GitLab - Q1 2025
June 3, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the Star and One on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw yourself from the queue at any time by pressing Star Two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kelsey Turkett, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Kelsey. You may begin.
Kelsey Turcotte (VP of Investor Relations)
Thank you for joining us today for GitLab's first quarter fiscal year 2025 financial results conference call. GitLab's Co-founder and CEO, Sid Sijbrandij, and GitLab's Chief Financial Officer, Brian Robbins, will provide commentary on the quarter and guidance for the fiscal year. Before we begin, I'll cover the safe harbor statement. I would like to direct you to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements on page two of our presentation and in our earnings release issued earlier today, which are both available under the Investor Relations section of our website. The presentation and earnings release include a discussion of certain risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that could cause our results to differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. As is customary, the content of today's call and presentation will be governed by this language.
In addition, during today's call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures exclude certain unusual or non-recurring items that management believes impact comparability of the periods referenced. Please refer to our earnings release and presentation materials for additional information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. I will now turn the call over to GitLab's Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Sid Sijbrandij. Sid?
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Thank you for joining us today. We had a strong first quarter with 33% revenue growth and significant year-over-year margin expansion. The value customers derive from GitLab comes through not only in our top-line growth, but also in our best-in-class dollar-based net retention rate of 129%. We continue to differentiate our platform with security, compliance, and AI throughout the software development lifecycle, and we also continue expanding our total addressable market with new use cases and personas. AI is quickly transforming the way software is delivered. With GitLab, our AI extends well beyond coding and development. Because we have the broadest platform, we uniquely enable our customers to also leverage AI for planning, security, and operations.
Both new customers, like financial services company A and B, and existing customers, like NASA, Artemis, Carrefour, Indeed, and the FBI, understand the value of a platform that enables software development across the end-to-end life cycle. It improves productivity and security without sacrificing speed. We believe the benefits and improved quality delivered by our end-to-end approach are unmatched in the market. A great example of this is a leading financial services company that decreased pipeline outages by 90% since deploying GitLab, and that has translated in $hundreds of thousands in savings every year. They are also leveraging our AI offering, GitLab Duo Pro, and GitLab Duo Pro has already delivered increases in productivity for this customer. We're seeing GitLab Duo adoption by customers who are excited about the benefits it's bringing to their teams.
For example, a leading provider for the global communications industry purchased GitLab Duo in Q1 to help engineering teams code faster and more securely. We continue to add new capabilities to GitLab Duo. In Q1, we released GitLab Duo Chat into general availability. Chat is a conversational AI interface for GitLab Duo. It helps customers quickly understand project status, get help with planning and configuration, receive explanations of suggested code, and generate tests, all without context switching. I'm excited about Chat because it transforms software development by seamlessly integrating AI through a single, easy-to-use natural language chat interface. This optimizes DevSecOps workflows and boosts productivity. We also introduced new privacy controls that enable organizations to manage sensitive data at the project, group, and subgroup levels. This helps reduce the security and compliance risks of AI adoption. Our next AI add-on is GitLab Duo Enterprise.
GitLab Duo Enterprise combines the developer-focused AI features of GitLab Duo Pro with enterprise-focused features to help teams collaborate faster together. Our customers are particularly excited about the security tools coming as part of GitLab Duo Enterprise, such as root cause analysis, along with vulnerability explanation and resolution. In the future, GitLab Duo Enterprise will also allow customers to deploy AI models in air-gapped environments. This feature will further differentiate GitLab Duo in the market. Now, I'd like to turn to security and compliance. These capabilities are core to our platform and continue to be big business drivers for us. Customers turn to GitLab because they need to integrate security earlier in the development process. For example, a major U.S. technology company and government contractor removed seven different point solutions when they consolidated on the GitLab platform....
Now they are doing security scans 13 times faster and are seeing a 90% savings in tool chain administration. In Q1, we closed a six-figure deal with a global financial services company, a new logo for GitLab. They were looking to improve security in the DevSecOps lifecycle, and GitLab was the only option that would let them bring software composition analysis, SAST, and DAST into a single platform. With our advanced security capabilities, the company can shift security left and address vulnerability sooner. At the same time, they are consolidating their tool chain, reducing their total cost of ownership, and increasing visibility across the software supply chain. GitLab's integrated security is driving upgrades to our Ultimate tier. In Q1, we continued to build on our security capabilities with our acquisition of Oxeye. We acquired Oxeye for their robust SAST technology.
