OptimizeRx - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered revenue of $32.3M (+14% y/y), gross margin of 68.2%, non-GAAP EPS of $0.30, and Adjusted EBITDA of $8.8M; management stated results surpassed internal expectations and consensus estimates.
• Full-year 2024 revenue was $92.1M (+29% y/y) with Adjusted EBITDA of $11.7M; management highlighted broad KPI improvements and stronger contracted revenue visibility heading into 2025.
• Initial FY2025 guidance: revenue ≥ $100M and Adjusted EBITDA ≥ $12M; the strategic pivot to subscription-based DAAP data services aims to improve predictability and margin structure.
• Narrative and potential stock catalyst: continued DAAP scale-up, recurring data subscriptions, and mixed improvement in gross margin profile (Q4 seasonal peak) with stronger contracted revenue visibility (low-60% of full-year).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• DAAP momentum and mix drove gross margin expansion to 68.2% in Q4; CFO: “Gross margin increased…to 68.2%…tied to a favorable solution and channel partner mix”.
• Visibility improved: contracted revenue for 2025 now in the low-60% of total, up ~20% y/y, enhancing predictability.
• KPIs strengthened: net revenue retention 121% (vs. 105%), average revenue per top-20 pharma $2.933M, top-5 accounts averaged ~$9.1M.
• CEO: “we surpassed our expectations as well as consensus estimates” underscoring operational execution and commercial traction.

What Went Wrong

• DTC managed services headwinds in 2H’24; industry migrated to self-serve, impacting near-term top line while audience subscriptions ramp—management expects continued transition in 2025.
• Gross margin sustainability caution: Q4 peak is seasonal; long-term expected range high-50s to mid-60%; management does not expect to sustain high-60s every quarter.
• GAAP profitability remains a work-in-progress: FY2024 GAAP net loss of $(20.1)M (loss per share $(1.10)), despite strong non-GAAP and EBITDA trends.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining OptimizeRx's fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. With us today is Chief Executive Officer Steve Silvestro. He is joined by Chief Financial Officer Ed Stelmakh, Chief Legal Officer Marion Odence-Ford, and Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, Andrew D'Silva. At the conclusion of today's call, I will provide some important cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during today's call. The company will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures which it believes are useful in evaluating the company's operating results. A reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release the company issued this morning, as well as in the investor relations section of the company's website.

I would like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded and will be made available for replay as an audio recording of this conference call, and will also be provided on the investor relations section of the company's website. Now, I would like to turn the call over to OptimizeRx CEO Steve Silvestro. Sir, please go ahead.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining today's fourth quarter and fiscal 2024 earnings call. As many of you know, this is my third day as OptimizeRx's new CEO. I'm honored to have the opportunity to lead the next phase of OptimizeRx's growth and transformation. Now more than ever, we will be laser-focused on operational excellence while ensuring we delight our customers and forge stronger relationships with valued business partners. Over the past few months, we've completed an extensive strategic review of the company's business process, operations, and growth plans, and we believe we're on the right path forward.

We're working towards continuing the company's growth, focusing very closely on customer centricity and delight, continuing to expand our unique value proposition with pharma, converting customers to our recurring revenue model while driving to become a Rule of 40 company and unlocking new opportunities for profitable revenue growth. Importantly, I'm looking forward to meeting more of our investors throughout the year and hearing our investors' thoughts and perspectives on our shared objective: shareholder value creation. While we believe we are executing the right strategies, we're always open to hearing our investors' thoughts on alternative strategies that further our shared goals. As for our 2024 financials, I'm happy to say that we beat our guidance and Street expectations with revenue and adjusted EBITDA coming in at USD 92.1 million and USD 11.7 million, respectively.

I believe OptimizeRx is uniquely positioned to drive value creation and build long-term sustainable shareholder growth by leveraging one of the largest EHR and e-prescription networks in the country to help pharma manufacturers reach healthcare providers at the point of care. Building on that, we are combining that unparalleled network with a unique purpose-built omnichannel technology platform that is transforming how pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and patients engage, ultimately improving care outcomes for patients. These elements give us a distinct competitive edge. With an unrivaled point of care reach, we believe we are the only company in the industry that can effectively connect both doctors and patients at scale. This has allowed us to develop the broadest suite of solutions in the industry, enabling us to meet the diverse needs of our customers across the full spectrum of their product lifecycle.

