate for the years to come here and abroad, this intersection of innovation and community is becoming more urgent and more indispensable.

Our customers want human ingenuity combined with the best of innovation from a partner they trust. And as such, what we do and what we offer has never been more important. This has never been more evident in our pace of innovation over the past year.

Last year, we talked about moving our products from systems of record to systems of intelligent action, and we continue to improve on that vision. In fact, at bbcon 2026, we announced Platform for Good, our unified operating system for social impact and introduced Lantern, the first domain-specific language model purpose-built for fundraising. I want to spend most of my time on those announcements on how we are continuing to invest in the core products our customers rely on every day and on what we are hearing from customers. Platform for Good is the next step, a single connected operating system in which our products, data, AI and expertise work together, learning from every interaction and getting smarter with every product that runs on it.

It is built on 3 layers. The data core brings together our differentiated data assets, including the Blackbaud Philanthropic dataset, research and industry data from the Blackbaud Institute and Blackbaud Giving Search. The intelligence layer is powered by our Social Impact Signal Graph, which connects signals across the social impact ecosystem to surface patterns, relationships and context. And the action layer is where our AI moves from intelligence to execution through assistants, agents and workflows with appropriate human oversight and control.

Importantly, Platform for Good requires no action from existing customers. It unites our products under the surface and customers adopt new capabilities as they become available while continuing to work in the Blackbaud solutions and workflows they use today. That matters in a sector where many organizations have limited IT resources and face turnover and staffing shortages.

We also introduced Lantern. Lantern is the newest part of our intelligence layer. Our research shows that 85% of social impact professionals use AI in their daily work, yet only about 10% of organizations are seeing returns. General purpose models learn from the Internet. Lantern learns from philanthropy. Developed through a strategic collaboration with Databricks, Lantern combines leading open-weight models on the Databricks data and AI platform with more than 40 years of Blackbaud's fundraising experience. It is posttrained on synthetic scenarios modeled on our Social Impact Signal Graph, so it understands giving behavior rather than buying behavior, including retention, upgrade paths and lifetime relationships, which are central to fundraising, but not native to general purpose AI.

Just as importantly, it is developed under our responsible AI principles with privacy, transparency and sector-appropriate governance at its core and with input from customers, including Boston University, Hess House and YMCA of the North. On timing, Lantern will begin powering featured Raiser's Edge NXT and Agents for Good capabilities in 2027 with broader availability across Platform for Good to follow.

Our Agents for Good family continues to grow. The Development Agent, our first agentic product, which became available earlier this year, is helping fundraising teams identify and engage donors who are not in a major gift officers portfolio under human supervision. At bbcon, we announced new advancements to Development Agent and introduced the Data Health Agent, a continuous data steward that detects and addresses data issues through review and approved workflows. We also previewed agentic experiences for finance and education, including our vision for an accounts payable agent in Financial Edge NXT that reviews invoice details, prepares cash-aware payment runs and stages recommendations for human approval.

I want to be clear about something. Our AI investment is in addition to, not instead of our investments in the core products our customers depend on every day. Our use of AI in engineering has expanded our capacity and increased our velocity such that we are announcing more new solutions than we ever have and at the same time, significantly advancing our core solutions. Those core products are the systems of record, the workflows and the trust that make our AI valuable, and we continue to invest in them aggressively.

The clearest example of enhancement was improvements within Raiser's Edge NXT. At bbcon, we unveiled its next chapter, rebuilt from the ground up as a native cloud AI-powered platform with embedded intelligence, automation and connected data. The new more powerful Raiser's Edge NXT enhancements were planned for customer use in 2027, but were accelerated and pulled forward by more than a year and include purpose-built AI that services high potential prospects and giving signals. These enhancements also include Strategy Assistant, which delivers benchmarks and recommendations directly in the flow of work, drawing on more than $1 trillion in giving history tracked through Raiser's Edge NXT.

We also introduced Blackbaud Marketing embedded within Raiser's Edge NXT to help teams plan campaigns, identify audiences and coordinate engagement across channels.

In financial management and payments, we announced our next-generation Payment Assist through a strategic partnership with BILL in Deposit Connect, which brings gift, fee and disbursement data together across Raiser's Edge NXT, Blackbaud Integrated Payments and Financial Edge NXT.

In education, we unveiled the higher education Connected Campus solution built with our partner, Student First, which brings the student life cycle together with advancement, finance, awarding and payments, and we continue to invest in our total school solution for K-12.