This will help streamline vulnerability management and remediation for GitLab customers. We also acquired the intellectual property of Rezilion, which will enrich our vulnerability risk data, add auto remediation capabilities, as well as runtime vulnerability reachability. Together, these acquisitions are intended to extend GitLab's detection and remediation capabilities from code through runtime, and this will help organizations resolve vulnerabilities more efficiently and quickly. We will be integrating Oxeye and Rezilion technologies into GitLab over the next several quarters. Turning to compliance, one of our big differentiators here is GitLab Dedicated, our single-tenant SaaS solution, which provides customers with data isolation and residency. One of the largest public service departments in Europe adopted GitLab Dedicated in Q1 to help them break down silos and build a culture of collaboration across the organization's hybrid landscape while maintaining strict compliance requirements. Now, I'd like to discuss our go-to-market strategy.
As we scale past $500 million and move to $1 billion in revenue, our customer profile is evolving, and so are we. Customers recognize us as more than just a vendor. We're a partner. We recently won Ally Financial's Technology Operational Excellence Award for driving simplified and resilient solutions for Ally and its customers. This follows from last year when we won Ally's Velocity with Quality Award for helping Ally Financial deliver value to customers quickly. In addition, our partnerships with Google Cloud and AWS accelerate cloud migration for them, and we benefit from wider distribution. In April, GitLab received the 2024 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year award in the application development category for the fourth consecutive year. At Google Cloud Next, we announced our Google Cloud Console integration. This helps our customers improve developer experience and decrease context switching across GitLab and Google Cloud.
We're also excited about our integration with Amazon Q. The integration gives our joint AWS and GitLab customers a unified interface, whether they are working in AWS or in GitLab. AWS customers using GitLab can opt to have GitLab Duo route tasks to Q and vice versa. To help us penetrate the estimated $40 billion market opportunity ahead of us, we are investing in a number of initiatives. First, we are adding more global field CTOs to help amplify our message and articulate our value to the executive suite. Second, we are bringing in more solution architects and also expanding our services offering to ensure post-sale success. Third, we are increasing our global theater presence to more closely meet the needs of specific regions and markets. And fourth, we are sharpening our focus on industries with complex security and compliance requirements, such as financial services.
During the quarter, we closed the second-largest deal in GitLab history with a U.S.-based global investment banking firm. Given their success with our core capabilities, they upgraded to GitLab Ultimate for our security and compliance capabilities and significantly expanded seats. Finally, we're looking forward to next month's anticipated GitLab 17 product launch event. We invite you to join us on June 27th. Registration information can be found on the GitLab website. Many innovations are planned for GitLab 17, including enhanced security scanning and governance controls, and the general availability of our CI/CD Catalog. Then we'll be taking GitLab 17 on the road as part of our DevSecOps World Tour, an event focused on business leaders and practitioners. On a personal note, during a recent routine scan, I learned that I need to again undergo treatment for osteosarcoma, the same form of cancer I was treated for in 2023.
My doctor believes that this finding is part of the original lesion and that as such, the disease has not metastasized. I'm working on making a full recovery. As the last time, my scope and responsibilities as GitLab CEO and Chair remain unchanged. I'd like to thank our executive team and the board of directors for their support. In closing, I'm confident we will continue to win the large market opportunity in front of us. I want to thank our team members and partners for their focus on customer success and our customers for trusting us. I want to thank our shareholders for your support, and I look forward with speaking with many of you this quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Thank you, Sid, and thank you again for everyone joining us today. I am pleased with our start to FY 2025 as the team delivered strong top-line growth. We also achieved a significant year-over-year increase in operating margin, and for the first time, generating positive Q1 operating and adjusted free cash flow. Our number one objective is to grow, but we continue to do that responsibly. It is clear from our results that our customers see the value of our end-to-end DevSecOps platform that allows them to consolidate spend, avoid vendor lock-in, and deliver outcomes to the business more quickly. Customers report to us that they were able to consolidate their tool chain anywhere from three to 20 solutions into our platform, accelerate release cycles by 7x, and even realize 70% improvements in annual savings.
These outcomes move the needle for our customers in the software development lifecycle, maximizing budgets and increasing their competitiveness. Turning to the numbers. First quarter revenue of $169 million represents an increase of 33% from Q1 of the prior year. Please note that our acquisition of Oxeye did not contribute to Q1 revenue. As a reminder, when we guided for Q1 in FY 2025, we had not completed our annual standalone selling price analysis, or SSP, which determines our revenue recognition rate for upfront license revenue. As a result, we use our FY 2024 rates for FY 2025 guidance. That evaluation is now complete and had the effect of decreasing Q1 revenue, approximately $1 million, and decreasing expected FY 2025 revenue by approximately $4 million relative to guidance.