Coupled with our highly experienced team and a long-standing track record of delivering for top-tier pharma clients, we firmly believe we are in a leadership position in the industry that will take others years to match. As our business continues to evolve, our offerings are scaling as we continue to tackle some of pharma's toughest commercial challenges, including brand visibility, as many clinicians and providers have reduced in-person meetings and are spending more time in front of computers. Script abandonment, as approximately 50% of patients never fill their scripts at the pharmacy. Interoperability, as providers' inability to access relevant patient information in one place to make more informed decisions at the point of care.

Finally, the shift to more complex and expensive specialty medications, where more complex diagnosis criteria are required to identify brand-eligible patients, as expensive specialty medications now account for roughly half of total drug expenditures in the U.S. On average, we're driving strong brand engagement with measurable success. When launching a six-month program with a brand, we consistently achieve an ROI well over 10 to 1 on HCP marketing spend. Additionally, we see a 25% average script lift in our six-month programs. These capabilities enable us to capture a greater share of wallet from established customers. In 2024, our top five customers averaged over USD 9 million in revenue, and we're on track to elevate at least one more customer to this level in 2025. A great example of our impact comes from one of our largest customers, a top five pharma manufacturer.

After a successful 2023 supporting multiple brands, including a launch brand, 2024 began with strong bookings across the portfolio. Independent program analysis for this manufacturer demonstrated a material impact on prescription lift, leading supported brands to increase their share of voice across the OptimizeRx network. To drive further results, some brand teams focused on boosting incremental new prescriptions in addition to refills before year-end. To support this objective, we identified key areas where additional investment could expand program scale, physician reach, improving patient conversion for each program. As I move forward in my new role as OptimizeRx CEO, I'm working with our executive team to implement a robust multi-year plan to grow the business and increase shareholder value. While many aspects of the business will be the same, everything will be going through the lens of getting us to a Rule of 40 company over the next several years.

In moving towards this financial goal, we expect to drive substantial operating leverage and build a more predictable business, including by establishing a consistent recurring revenue component to our business as we aim to convert our DAAP customers to a subscription-based model from the data component of our offerings. We believe this will improve margins and visibility over time while substantially enhancing the overall predictability of our revenue streams. In turn, this will also enhance our ability to scale the business and plan for substantial growth that we and our investors are seeking. With a USD 10 billion TAM and a large under-penetrated market and tailwinds driven by increased pharma advertising spend on digital channels, OptimizeRx today is well-positioned to execute on our revamped strategic plan.

Our customers remain deeply embedded within our ecosystem of offerings, and it remains our goal to help them stay present throughout the patient care journey across our integrated HCP and DTC business. We have strong momentum coming into 2025, and with that, I'd like to turn the time over to our CFO, Ed Stelmakh, who will be walking us through our financial results. Ed?

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Thanks, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. The press release was issued with the financial results of our fourth quarter and fiscal year end December 31, 2024. The copy is available for viewing and may be downloaded from the investor relations section of our website, and additional information can be obtained through our forthcoming 10-K. Fourth quarter revenue came in at USD 32.3 million, an increase of 14% from the USD 28.4 million we recognized during the same period in 2023, which was the result of the company benefiting from the increased DAAP-related revenue streams in the fourth quarter. Gross margin increased from 62.9% in the quarter ended December 31, 2023, to 68.2% in the quarter ended December 31, 2024. Year-over-year gross margin expansion is tied to a favorable solution and channel partner mix.

Our operating expenses for the quarter ended December 31, 2024, decreased by USD 10.4 million year-over-year, largely due to lower M&A-related costs as we completed the Medicx Health acquisition during the fourth quarter of 2023. In addition, we saw significant benefits from cost-cutting initiatives approaching USD 5 million annually, tied to the integration efforts with the acquisition. Meanwhile, our net loss came in at USD 0.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to a net loss of USD 4.1 million during the fourth quarter of 2023. On a non-GAAP basis, our net income for the fourth quarter of 2024 was USD 5.5 million, or USD 0.30 for diluted shares outstanding, as compared to a non-GAAP net income of USD 4.6 million, or USD 0.26 for diluted shares outstanding in the same year-ago period.