Together, these investments reflect our strategy, modernize the products customers already trust, then add embedded intelligence and new AI solutions so customers get value from AI without replatforming or adding bolt-on tools. That approach is reflected in contract terms and customer satisfaction with approximately 90% of our contractual reoccurring revenue on contracts of 3 years or longer and approximately 25% on 4 years or longer, up from 20% earlier in the year.

Our approach to the established parts of the portfolio is deliberate. We continue to fund modernization, performance, security and compliance work across our fundraising, financial management, education and corporate social responsibility and grant-making solutions because customers judge us first on whether the products they use every day are reliable, intuitive and getting better. We also see the 2 new efforts reinforcing each other. Every improvement to a core product such as cleaner data, tighter integrations and faster workflows makes the intelligence layer more accurate and more useful. And every agent and model we ship is embedded in a solution customers already trust, which reduces the data gaps and security risks created by bolt-on tools. That is a large part of why we believe our differentiation is clear and widening.

Turning to customers. This quarter, we again saw a healthy mix of new customer logo wins and cross-sales of additional solutions to our existing customers across all verticals. Within our Higher Education vertical, we replaced a well-known global CRM at Cal State University, Chico, with Raiser's Edge NXT. Like many of our new logos, they want to modernize their advancement operations, streamline fundraising and reporting processes and provide their team with a scalable cloud platform to support future growth and donor engagement.

Also in the third quarter, we had a new logo win that signed up for Raiser's Edge NXT and our AI development agent solution for the first time. Additionally, we closed a 7-figure multiyear enterprise agreement with International Schools Partnership, a global organization operating over 100 schools worldwide. This win expanded Blackbaud's presence in the multi-school enterprise segment through a portfolio-wide technology standardization initiative across the U.S. and Canada. They chose us as they seek to leverage Blackbaud's integrated platform, data strategy and implementation expertise.

These wins reflect the strength of purpose-built connected solutions over fragmented generic alternatives and the value of our solutions in meeting our customers' ambitious goals. Trust is critical to new and existing organizations, allowing intelligent systems to act on their behalf. Our customers trust in us as their partner, in the solutions they are used to, in the data and in our security, which are advantages for both our customers and for Blackbaud. The gap between AI adoption and effective use is exactly what we are working to close by delivering trusted AI inside the tools our customers already use and through the AI Coalition for Social Impact, which we convened in 2025. The Coalition's free product-agnostic AI for social impact certification program opened in July, and its second course on responsible AI principles and regulations is planned for later this year.

And now turning to how we use AI internally. We continue to identify, experiment and scale solutions across engineering, sales and marketing, customer success and the back office to improve speed and operational efficiency. Our engineering teams continue to use leading generative AI tools such as Microsoft GitHub Copilot, Anthropic Claude and other approved solutions to accelerate development, reduce time to remediate software issues and increase throughput on new product delivery.

Looking ahead, our priorities are straightforward; first, deliver the capabilities we announced at bbcon on the time lines we have described, including the Raiser's Edge NXT enhancements, the Agents for Good road map and the first Lantern-powered capabilities in 2027; second, keep investing in the reliability, security and usability of the products our customers run their organizations on; and third, keep translating advances in AI into practical outcomes customers can trust.

Our 2026 full year guidance does not include any meaningful revenue contribution from our new AI products. We view commercialization for Agents for Good and Lantern as potential upside over time, and we will continue to make guidance and investment decisions accordingly. As a reminder, from 2026 through 2030, we are targeting double-digit annual EPS growth driven by total organic revenue growth of 4% to 6% annually with potential upside from viral events and new product launches such as our Agents for Good catalog, and adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% to 8% annually while expanding our adjusted EBITDA margin to 40% plus.

We expect to translate that into strong free cash flow growth and plan to deploy 50% or more of our cumulative free cash flow generated between 2026 and 2030 towards stock repurchases, leaving us with optionality for potential tuck-in acquisitions.

Since the fourth quarter of 2023, we have reduced common stock outstanding by approximately 16%.

Regarding our expectations for the remainder of this year, we are again pointing investors to the upper half of our 2026 guide across revenue and adjusted EBITDA. And for EPS and free cash flow, we expect results to be at or above the high end of the guidance ranges. Chad will provide more detail and color in a minute.

To conclude, we believe Blackbaud is a compelling investment with multiple opportunities for strong shareholder returns. From an operating, financial and strategic perspective, we are pleased to be carrying real momentum into the fourth quarter and the years ahead with Platform for Good, Lantern and Agents for Good embedded within the core products our customers trust. We look forward to our continued journey. And I would also like to thank the entire Blackbaud team for their continued strong efforts and job well done.