Excluding the impact of the new SSP allocation, Q1 revenue was $170 million, an increase of 34% year-over-year. Going forward, guidance for FY 2025 includes our updated SSP allocation. We ended our first quarter with a dollar-based net retention rate, or DBNRR, of 129%. Q1 DBNRR was driven by a combination of seat expansion at approximately 55%, price at approximately 35%, and tier at approximately 10%. Over the last four quarters, seat expansion has been greater than 50% of the growth in DBNRR, and we are very pleased to see customers' commitment to our platform reflected in this expanding adoption. We now have 8,976 customers with ARR of at least $5,000, an increase of approximately 21%.
Consistent with previous quarters, our customers with greater than $5,000 in ARR contributed over 95% of our total ARR in Q1. In particular, we monitored performance of our larger customer cohort of $100,000 plus in ARR, where average ARR per customer continues to increase and unit economics continue to improve. This is a testament to the importance of security and compliance for these large customers. At the end of the first quarter of FY 2025, we had 1,025 customers with ARR of more than $100,000, an increase of over 35% year-over-year. Expanding this cohort, both in absolute number and total ARR, is a focus of our go-to-market team, and as Sid mentioned, we'll continue to invest additional resources to drive momentum across these customers.
This quarter, total RPO grew 48% year-over-year to $681 million, while CRPO grew 34% to $436 million. Non-GAAP gross margins were 91% for the quarter. SaaS now represents over 28% of total revenue and grew 50% year-over-year. The team continues to identify efficiencies that allows us to maintain best-in-class non-GAAP gross margins. Once again, we saw a year-over-year improvement in operating leverage. Q1 non-GAAP operating loss was $3.8 million, compared to a loss of $15 million in the first quarter of last year. As a reminder, in this Q1, our non-GAAP operating loss included a $15 million investment in Summit, our global team member gathering. I'm really pleased with the team's continued focus on execution, which resulted in a non-GAAP margin expansion of more than 900 basis points year-over-year.
Cash from operating activities was $38.1 million in the first quarter of FY 2025, compared to an $11 million use of cash in operating activities in the same quarter of last year. Adjusted free cash flow was $37.4 million in the first quarter of FY 2025, compared to an $11.2 million use of cash in the same quarter of last year. Turning to guidance, I'd like to start with a few comments on guidance. First, as I mentioned already, guidance includes our updated SSP revenue analysis. FY 2025 revenue guidance includes the approximately $4 million SSP net headwind for FY 2025 and raises in line with our first quarter top-line outperformance.
For the second quarter of FY 2025, we expect total revenue of $176 million-177 million, representing a growth rate of 26%-27% year-over-year. We expect a non-GAAP operating income of $10 million-11 million, and we expect a non-GAAP net income per share of $0.09-0.10, assuming 167 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding. For the full-year, FY 2025, we expect total revenue of $733 million-737 million, representing growth rate of approximately 26%-27% year-over-year. We expect a non-GAAP operating income of $34 million-38 million, and we expect a non-GAAP net income per share of $0.34-0.37, assuming 168 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding.
Separately, I'd like to provide an update on JiHu, our China joint venture. In Q1 FY 2025, non-GAAP expenses related to JiHu were $3 million, compared to $5.6 million in Q1 of last year. Our goal remains to deconsolidate JiHu. However, we cannot predict the likelihood or timing when this may potentially occur. Thus, for FY 2025 modeling purposes, we forecast approximately $14 million of expenses related to JiHu, compared with $18 million in FY 2024. In closing, Q1 was a strong start to the year, highlighting the differentiation of our DevSecOps platform and the power of our financial model. We're excited about the introduction of AI across the entire software development life cycle, the significant value we deliver for our customers, and the large market opportunity in front of us. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon.
With that, I'll turn it over to Kelsey, who will moderate the Q&A.
Operator (participant)
Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon, and it's time for questions. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and then one on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing the star and two. Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We'll take our first question from Matt at RBC. Matt, please go ahead. We're requesting one question and one follow-up, please.