Our adjusted EBITDA came in at USD 8.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to USD 5.8 million during the fourth quarter of 2023. We ended the year with cash and short-term investments totaling USD 13.4 million as of December 31st, 2024, as compared to USD 13.9 million on December 31st, 2023. The majority of the year-over-year decline was due to the paydown of principal of our debt, where we made an incremental USD 2 million payment during the fourth quarter of 2024. Our current debt balance stands at USD 34.3 million after paying off USD 2.5 million of principal during the fourth quarter. We continue to believe we are well-funded to execute against our strategic and operational goals. Now, I'd like to turn to our KPIs for the 12 months ended December 31st, 2024, which showed broad-based improvement as our business continues to evolve.

Average revenue for top 20 pharmaceutical manufacturers was USD 2.9 million, which is an increase of 22% from the same period one year ago. This is driven by our continuing success in expanding our share of wallet with top manufacturers and especially our top five accounts, which hit an all-time high with an average of USD 9.1 million in 2024. Net revenue retention rate showed improvement at 121%, up from 105% in the trailing 12-month prior period. Revenue per FTE came in at USD 701,000, topping the USD 586,000 we posted during the 12 months ended December 31, 2023. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Steve. Steve.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Ed. Operator, now let's move to Q&A.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Jared Haase with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Jared Haase (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, good morning. This is Jared Haase. I'm for Ryan Daniels. Thanks for taking our questions. Steve, congrats to you on stepping into the CEO seat in a permanent basis here. Maybe I'll start with one for you. You've mentioned both in the release and the prepared comments, you alluded to the idea of really focusing on customer centricity and driving more and more value for clients. I'm curious if you could just unpack that a little bit in terms of, from your perspective, what might be different going forward regarding the strategy and how you engage with clients?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Hey, Jared. Good to hear your voice and thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean, I think throughout our business, we're looking at opportunities to increase the level of customer centricity. Really what we mean by that is taking the lens of the customer and promulgating that throughout the organization, making sure that we're easy to do business with, that clients have a pleasurable experience with us, we're driving good results for them, which we've consistently done historically, but sort of enabling them to make it easy to renew and continue to expand footprint. That's really a big lift within the organization, a big focal point right now. You'll continue to hear that from us as we go forward.

Jared Haase (Equity Research Associate)

Okay. I appreciate that. You also alluded to transitioning to more and more subscription-based revenue in terms of these data services contracts. I just was hoping to maybe understand what impact that might have on the revenue model, any changes we should be thinking about in terms of the predictability of the business, anything that might shift in terms of the core sort of variables or drivers of contract value going forward. Just would love to unpack that a little bit more as well.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Sure. I'll answer, and then maybe Ed and Andy can also chime in. Essentially, over the last 24 months, we've launched and have been scaling our DAAP solution, which has got a data component, which is subscriptive in nature, and then it's got a transactional component. Getting clients to be able to come along that journey of trying it, proving it out, and then scaling it, which we sort of talked about in previous earnings calls, we've sort of taken them on that journey. Now we're at a point where it's really starting to scale pretty significantly. The opportunity to move the data component that feeds through all of the systems to more of a subscriptive recurring revenue model is there. We have a pretty large push now going there.

From your perspective, I think, and from everyone's perspective, certainly ours, a larger portion of the revenue will be predictable and recurring. So Andy, Ed, anything else you would add to that?

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

I think you covered it well, Steve. Yeah, basically, it's the data portion of our DAAP deals that we're pushing to get more to a subscriptive model, which then obviously creates the ability to renew and extend contract values into the future, so more predictable, stickier revenue.

Jared Haase (Equity Research Associate)

That makes sense. Maybe a quick follow-up. Is there a way to contextualize kind of how you're thinking about what portion of total contract value could come from data services versus more transactional over the next couple of years?

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yeah, it's a little difficult to estimate that. I mean, if you look at our kind of HCP plus DTC business in totality, we are trying to move as much as possible into DAAP overall. As you know, DAAP has covered around 20-30% of our business over time. You take basically every portion of that attributed to data, and that should give you a nice little kind of benchmark to go after.

Jared Haase (Equity Research Associate)

Okay. That's helpful. I'll hop back in queue. Congrats on all the momentum. Thanks, guys.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Jared.

Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Anderson Shock with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Anderson Shock (MedTech Analyst)

Hi. Congrats on the great quarter, and thank you for taking our questions.

First, you saw a pretty significant gross margin expansion in the quarter. Can you discuss what drove this and whether you expect this level of gross margin to continue going forward?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Hey, thank you, Anderson.