I'd now like to turn it over to Chad to walk through our third quarter results.

Chad Anderson

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, we continued to balance cost management with growth opportunities, AI capabilities and investments in innovation. We're focused on durable subscription-led performance, prudent expectations around transactional revenue and steady improvements in profitability and cash flow.

Our Q3 performance reflected continued demand for our mission-critical solutions, along with growth in transaction revenue. As always, transactional revenue can vary from quarter-to-quarter, and our guidance philosophy assumes performance consistent with historical patterns and does not include any assumption for viral giving events.

Q3 revenue grew 4.1% to $293 million. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $111 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 38%, and non-GAAP EPS continues to be strong and increased 24% to $1.36 in the quarter, and we had a very strong free cash flow quarter of $126 million.

During the first 9 months of 2026, including the net share settlement of employee stock compensation, we repurchased just over 7% of our outstanding common stock as of December 31, 2025. Since the fourth quarter of 2023, we have fully offset dilution from stock-based compensation and also reduced common shares outstanding by approximately 16%.

Additionally, we used our strong free cash flow and existing cash position to reduce our debt leverage levels from 2.7x at the end of Q1 to just under 2.3x in Q3.

Before discussing our outlook, I'd like to highlight several housekeeping items that are already contemplated in our financial guidance and may be helpful as you think about modeling the business through the balance of 2026 and into 2027.

First, as we've discussed previously, our 2026 contractual recurring revenue renewal cohort is approximately 40% larger than last year. As expected, this is affecting reported gross dollar retention and will continue to moderate contractual recurring revenue growth in the fourth quarter and through the first half of 2027.

As we move beyond this larger renewal cohort, we're planning for a material reduction in churn revenue as our recurring revenue renewal cohort in 2027 will be nearly 25% smaller than 2026. We expect this smaller renewal cohort to provide a tailwind to contractual recurring revenue growth, which should begin to normalize in the second half of 2027 with gross dollar retention returning to its historical norm of 91% to 92% by the end of 2027.

Second, as discussed last quarter, we introduced a platform fee within our transactional revenue that began in the third quarter. The expected contribution is included in our 2026 guide, and we expect the rollout to support transactional revenue growth through the first half of 2027.

Turning to margins. We're on track to close our last 2 company-operated colo data centers by year-end. This is the culmination of a multiyear infrastructure modernization effort and example of the productivity initiatives embedded in our operating model. Because the final closures occur late in 2026, we expect the related financial benefits to be realized starting in 2027.

Finally, regarding free cash flow, we continue to make steady progress on our workforce strategy, including the build-out of our global capability center in India, which expands our access to talent and supports greater cost efficiency over time.

During the third quarter, we announced and executed a voluntary separation program. We expect the cash impact of that program to occur primarily in the fourth quarter. We now expect full year global workforce transition costs of approximately $8 million to $10 million, modestly above our prior estimate of $6 million to $8 million, and expect global workforce transition activity to continue through 2027. These actions support our longer-term operating model while resulting in near-term cash outflows. Despite this, we expect our free cash flow will be at the upper end or above our 2026 guidance range.

Based on our year-to-date performance and our current view of the operating environment, we are reaffirming our full year guidance ranges and expect to finish in the upper half of the range across revenue and adjusted EBITDA. And for EPS and free cash flow, we expect results to be at or above the high end of the guidance ranges.

Looking ahead, we anticipate deploying at least 50% of cumulative free cash flow through 2030 towards share repurchases. Beyond that commitment, the company has tremendous optionality for dynamically allocating capital to its highest and best use based on market conditions, including additional share repurchases, debt reduction and also plan to continue to look opportunistically at strategic tuck-in acquisitions.

We have a lot to be proud of, executing well over the last several years and throughout 2026 and continuing our commitment to providing meaningful solutions to our customers and strong execution of our operating plan. We remain committed to providing investors with an attractive financial model, balanced between growth of revenues, earnings and cash flows, along with a prudent and purposeful capital allocation strategy. And as always, we remain focused on providing enhanced value to our customers and our shareholders.

Thank you all. Mike and I would be happy to take your questions. Operator?

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Brian Peterson at Raymond James.