Matthew Hedberg (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks, Kelsey. First of all, Sid, thoughts and prayers out to you, as you continue this journey here. Certainly, you're in our thoughts and prayers. Maybe just to start with you, Sid, on the demand environment, there's obviously been a lot of volatility in, so I guess I'd say off quarter, software earnings, over the past couple of weeks. Can you just maybe pull the lens back a little bit and kinda just talk about what you're seeing from a demand environment? Obviously, it looks like you had good results this quarter, but just a little bit more perspective there.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Hey, Matt, thanks for the question. This is Brian. Yeah, I'll start in. You know, there weren't any major macro changes from Q4 to Q1. Sales cycles and discounting were consistent. You know, the macro continues to be cautious, I would say, from the procurement departments on how they're being thoughtful on what they commit to. If you get specific to GitLab, though, first, if I look at new business, our first order business continues to be strong, and so that's a great indicator. And then second, I look at existing customers, and we reported the dollar-based net retention rate of 129%. This is led by seat expansion, followed by the price increase/increased customer yield, and then up-tiering. And so that was better than what we modeled.
You know, the cohort of 100K, which we view as a proxy for our enterprise customers, grew more than 35% year-over-year. And so hopefully it gives you some context on the macro, and then also, you know, what we look at from GitLab specific within the quarter.
Matthew Hedberg (Managing Director)
Okay. That, that's great, Brian. Then maybe just a follow-up for you. You know, on the $4 million SSP headwind you talked about, I just wanna be clear. It feels like, A, that's a full-year headwind, not just a Q1, which I think you alluded to on the call. But, you know, I just wanna make sure that my math is right, 'cause it feels like you beat by, I think, $3 million, and you're raising by, I think, $7 million, but you talked about this $4 million SSP headwind. I just wanna make sure I understand kind of the puts and takes to the full-year. It sounded like you said you're basically just pushing the Q1 beat through, but maybe if you could just provide a bit more color around that.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, absolutely, and thanks for the question. The, you know, when we reported the guidance for last quarter, it was based on the 2024 SSP allocation. We completed that analysis, and there was $1 million impact in Q1, and so the $3.7 million beat includes the $1 million impact. The guidance we gave for the full-year of $733 million-737 million includes the $4 million headwind, and so that would be, you know, added into those numbers. So we've absorbed those in the numbers that we provided.
Matthew Hedberg (Managing Director)
Great.
Got it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you for that question. Thanks, Matt. Next question is coming from Ryan at Barclays. Ryan, your line is open.
Ryan MacWilliams (Managing Director)
Thanks for the question. Just on your incremental pricing guide you offered last quarter, you usually guide the $10 million-20 million in benefit for this fiscal year. Any update to that guide, and are you seeing any differences at renewal for the additional price increase this year in this macro? Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. This is Brian. You know, we gave that range out a couple of quarters ago to help with calibrating the models because there was such a wide range on this year's revenue. Your assumptions that we gave out, including our guidance on a go-forward basis, includes that. And so I'm happy to report that, you know, we're doing better than what we internally modeled. And yeah, and so what we internally modeled.
Ryan MacWilliams (Managing Director)
Perfect. Appreciate that color. Just one housekeeping item, maybe I missed it on the prepared remarks, but did you provide Ultimate as a percentage of ARR? Then maybe one for Sid. Love to hear about how you're thinking about the initial uptake in terms of demand for Duo Pro and maybe any early signs of demand for Duo Enterprise. Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
I'll do Ultimate real quickly. That's 46% of total ARR, up from 44% from last quarter.
Ryan MacWilliams (Managing Director)
Thanks for that, Brian. Thanks for the question about Duo Pro and Duo Enterprise. So we're seeing the momentum there. For Duo Pro, we got some great initial results. A major Americas financial services company reported 35%-40% developer productivity as a result of using it.
... Got a great deal with a major APAC telecommunications company that wanted to have AI-powered capabilities, not just in coding, but in all stages. We made a sale to a major security infrastructure company. As for Duo Enterprise, the features they really like are the ones around security and root cause analysis. The security features they like is vulnerability explanation and resolution. They're looking forward to that, and in the future, Duo Enterprise will also allow customers to deploy AI models in air-gapped environments, and a lot of our customers are looking forward to that.
You should cover?
Operator (participant)
Great.
Ryan MacWilliams (Managing Director)
Yes.
Operator (participant)
Thanks, Ryan. Next question goes to Jason at William Blair.
Jason Ader (Managing Director)
Yeah, thank you. Guys, I was just wondering, have you explored recently any changes to the pricing model? I know you provide pricing for both the self-managed and the SaaS. And especially for the SaaS business, you know, where most of your peers are using some form of usage-based pricing, it would seem like, you know, that could be in the cards for you guys. Just any comments on how you're thinking about pricing going forward would be great.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah, they're for the most important part, our pricing is the same. As you said, it's based on users. The value we add is we make people more productive, 10x faster cycle time, getting more work done. On SaaS, we also charge for, for example, storage. But the big benefit in GitLab is in how we make people more productive. The. For example, the storage costs are not very high. Another indicator of that is our gross margins, like 91%. It kind of indicates that there's not a ton of compute cost that we drive down. It's making the people more efficient with things like replacing point solutions with a platform and the AI, and that's what we charge for.