I'll go ahead, Ed.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yep.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah, Anderson. Yeah, it's really driven by product mix. We get a large portion of our revenue attributed to DAAP, and a lot of the things that we just talked about related to data analysis, kind of HCP, target list generation, those are things that are, first of all, not really shareable revenues, so we get to keep a larger portion of it. Also, we have a higher margin profile.

Anderson Shock (MedTech Analyst)

Okay. Do you expect this level of gross margin to continue in the future?

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

We're hoping to get to that level on a more permanent basis, but it is definitely much higher than we typically see. It is that kind of seasonal Q4 phenomenon that we always see in our kind of revenue flow and this time in our gross margin profile as well. I don't think we're going to stay at that level, but obviously, the more we push on what Steve just described, the closer we get to that number.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah, a little bit more color on that. Our margins should be in the high 50s to mid-60 range. Obviously, the fourth quarter was in the high 60 range, so that's something we aspire to, but it wouldn't be something we would expect.

Anderson Shock (MedTech Analyst)

Okay. Got it. It was a really excellent quarter for new DAAP deals. Can you just go into what maybe drove this and talk on your backlog and visibility into the next year for new deals?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah. Happy to do that, Anderson. I mean, we've been pretty vocal about the progress of DAAP over the last 24 months. What we're seeing now is a scale-up. Typical of pharma, they'll try things out, prove them, measure the ROI. If things work well, they'll start to scale both within the existing program as well as across therapeutic areas or disease states. We really saw that in several clients in the fourth quarter, which we talked about earlier on in the script. Our view into 2025 is that that drumbeat will continue. There's definitely a demand for audience creation and dynamic audiences specifically.

That will affect both our HCP business as well as our DTC business, which is sort of the thesis of why we acquired MedX to begin with, was to drive best-in-class audiences and enable the market. The other piece that I would say, which would be interesting for folks on this call to hear, is given that we're commercializing these audiences and we're having such a degree of success, the audiences aren't always tied, as Ed said, to message execution. If those audiences continue to grow at the rate that we're seeing, which we're all encouraged that they will, that will change the go-forward margin profile of the business and the recurring revenue of the business both positively. We are leaning pretty heavily into that.

We are encouraged very much by the progress we have seen here in the fourth quarter and then coming into this year.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yeah, I can take the second part of the question in terms of visibility into the year. We are significantly stronger than we were a year ago. A year ago, we were probably in the low 50% range as far as contracted revenue is concerned. We're sitting here today at low 60% in terms of percentage of total revenue for the year, so up about 20% year on year.

Anderson Shock (MedTech Analyst)

Okay. Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you again for taking our questions and congrats on the great quarter.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Anderson. Appreciate the support.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Constantine Davides with Citizens. Please go ahead.

Constantine Davides (Managing Director)

Thanks. You guys have alluded to sort of transforming into a Rule of 40 company. I know some of that is coming from some of the things you've outlined for us today. I guess, over what time frame is that an expectation? Can you maybe just bridge between how much of that is sort of top-line growth, acceleration, and maybe what the margins of the business look like at scale?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah. Ed, do you want to take that one?

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yeah, I can take that one. Yeah. As far as time is concerned, certainly, it's not going to be a one-year type of a journey. It's more probably a three- or five-year journey. As far as the breakdown with being top-line and bottom-line, as you know, we've said that a number of times. Our business model is highly leverageable, so the drop-through as we grow is significant. In fact, if you look at our results in Q4 of this year, you can see the kind of margin we can generate when we have a high level of profitability and a high growth rate on the top line. I would say most of it is going to come from EBITDA expansion, but a good chunk of it will come from top-line growth as well. A combination of the two should get us to a Rule of 40.

My guesstimate is between three- to five-year time frame.

Constantine Davides (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks. I guess just in terms of 2025 guidance, are there any kind of quarterly puts and takes with respect to either margins or typical sort of seasonality on the revenue front that we should contemplate again for 2025? Thanks.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah, I can give that information, actually. As far as the margin goes, I follow the historical kind of seasonality that you're seeing, natural progression throughout the year type of situation. As far as quarters go, I would say in the typical seasonal ranges, 15%-20% of revenue in Q1, 20%-23% in Q2, 25%-30% of revenue in Q3. Q4, obviously, our biggest quarter, I'd say around 30%-40% of revenue in Q4.