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Brian Peterson

So maybe just starting on AI. We were at a bbcon, and I think it was very clear that the pace of innovation is accelerating. Mike, I know you referenced that in your prepared comments. But as we're looking at this as an investment opportunity, I think we're kind of thinking about what is that AI monetization path. So Mike, is there anything that you can kind of point us towards? I know we're early days, but in terms of thinking about that revenue opportunity for Blackbaud, like what would you point us to there?

Michael Gianoni

Yes, Brian, thanks. Yes, pace of innovation has picked up a lot. We've announced more products this year than we ever have. We have one in the market. As you know, the Development Agent is in the market about 7 months, getting very well received. We're closing deals all the time. We've announced several other products. We're signing up customers for what we call our early adopter program for the new AI marketing platform, for the data health agent. So those customers are being signed every day, every week right now to build the EAP platform. Those will go into general availability sometime early next year.

And so we've got new revenue lines being built by these new solutions. What's also interesting is we're getting a lot of interest on these new solutions, which then pulls in our core products as well. I mentioned that we closed not more than one, but a Raiser's Edge NXT deal because the customer was interested in the Development Agent, and you have to get Raiser's Edge NXT to get the Dev Agent. And so we're selling bundles with the new solutions now as well.

So yes, it's early days, Brian. There's a lot of receptivity. We do webinars with customers and get hundreds and hundreds of customers on those webinars post bbcon because they want to learn about these new solutions. So I'd say it's early days, but building a ton of interest.

Brian Peterson

That's good to hear. Maybe just a follow-up on the transactional revenue. I know you guys mentioned kind of the platform fee coming in this quarter. Was there any viral giving in the third quarter that kind of helped that number? And maybe as we're thinking about longer term, how should we be thinking about that transactional growth rate relative to some of the longer-term targets for the corporate average?

Michael Gianoni

Yes. That new platform fee came in, in Q3 a little bit, and then obviously, it's go forward, right? So we'll have it this quarter and then the first half of next year we'll have that platform fee. And it really was a catch-up because pretty much everyone else has a platform fee. So we feel good about that. That's fully in place. And we feel good about our transaction businesses. They're a little different, right? One of them is based on donations and volume, another one is tuitions and schools. And then there's JustGiving, which is predominantly over in the U.K. So they're all a little bit different.

I think the key thing for us is the fact that we've got our core system of record platforms integrated with transaction solutions, which makes the core platforms stickier. And then we're integrating all those together in our platform for a good announcement, which is basically the integration of our financial platform, fundraising, transactions and the new AI solutions all in a common platform, getting access to that data within the systems of record. So that's kind of a long-winded answer to say the transaction systems, we feel good about them and the fact that they're embedded with everything else is a really good position for us. And you could see in the fact that our customers, they're either on a 3-year contract, but 25% of them are now on 4-year or longer contracts. And that 25% number has really ticked up a lot in the last 18 months.

Operator

We will now take our next question from Parker Lane at Stifel.

J. Lane

Mike, you talked about Lantern and the introduction of more domain-specific models over time. Can you talk about why that's so important to the industry you play in? And what the time line do you expect those to come out by? I know you mentioned '27. Is that an event that we should expect in the first half of the year or in the second half of the year?

Michael Gianoni

Yes, you bet. So it's important for a lot of reasons. Number one, Lantern is embedded within our platforms, and it has access to things like our Signal Graph, which is sort of the workflows within our systems, the history of workflows, what makes our systems from a data and a workflow perspective important for our customers. And so our customers can use Lantern to learn how to improve their business. So that's important. And Lantern is trained only on philanthropy and fundraising. So it's very specific to that and tuned to that. And we have developed that in a collaboration with Databricks as well, which we announced at bbcon.

So it's not a general purpose tool. It's embedded within our solutions. It's only for philanthropy and fundraising. It uses data from our Blackbaud Search, our Blackbaud Giving Institute. It understands what we call the Signal Graph, which is sort of patterns of success that our customers can learn from. It doesn't use any customer-specific data. It uses synthetically created data that mimics customer data. So that's important. It's also inside of our cyber stack. It's inside of our trusted and governed solutions. And we have a lot of conversations with our customers around AI and AI trust. So that's really important as well.

J. Lane

Thanks, Mike. And Chad, one for you. Good to see the colo data centers closing by year-end. How should we think about the timing and magnitude of the financial impact there? I know you mentioned the benefits to be realized in '27. Is this going to be a situation where you see an immediate benefit from the switch to public cloud? Or will this flow into the model over time?