Jason Ader (Managing Director)
Okay, great. And then one quick follow-up just on the product roadmap. And maybe this is for you, Sid, but as we think about this, this fiscal year, what would you say is your kind of top priority in terms of the kind of the product's capabilities, the GitLab applications capabilities?
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah. A top focus, of course, is AI, Duo Pro, Duo Enterprise, but we also continue to invest in the ability of our customers to replace point solutions. Really excited about the acquisition of the two security companies. That's gonna make our security offering better, also investing our compliance, our planning capabilities, and just making it easier to replace all the other point solutions that our customers have. Currently, with GitLab, our customers can replace more point solutions than any other way, but we wanna make sure they can replace all their point solutions. And I think in security, we're getting pretty close, and we will keep driving for all the other sectors, including planning and binary storage and everything else.
Jason Ader (Managing Director)
Thank you. Best of luck with your treatment.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Next question goes to, Nick from Scotiabank, please. Your line is open.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Awesome. Thanks, guys. And Sid, best of luck. I wanted to ask a question, Brian, on the RPO. The sequential change from four Q to one Q was a little bit smaller than we've historically seen. And just... Is there anything to call out mechanically as to why that change is a little bit smaller? Was there a pull into the Q4? Are customers signing shorter duration deals? Is there more sort of renewal activity, and the renewals go from three years to one year? Just anything else to call out on that RPO number and why that sequential change is a little bit smaller?
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, thanks for that, Nick. You know, we've talked about with billings and RPO, them being somewhat a little bit noisy within a quarter. You know, I was happy with the CRPO at 34% year-over-year. That was in line with the revenue growth of 33%. Q4 to Q1, there is some seasonality. Q4 is our strongest quarter, and Q1 is seasonally our lowest quarter. And so we had a real strong finish to the year, so that impacts it a little as well. But I'm pleased where we're at and the visibility that we have in the model.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Awesome. Thanks. And then just a quick follow-up on the $4 million headwind. Is that all related to license revenues? And if so, just any goalposts as to how we should be thinking about license versus self-managed contract support for this year? Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, thanks for that. We don't break down, you know, because we don't forecast that level. We don't set sales compensation targets between, you know, self-managed or, you know, ones that we're gonna host. And so when we go through the SSP allocation, it's based on what we deem to deliver value when it's received versus value over the time of the license, and that's what causes a switch. And so, you know, the headwind we eventually get, because we don't recognize upfront, we recognize over the period of the contract. And so the $4 million that we called out is lower than what our recognition would have been last year, but we've included that in our guidance and absorbed that.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Great.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thanks, Nick. Next question is from Karl at UBS. Your line is open.
Karl Keirstead (Managing Director)
Okay, great. Hey, Brian, you talked a little bit about the macro being reasonably stable relative to 4Q. Could we talk specifically about seat growth, your disclosures of-
... the seat contribution to NRR, both in Q1 and 4Q, would lead one to believe that, seat growth is either stable or even slightly improved. Is that the correct assumption?
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, you know, when I look back at seats, from a contribution to the net dollar retention rate over the last four quarters, it's averaged, you know, over 50%, and so that's been the number one contributor. That's both in, obviously, Ultimate and Premium.
Karl Keirstead (Managing Director)
Okay, so it sounds more stable than not. Okay, and then on the contribution, the assumed contribution of Duo Pro and Enterprise to the fiscal 2025 guidance, Brian, are you including anything in there? Maybe a minimal amount, maybe just to add some color there. Thank you.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, thanks for that. Like we said on previous calls, you know, it's early, it takes some time. Happy with the, you know, the sales process as it's going, but it's included in our guidance that we provided.
Karl Keirstead (Managing Director)
Okay. Got it. Congrats on the nice numbers. Thank you.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Thanks, Carl.
Operator (participant)
Great. Our next question comes from Joel Fishbein of Truist. Joel, your line is open.
Joel Fishbein (Managing Director)
Thanks for thoughts and prayers with you. Brian-
Operator (participant)
Hey, Joel?
Joel Fishbein (Managing Director)
First, congrats on... Yes.