Constantine Davides (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Constantine. Looking forward to seeing you hopefully soon.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Richard Baldry with ROTH Capital. Please go ahead.

Richard Baldry (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. If we look at just baseline growth expectations for next year, it looks like it's a little baseline. Says around a 10% number. But your net retention's in the 20s. The number of DAAP deals was up 100% year over year. There's a lot of trending RGs higher. Can you talk about sort of the backdrop that's put that baseline in for your forecasting, how conservative you think it is, if there's any externalities we should be thinking about as we think about next year?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Hey, Rich. Happy to talk about it. Good to hear your voice. Ed, maybe I'll start and then pass it back to you.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Sure. Yep.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

I think we're encouraged, Rich, by the start to the new year. We're feeling very optimistic about what the year could look like. As we talked about several weeks back during my interim period, we're going to err on the side of conservatism and go for a beat each time. We'll let the numbers speak for themselves. You're right about the KPIs and how things are looking going forward. I think we're all encouraged by that, but it's still early days for us. We're going to have a bias toward conservatism naturally and just let the numbers speak for themselves. Ed, feel free to chime in and share anything else you'd like to there.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

No, I think you covered it well, Steve. I would just say, look, I mean, out of the gates, our book of business is solid. We're up 20% versus last year's Q1, but there's still a lot of wood to chop throughout the year. Obviously, the second half of the year is always our biggest two quarters. We are optimistic, but we want to be cautious and want to make sure this year we actually deliver on what we are putting out there.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Rich, the one thing I'd say to you just to sort of strengthen or sort of give a strong response to your question here is we've not had this level of visibility in our business for a very long time, to Ed's earlier comment. I think we're all feeling encouraged about that, but we have committed to under-promise and over-deliver throughout the year. That'll be the drumbeat you hear from us, but we're off to a great start.

Richard Baldry (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

I often think about companies when their net retention rate's as strong as yours is, the customers are obviously pretty happy with what they have, the existing customers. How does that translate to new client or new drug win rates? How do you think your pipeline for that looks? How have those cadences sort of changed as DAAPs become more recognized in the market? Thanks.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah. Great question. I'll take it. Andy, if you wanted to chime in too. One of the things that was great about the fourth quarter for us was we did see a significant increase in new logos coming into the business, and that was very encouraging. Net revenue retention looking great, new logos also looking very strong. One of the key learnings for us as a business was we saw that the DAAP solution and other solutions that we have in the portfolio and the DTC solutions meet sort of several business needs that mid-tier and smaller companies can't afford to bring in-house or do for themselves. They outsource a lot more of their thinking to companies like ours, and that was radically beneficial.

We're starting to see growth in the mid and small markets, which is super encouraging because, as you know, Rich, the long tail is a massive opportunity that no one's really addressing at this point. Great question. Andy, anything else you'd add to that?

Andrew D'Silva (Senior VP of Corporate Finance)

Yeah, yeah. While still fairly early days, I'd say we're seeing some synergies with our sales team, stronger collaborations, and that's just fostering a better culture and driving more business. Again, still early. We'd like to see more of what we've been seeing over the last six months continue, but definitely optimistic.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yeah. Just one more thing to add to that. On external factors, I mean, a couple of years ago, we had a little hiccup with the FDA. A number of approvals dropped significantly. We are watching that very closely, especially with some of the things that are going on in Washington, DC. So far, so good. In 2025, there are about five approvals versus last year's three approvals at the same time in the middle of the year. As long as that number continues to kind of move at that pace, pharma typically will be pretty pleased in terms of their portfolio health and the ability to get products to market. That is one metric we are watching very closely.

Richard Baldry (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Congrats on the new seat, Steve.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Rich. Appreciate the support.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street. Excuse me. Our next question comes from David Grossman with Stifel. Please go ahead.

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Good morning. Thank you. I know, Steve, you talked already a little bit about your migration to a subscription-based model, but wondering if you could just explore that a little bit more and talk about, first, what compels the customer to migrate to more of a subscription versus a transactional model? I guess, how does this potentially flow into other parts of the business, maybe that are more transactional in nature now, but could actually convert to subscription-based businesses down the road?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Hey, David, great to hear your voice. Yeah. If you think about our historical business, it was largely transactional-based because we were delivering or have been and continue to deliver messages, whether it's point of care or on the DTC front via the DSP. That'll still be a large component of the business. The pieces that have evolved over the last, I would say, 36 months are really the DAAP components, which is mobilization of data. Thinking about finding patients and physicians and mobilizing that data to be able to deliver those messages based off of that information. That's a growing part of our business. As Ed said, it went from 10%, 15%, to now a little bit over 30% of our business.