Chad Anderson

Thanks for the call-in. It's a good question. I would expect that it's going to moderate over time. We're pleased. This is just another example of Blackbaud executing. So we'll be closing both of the remaining colos by end of the year and feel really good about it from a modeling perspective. I would assume that, that kind of blends in kind of over time starting in '27. And then from a margin perspective, I'd also just remind you, we're continuing to execute very well relative to the build-out of the global capability center in India as well. So in the prepared remarks, you would have heard me talk about the -- kind of the transition-related costs. Those will step up a little bit in Q4, and we'll see the benefit related to that from an efficiency -- cost efficiency perspective next year, but really pleased with the progress. And then we do have a number of other levers that we're continuing to execute. We've got an overview of those that we provide in the investor materials as well.

Michael Gianoni

I'll also add, it's nice to get that project behind us, too. We started to consolidate and close these colo data centers years ago. It takes a while because it's complex. There's a lot of communication technology. It's not just our solutions, right? It's all the data center infrastructure. But the company now is pretty much running on Azure and AWS. So we don't have -- or we won't have any colo data centers starting in January, which is a big deal from an operational standpoint. It just really simplifies our operations, and we don't have to manage colo data centers anymore. So it's a big accomplishment for us operationally.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Peter Burkly at Evercore ISI.

Peter Burkly

Maybe just first one, organic growth stepped up a little above 4% this quarter, up about 1 point versus last quarter. And I think the updated guide towards the upper half of the range implies another 1.5 points or so step-up. So just curious if you could help us bridge that step-up across different elements, whether that be the platform fee, normal holiday giving seasonality, renewal timing, sort of anything else that might be coming into play there? And then I guess, how much of the 4Q exit rate would you treat as a durable starting point for 2027 as opposed to just a quarterly timing element?

Michael Gianoni

Yes. So a couple of things in there, Peter. First, we didn't have much from a holiday giving, right? That usually happens in the back half of Q4. And we see that typically in the transaction systems that we have. So that's one point. We don't have much of that in Q3. It didn't really have any viral events on transactions in Q3 either. In fact, the growth in Q3, we're happy with the growth, but it's a bit moderated because of a large cohort of renewals we have this year, right? We've got 40% more renewals this year, and we talked about this a bunch in the past than we've had last year. And so that moderates it a little bit, frankly. But we're pretty much by all those.

We start to talk to customers on their renewals about 5 months ahead. So we're working renewals in Q1 right now. So that big cohort is -- the work of that is kind of behind us. And so we had a really solid quarter. It met our expectations. We're happy with where we're looking at for the year. Chad mentioned looking at revenue to be in the upper half of our guide and adjusted EBITDA in the upper half of our guide. As you know, we guide annually, right, not quarterly. And then EPS and free cash flow right at the top or maybe above the guide for the year. So good strong finish for the year. We're happy with Q3. And I think we're in good shape to finish the year and have a good setup for '27.

Peter Burkly

Great. And maybe if I can just double-click actually on that renewal cohort and what you're seeing there. So I'm just curious sort of against your plan initially, how have renewal rates, price increases at renewal, some new product attach, how has that sort of tracked versus maybe what your initial plan was? And then what are you seeing that sort of supports that path back to that 91%, 92% gross retention next year?

Michael Gianoni

Yes, you bet. I mean a couple of things there. So the fact that we're saying we're going to be toward the upper half of the revenue guide is a clue to how that's going. It's going as planned. It's just a high volume this year, that's all. So it's kind of a mathematical thing, right? So it's going as planned. We are starting to attach some of the new solutions. So we talk to our customers now about things like the Development Agent at renewal. We will be talking to customers about the Data Health Agent at renewal, but we're just going into EAP, right now.

So we'll have a lot more opportunities for more attachments because of all the new solutions that we announced. A ton of interest in the Data Health product that we announced. All of our customers either have a full-time person doing data health or they have a percentage of a team's time doing data health. So I think that product is going to resonate really well, and we've seen a huge response to that at our bbcon conference. And then our brand-new marketing platform, a big response to that, and we've already signed up a bunch of customers for EAP there.

So the attachment opportunities are just going to go up because of all the new solutions that we announced. But back to the renewal question you had, it's going as planned. And we're looking at the upper half of our guide for revenue this year. So...

Tom Barth

Thank you, Peter, and everyone, for joining us today. We will be attending a number of investor events in the fourth quarter, including several investor conferences, which are listed on our IR website. We hope to see you and/or speak with you very soon, and we wish you continued success and have a wonderful day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.