Operator (participant)
You're, you're breaking up a little. I don't know if there's a way to fix that.
Joel Fishbein (Managing Director)
Can you hear me better now?
Operator (participant)
Yeah.
Joel Fishbein (Managing Director)
Sid, best to you and thoughts and prayers with you. Brian, congrats on the margin performance. I... Sid talked a lot about scaling the business here, and I would love to, you know, get a reiteration on how you're thinking about growth versus margin going forward.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Joel. You know, we've been very consistent in our messaging that the number one goal of the company is growth, but we'll do that responsibly. You know, if you look at sort of what we added this quarter, you know, we added $42 million of incremental revenue, and that was done with an increase of $31 million of incremental expense. But in that incremental expense was the one-time cost of Summit, which was roughly about $15 million. So we grew 33% quarter-over-quarter, and we did that, you know, with good incremental profit.
Joel Fishbein (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Thanks, Joel.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thanks, Joel. Our next question comes from Kash from Goldman Sachs.
Kash Rangan (Managing Director)
Thank you very much. Sid, how would you describe GitLab's product competitiveness versus your leading competitor? How is that gap today versus, say, six months ago, or so, especially in light of the generative AI features that you've introduced with Duo, Duo Chat, and also other things like Agile and Dedicated? I know it's a qualitative thing, but I just wanted to get that perspective from you. And one for you, Brian, when the effect of Duo, Agile, Dedicated price increases do kick in into full gear, what is the rough contribution that these vectors have to your reported growth in this quarter? So in other words, how much additive will be the effect of those vectors to your current reported growth? Thank you so much.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah, thanks for that question. I think we're... If you look at the AI features with Duo Pro, where we were later than our main competitor, but I think we have a competitive offering now. If you look at Duo Enterprise, we can use what we're really strong at, namely integrating security in dev and ops, and that leads to a very strong offering. Omdia reports that GitLab has the most AI features available. That comes because we have the broadest platform. We can replace more point solutions for our customers, and that's really important because then they can have a faster cycle time, deprecate all those old tools, and not only not have to pay for them, but they save on the integration costs as well.
Because we have more in the platform and customers use more of GitLab, we also have more context to more relevant AI features. So I think that's really exciting, and I'm looking forward to all the security help we can offer our customers, too, with AI, and I think we're leading there. So that makes me really excited.
Brian Robins (CFO)
And, Kash, on your question around Duo and all the number of things that you mentioned, what's the rough contribution? You know, on the new products that we've launched, you know, it's price times quantity is the rev rec on that. And so based on the number of seats sold and what the prices that we sell that for in the given month or quarter would be the revenue that we'd recognize, and that would be additive to what we currently sell today, you know, in the base business.
Kash Rangan (Managing Director)
And I'm just looking to quantify that. I appreciate the math, Brian, but I appreciate the process, but the math behind it, how much roughly would it contribute when it all hits, the P&L, incremental to the reported growth? Because today's growth is not benefiting from those vectors, right? Which is what the heart of my question.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, that's correct. We, we've included in our guidance, and we haven't broken that out separately.
Kash Rangan (Managing Director)
Okay.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Rob at Piper. Rob, go ahead.
Rob Owens (Managing Director)
... I'm grateful for taking my question. This is Ethan on for Rob. Just one for me. I wanted to ask around how customer conversations around hiring intentions have trends, and specifically for developers. And are you seeing any sort of customers look to step up hiring in the second half as they invest behind kind of the resumption of cloud migrations or any GenAI initiatives at this point? Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Ethan. As you can, there's not a report that we can run, you know, per se, and actually see what the hiring intentions are of the customer base. I would say just more broadly, that there weren't major macro changes from Q4 to Q1. And, you know, it was fairly consistent. And then I spoke earlier a little bit about first order and the net dollar retention rate, and I think that's reflected, you know, in the within the net dollar retention rate, that seat expansion, you know, is, is approximately 55%.
Rob Owens (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks for the color.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thank you very much. Next question comes from Koji at Bank of America.
Koji Ikeda (Director)
Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Sid, we are all rooting for you here. Couple questions from us. You know, first one, big picture question, maybe for Sid. So the DevSecOps world is evolving very, very quickly, and there is a lot of focus on generative AI code. But really that's only a sliver of DevSecOps workflows. So the question is, what's really going on out there? You know, what are developer teams and IT ops teams and security ops teams most focused on today that is driving demand for GitLab?