That lends itself to being naturally subscriptive because clients are looking for regular real-time updates to where those patients and where those physicians are. They are not looking to buy at a single point in time, have a stale list, and then have to buy it again 12 months down the road. The frequency of that information being updated real-time is a major value driver within the market. That applies both to DTC and to HCP, so both components of our business. We are confident that that growth rate will continue. That is why we are seeing kind of that reoccurring or subscriptive revenue start to grow, which is, I think, very encouraging for this business. The transactional components of message delivery, those will not be subscriptive. Those will continue to be transactional. That is the nature of how that business operates.

A good component of the growth will now come from audience creation within our business.

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Is there any material difference in the customer acquisition costs for the data component versus the transactional component? Anything to think about there?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

No material difference at all. It's the same conversation, same call point, same sales team that's doing it. Customer acquisition is exactly the same. In fact, the DAAP deals that we've done, a good component of each of those DAAP deals has been that audience, has been that dynamic audience in addition to the transactional stuff. We're already now 24, probably 36 months into that transition.

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Right. Just on the, I know this was asked earlier about the revenue retention rate. Is there something in the 2020, I'm trying to remember, something in the 2024 number that impacts that so that 2025 will not necessarily be a good comp to that? Just trying to remember whether that number is kind of artificially high, and maybe we should expect it, at least from a modeling perspective, to come down a little bit on a year-over-year basis.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Are you talking about?

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Yeah.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah. Are you, sorry. Are you talking about the upfront portion of DAAP revenue as far as the model fee?

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Yes.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

I do not think that is going to be as pronounced in 2025 as it was in 2024. There will definitely still be some of that going on, but it will not be as pronounced.

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Okay. Andy, can you give us a better sense of how to think about revenue retention in 2025 just as we think about building our models?

Andrew D'Silva (Senior VP of Corporate Finance)

Net revenue retention?

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew D'Silva (Senior VP of Corporate Finance)

Yeah. I would say we're targeting 100% for the year. Our revenue growth at USD 100 million is just under 10%, right? Typically, we see, call it, between 5-20% of our business coming from new logos. Yeah, we're targeting 100%.

David Grossman (Managing Director)

Great. All right, guys. Thank you and good luck.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, David. Appreciate this support.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Thanks, David.

Operator (participant)

Now, our next question comes from Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Eric Martinuzzi (Senior Research Analyst)

Yep. Just curious regarding the administration of the Medicx Health business. One of the issues that the company had faced in 2024 was a shift on the amount of managed services. Customers going from managed service to self-service. I was wondering where we are in that transition. Have most of the large exposures been handled there, or are we still kind of midstream?

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Hey, Eric. Great to hear from you. Thanks for the question. Yeah. Luckily, we are through that transition of managed service. There's still a very small component of the business for MedX that has some revenue attached to managed service, but it's de minimis. What we can share also is that, notwithstanding that kind of one-time hit last year of the adjustment for managed service, the other solutions in that portfolio are growing very nicely. Specifically, the audience component of that business is what's showing the most growth, and that's obviously our highest margin, best profile solution. Very much in line with kind of the guidance and the direction that we've shared on the call today.

Eric Martinuzzi (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks for taking my question.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Absolutely. Great to hear from you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jeff Garro with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

Jeff Garro (Managing Direcor and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Steve, let me chime in as well with congrats on the new and permanent role. I want to hit on the margin outlook embedded in the guidance, and maybe we can break that down to gross margin and OpEx. On the gross margin front, curious if there's any kind of changes in product mix you would call out. It seems like it should continue to trend favorably with the emphasis on the data subscriptions, but wanted to check in there. On the OpEx front, Steve, any incremental OpEx investment to really push that customer centricity that you were speaking about earlier? Thanks.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate the question. I'll ask Ed to go ahead and comment.

Edward Stelmakh (CFO)

Yeah. As far as margin breakdown is concerned, we do not guide at the gross margin level, but you can probably figure out that we are going to be in the low to mid-60% range. That increases as the year goes on, mainly due to mix. As the year goes on, we get more and more new DAAP deals in, and those generate higher margins for us. As far as bottom line is concerned, the same thing. It is a highly leverageable business model. We are guiding to kind of at least USD 12 million in adjusted EBITDA. The first quarter or two typically are on the low side, and then we start to ramp up pretty aggressively on the back end of the year.

