Workday, Inc. · WDAY · FY2025 Q3 · Calendar Q4 2024

Workday raises margin outlook as AI adoption broadens

The supplied analysis supports a constructive but conditional view: Workday combined 16% subscription growth with raised FY25 margin guidance, while AI adoption and full-suite wins broadened. The next-year case depends on converting AI and partner momentum into durable revenue without allowing higher AI investment, deal timing, or European weakness to dilute margin progress.

Reported After market closeNASDAQTechnology $45.99B market cap
80quality score

Earnings scorecard

Reported versus consensus
Reported EPS — Consensus $1.76
EPS surprise — Reported versus consensus
Reported revenue — Consensus $2.13B
Revenue surprise — Reported versus consensus

Market reaction

event-close to next-session close
Stock move -6.2% Event window
SPY move -0.3% Same window
Abnormal move -5.9% Stock minus SPY
Volume 7.2× Versus trailing sessions
Subsequent drift +5.1% Up to 20 sessions
WDAYSPY benchmark

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Transcript intelligence

What changed

Compared with the prior-quarter analysis, management raised FY25 non-GAAP margin guidance, provided an early FY26 subscription revenue outlook, and described increasing AI investment. The current analysis also adds Workday Illuminate, Evisort, and stronger evidence of AI penetration in expansion deals, while highlighting revenue-timing and European-demand risks.

Guidance delta

FY25 non-GAAP operating margin guidance was raised to 25.5%; an early FY26 subscription revenue outlook of about $8.8 billion was provided.

Key takeaways

  • Subscription revenue grew 16% year over year, with 98% gross revenue retention.
  • AI solutions appeared in more than 30% of expansion deals, while full-suite wins exceeded 35% of net new customers.
  • Recruiter Agent closed more new logos in Q3 than in its prior 12-year history, according to the supplied analysis.

Management priorities

  • Expand Workday Illuminate and AI agents including Recruiter, Expenses, Successor, and Optimize.
  • Drive full-suite adoption across HCM, Finance, and Supply Chain, including public-sector wins.
  • Scale partner-led distribution and Extend Pro custom application development.

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Earnings History

Estimate Beat Miss Match
WDAY EPS earnings history estimate and actual scatter chart 9 reported fiscal quarters and 2 future estimate-only quarters. Q3 '24 estimate $1.40 Q3 '24 actual $1.53, beat Q4 '24 estimate $1.47 Q4 '24 actual $1.57, beat Q1 '25 estimate $1.60 Q1 '25 actual $1.74, beat Q2 '25 estimate $1.65 Q2 '25 actual $1.75, beat Q2 '26 estimate $2.11 Q2 '26 actual $2.21, beat Q3 '26 estimate $2.17 Q3 '26 actual $2.32, beat Q4 '26 estimate $2.32 Q4 '26 actual $2.47, beat Q1 '27 estimate $2.51 Q1 '27 actual $2.66, beat Q2 '27 estimate $2.61 Q2 '27 actual $2.75, beat Q3 '27 estimate $2.75 Q4 '27 estimate $2.95
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Analyst Consensus ?

ConsensusHold78 ratings
Bullish3848.7%
Neutral3747.4%
Bearish33.9%

1 unmapped firm rating excluded from the percentages.

Analyst 52W Price Targets

$194.57Current
$125Low
$222.39Average
$320High

Latest persisted target per named analyst; persisted current price from FN2's market snapshot as of Oct 19, 2026. Not an FN2 forecast.

Firm-level rating actions

FMP grade actions identify the grading firm, not a named analyst.

FirmRatingPrior ratingActionDate
Keybanc Sector Perform OverweightDowngradeOct 16, 2026
Stifel Hold HoldMaintainOct 15, 2026
UBS Neutral NeutralMaintainOct 14, 2026
Jefferies Hold HoldMaintainOct 8, 2026
Needham Buy BuyMaintainOct 5, 2026
Show 74 more rating actions

Named analyst price targets

Upside is calculated against the persisted current price $194.57. FMP does not supply a rating on these named-analyst rows.

FirmAnalyst52W targetPrice when postedUpsideDate
UBSAnalyst unavailable$175$188.77 -10.1%Oct 15, 2026
Mizuho SecuritiesSiti Panigrahi$210$186.02 +7.9%Oct 14, 2026
JefferiesBrent Thill$210$184.26 +7.9%Oct 8, 2026
UBSAnalyst unavailable$210$184.26 +7.9%Oct 7, 2026
Goldman SachsAnalyst unavailable$164$198.08 -15.7%Aug 31, 2026
See 171 more

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Company context

Snapshot as of publication

Workday, Inc. delivers comprehensive, cloud-hosted enterprise software solutions to clients worldwide. These platforms empower organizations to strategize, operate, examine performance, integrate with existing systems, and oversee their overall business functions. A core offering includes a robust suite of financial management tools. These are designed to assist Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) in meticulously maintaining general ledger accounting data, streamlining financial workflows, gaining instant insights into financial and operational metrics, optimizing consolidation, accelerating month-end closes, bolstering internal controls and audit readiness, and ensuring uniformity throughout their financial activities. Workday also provides cloud-based spend management solutions. These facilitate smoother supplier engagement and contract administration, optimize the handling of indirect expenditures, and enable the effective execution of sourcing initiatives, including requests for proposals (RFPs).…

Historical context

All WDAY earnings

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Latest beats and misses

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Sources

  1. Earnings call transcript and parsed analysis · 2026-05-11T10:29:34.698584+00:00
  2. FN2 earnings calendar · 2024-11-12T00:05:02.794111+00:00
  3. Polygon adjusted daily market bars · 2026-10-19T17:40:46.364703+00:00
  4. Financial Modeling Prep analyst price-target consensus and quote snapshot · 2026-10-19T17:40:46.361823+00:00

Methodology

Reported and consensus figures come from FN2's earnings event records. Market reaction and volume are calculated from daily adjusted bars around the event; abnormal move subtracts the SPY move over the same window.

Analyst target low, average, and high values are derived at request time from each named analyst's latest persisted FMP target. The current-price marker comes from FN2's persisted market snapshot. They are sell-side estimates, not an FN2 valuation or recommendation.

Transcript intelligence is a structured synthesis of the current and prior earnings-call analyses. Missing values stay missing and are never estimated.

By FN2 Research · Updated · As of 2026-10-19. For educational purposes only; not investment advice.