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah, thanks for that. You're totally right. Helping people code is only part of the equation. It's helping the developers, and even they don't spend most of their time coding. They spend a lot of their time, for example, interpreting issues, and that's where generative AI can help as well. And then, if you produce code, you still have to secure it, and then the bar for security is going up. Like, you have to have a tighter security profile. You gotta address things quicker. So that's where generative AI can help a lot. Super excited about all the features coming out in Duo Enterprise that help with that. And then it's also operations, keeping everything up and having AI respond faster to security incidents, most of the time augmenting people.
Even with things like planning, we're the only platform that has enterprise agile planning completely integrated. With AI, you can have a better forecast of when you're gonna deliver something. It helps managers with resource allocation. We're really excited to have AI throughout the life cycle, and we think the platforms are in a great position to have more context to feed the AI better, and the broader the platform, the more point solutions you replace, the better that AI is gonna work and the more it can do for you.
Koji Ikeda (Director)
Got it. Thank you, Sid. And a follow-up here for Brian. Just thinking about the performance in the first quarter and the guidance methodology, you just beat the first quarter guidance, the revenue guidance midpoint by 2.2%. If the guidance methodology is the same, is this the right way to think about upside potential? And if not, how should we be thinking about upside drivers from that? Thank you.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah, thanks for that, Koji. The guidance that we gave out, you know, includes, you know, the upsides that we talked about in the various products that we have. And so, you know, we, as I spoke earlier, we didn't break that out and are reporting on that separately.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thanks. Koji, just one thing to note is, with the $1 million headwind to revenue in the first quarter, what you referred to as the beat would have been actually 2.7% up from the 2.2 that you mentioned. Next question will come from Michael at Wells Fargo.
Michael Riley (Co-head of Markets)
Hey, thanks, appreciate you taking the question. Just one for me on free cash flow, 22% margin, in what's generally the seasonally lighter period. So Brian, I was just hoping you can speak to the drivers of outperformance there, and how should we think about the seasonality or, or progression of free cash flow throughout the course of the coming year? Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, absolutely, Michael. You know, we had a very strong fourth quarter, and so, you know, fourth quarter collections happen in first quarter. You know, so we did better on the, on the top side, and we spent less on the bottom side, and so there was some timing, not much, but there was some timing associated with that. But it was basically the, you know, strong collections based on fourth quarter performance and less spending. Timing was about a quarter of the total.
Michael Riley (Co-head of Markets)
Is it... I mean, as far as on a go-forward, if we look at just the change in operating income, assumptions between Q4 guidance and, and where things sit today, is it fair for us to assume at least sort of a similar progression on free cash flow, or was sort of the, the one-time benefit something that we should more carefully contemplate within Q1? Thanks.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, 1Q is stronger from a cash collection standpoint because of 4Q, and so it really has some dependency on the prior quarter, and so I'll leave it at that.
Michael Riley (Co-head of Markets)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thank you. In the interest of time and to see if we can get everyone on, if you could limit yourself to one question, please, that'd be great. Next question is coming from Pinjalim, JP Morgan, please go ahead.
Kevin Coughlan (Executive Director of Head of Offshore Sales)
Oh, great. Hey, thanks for taking the question, and Sid, wishing you a rapid recovery. One question for you, Brian. You said you're doing better on the pricing assumptions that is embedded in the guidance. Is there a way to understand the raise? Does that include a little bit of uptick on that assumption as well?
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah. So we broke that out, like I said, you know, a couple quarters ago to help with calibrating the models. You know, it's included in our guidance on a go-forward basis. We won't, you know, we don't break that out, and so it's better than what we modeled internally. Yeah, look, you know, we'll just guide to the full-year.
Kevin Coughlan (Executive Director of Head of Offshore Sales)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Next question is from Adam Tindle at Raymond James. Go ahead. Your line is open.
Adam Tindle (Managing Director)
Okay, thank you. I wanna just return to the Duo conversation, see if I can ask it a little bit differently. I know, Brian, you're talking about it's early, it's gonna take time. But if we compare it to Microsoft Developer Copilot, they had 400,000 paid subs that launched two years ago. They just announced 1.8 million, and you can back into more than $100 million of ARR for that platform for them. I wonder if you guys might compare and contrast that versus what you're seeing in the initial launches versus Duo. Realize it's different scale than GitHub, but what could stop this from being tens of millions of ARR in the next 12-18 months? Thanks.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Thanks for the question. Yeah, we're not giving out specific numbers on the adoption. Typically, we sell more to enterprises, where it's more of a top-down sale versus a bottoms-up approach. So, it takes a little bit longer. I also think with Duo Pro, with the coding, we were later, I think, but Duo Enterprise, the everything else, I think we're more on time. We have very high expectations. We do foresee the majority of impact in coming fiscal years, not this year. What we have estimated is in our guidance, but what we're very excited about is that customers see the effect of Duo in productivity, and they, our enterprise customers, choose GitLab, they choose GitLab Ultimate for the security features. They also want the AI security features.