Jeff Garro (Managing Direcor and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. That helps. I want to ask one on the competitive environment. We saw early here in 2025, a competitor added to its direct-to-consumer capabilities. I wanted to check in whether you're seeing any impact from them or others mirroring your strategy of combining HCP and DTC approaches or any other changes to the competitive environment, including on that data subscription side that's gained momentum of late? Thanks.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. The competitive environment is definitely interesting. I mean, with the DTC acquisition of the DTC business in addition to our business, it brought a whole sort of different component of competition that we're dealing with, which I think is obviously welcome. It also has given us a good sort of landing pad for learning in terms of where we have opportunities to bring the HCP and DTC business together to compete more effectively. We still remain the only business out there that's able to bring HCP and DTC together at scale with a proprietary network. As we said in the script, we really have, we're pretty sanguine on our position in terms of our competitive advantage in that area and ability to scale.

I think I'll give a shout-out to our Chief Product and Technology Officer, Doug Besch, who's done a wonderful job of bringing those audiences together. That's the data component that we've been kind of talking about throughout this call. When you start to bring those together and deliver those succinctly to the same client, there's obviously revenue synergy. There's growth opportunity. There's larger subscription growth specifically. It just creates a much better recurring business and a stronger foothold within our existing client base. I think we're all encouraged by what we're seeing there and feel pretty confident that we're in a good position to beat the competition. We'll continue to be humble about it and lean in, see how we go, Jeff, but we're feeling pretty strong.

Jeff Garro (Managing Direcor and Equity Research Analyst)

Excellent. Thanks again for taking the questions.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

You got it. Thank you for the questions.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Silvestro for any closing remarks.

Steve Silvestro (CEO)

Thank you, Operator. Once again, thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. Even though these remain early days and still relatively new to the industry, we believe that our business model, solutions, and tech platform are responding to and meaningfully addressing customers' needs. As it stands today, our synchronized HCP and DTC marketing capabilities, which are based on brand eligibility signals coupled with expanded functionality that includes micro-neighborhood targeting that delivers hyper-local privacy, patient, and HCP audiences, is widening the competitive moat against our competitors. The remainder of the year will be extremely focused on increased customer utilization of DAAP and of establishing a consistent recurring revenue component to our business as we convert our customers to a subscription-based model as we drive towards becoming a Rule of 40 company. We believe these initiatives will be transformative and are critical to our efforts to drive shareholder value creation.

Thank you for your time today, and I look forward to our next quarter's earnings call as well as meeting with more of you at the upcoming conferences throughout the year. Have a fantastic rest of your day. Operator, please proceed with OptimizeRx's Safe Harbor Statement.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide the company's Safe Harbor Statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during today's call. Statements made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the definition of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements should not be used to make investment decisions. The words anticipate, estimate, expect, possible, and seeking and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. They may speak only to the date that such statements are made.

Forward-looking statements in this call include statements regarding our growth plans, plans for shareholder value creation, converting more customers to our recurring model, becoming a Rule of 40 company, unlocking new opportunities for profitable revenue growth, our plans to make our revenue streams more predictable, plans to drive substantial operating leverage, estimated 2025 revenue and adjusted EBITDA ranges, estimation of total addressable market size, market penetration, revenue growth, gross margin, operating expenses, profitability, cash flow, technology, investments, growth opportunities, acquisitions, and upcoming announcements. Forward-looking statements also include the management's expectations for the rest of the year. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified.

Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying these forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties to which forward-looking statements are subject to include, but are not limited to, the effects of government regulation, competition, dependence on a concentrated group of customers, cybersecurity incidents that could disrupt operations, the ability to keep pace with growing and evolving technology, the ability to maintain contracts with electronic prescription platforms and electronic health record networks, and other material risks. Risks and uncertainties to which forward-looking statements are subject could affect business and financial results are included in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in other filings the company has made and may make with the SEC in the future. These filings, when made, are available on the company's website and on the SEC website at sec.gov.

Before we end today's conference, I would like to remind everyone that an audio recording of this conference call will be available for replay starting later this evening, running through for a year on the investor section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.