So I think we got a really compelling offering there. Really excited to see how that develops in the rest of the year and outer fiscal years.
Operator (participant)
Great. Thanks, Adam. Next question is coming from Derrick at TD Cowen.
Derrick Wood (Managing Director)
Thanks. Sid, good luck with your next treatment. And for Brian, I just wanted to go back to the change in guide, just to get more clarification. At midpoint, it went up by $7 million. You're also absorbing an incremental $4 million. So apples to apples, seems like you're raising by $11 million. Just wanted to confirm that. And then it looks like a lot of that raise, at least relative to where Street was, is expected to be seen more in the back half of the year. Can you just walk us through how you're thinking about seasonal mix over the course of the year and what could drive a stronger second half?
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, absolutely, Derrick. The, your math is almost correct, and so we beat by $3.7 million. That included a $1 million headwind, and so, you know, we raised by $7 million, and then if you add the additional $3 million for the remaining three quarters of headwind for SSP, you know, you would get to $10 million total, not the $11 million. So, close, but it's $10 million total. And the revenue that we're expecting would- is ramps consistent with what the quarterly spread has been. And so first quarter, seasonally, is our weakness, fourth quarter, seasonally, is our strongest, and second and third quarter is relatively about the same.
Operator (participant)
Thanks, Derrick.
Derrick Wood (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Next question coming from Jason at KeyBank.
Ryan MacWilliams (Managing Director)
Hey, great. Thanks for fitting me in. Maybe just one for Sid. Duo Pro, still pretty new, but surprised to see the Enterprise announcement in the quarter. Curious if, you know, this was already always planned to come out around this timeframe, or if you were able to accelerate it, and if so, why? Thank you.
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
Yeah, thanks for that. I think what we're seeing is that AI is not one thing, like, it's not... We have a few teams that help with AI overall, but the implementation of AI, we can frequently rely on the individual teams. So it's not that we just have an AI team. AI is gonna change the whole DevSecOps life cycle, and we're enabling our team members, our people in R&D, to apply AI in the individual aspect. So it's really cool to see, like, the AI is not just gonna help you write the line of code, it's also gonna help you describe what you coded. It's also gonna help you plan for the next thing.
For example, if you have 200 comments from customers on what you should build, it helps you kind of give you a summary, and if something goes wrong, it gives you the root cause of what actually went wrong. If there's a security warning, it helps you write the code to fix that, and in the future, it will start solving some of these security issues automatically. So I'm super excited about the broadness with which we can apply AI, and I think Duo Enterprise coming relatively fast after Duo Pro shows that that we're able to apply AI very broadly, as does the Omdia report show. So great opportunity in the future to get a lot of our ultimate customers using AI throughout the software lifecycle.
Jason Cwiklinski (Head of Supplier Access and Inclusion)
Great.
Great.
Brian Robins (CFO)
Thank you so much.
Operator (participant)
Thanks, Jason. Next question is from Mike at Needham. Mike, your line is open.
Mike Cikos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking the question, guys. I just wanted to ask about the profitability and the raise that we have to the full-year operating profit here. Just trying to size up the magnitude, can you help me think about how much of that is coming from expectation setting or spending initiatives potentially moving out? And I'd also just like to get a sense if we can marry up the raised profitability outlook with Sid's earlier comments in the prepared remarks regarding investments in field CTOs and solution architects. Is that a fiscal 2025 event, or is this a little bit longer term in scope?
Sid Sijbrandij (Executive Chair)
No, we're certainly gonna... We're already hiring these people. I'll leave it to Brian to talk about the financial impact or not, but this is happening. Those changes in go-to-market are happening this fiscal year. Brian?
Brian Robins (CFO)
Yeah, that's everything that Sid said and what we included earlier is included in our financial results. You know, as you know, we mentioned, you know, the number 1 objective is to grow, but to do that responsibly and, you know, based on where we're at and looking out the forecast, you know, the amount of operating income that we're forecasting for the year is what we gave out as guidance.
Operator (participant)
Great, Mike. Thank you for your, for your question. Unfortunately, we have run out of time, so, this does conclude this afternoon's call. We appreciate your participation. You can disconnect at this time, and we'll talk to you a little later. Thank you.