Toast, Inc. (NYSE:TOST) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tien-Tsin Huang: Understood. That’s fair. Thank you so much.

Aman Narang: Thanks, Tien-Tsin.

Operator: Our next question is from Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Jason Kupferberg: Hey. Thanks guys. So just on revenue, obviously, the growth rate here is still robust but we didn’t see the kind of upside if you will that we’ve been accustomed to seeing on revenue from Toast. And you talked about some slower ARPU. You talked about some slowdown in same-store sales I mean maybe latter point. Can you quantify how much the same-store sales slowed down late in Q3? And just any other call-outs that you might have seen in the quarter parts of the business that perhaps weren’t quite as strong as you might have envisioned?

Elena Gomez : Yes. So let me take your question sort of in the – there’s lots in your question but – at the highest level, the guidance that you’re seeing for the balance of the year really reflects the macro that we talked about so GPV per location coming down. In September, in particular, as we start to see that trend it’s continuing into October. And so our guidance reflects the macro playing a role. But just zooming out the momentum in the business that we have exiting the year into Q4 still remains healthy regardless of the macro. So as we think about the next year, just give some color on that, we’re growing healthy. We’ve got a great operating leverage story. So as we enter into 2024, we’re going to go in with the same discipline, focus on growth and as well on cost discipline.

And we’ve delivered healthy growth alongside driving this operating leverage over $160 million in a year. So really proud of that. So despite the macro of course we’re paying attention to it but that doesn’t change the sentiment of this management team about the opportunity ahead of us. I think the one thing I’ll say is we’re going to continue to invest obviously in the core business but we’ve got some investments in some of our emerging businesses as well, which will help us really position us for long-term growth.

Jason Kupferberg: Right. Right. That makes sense. And then just coming back to the upsell team I think you mentioned, they’re going to become an even more critical, part of the growth story going forward. Anything you can share just in terms of the size of that team now? And what sort of productivity gains you’ve perhaps seen there? And to the extent you still see headroom in their productivity.

Aman Narang: Yes. Thanks, Jason. Good question. Look I think as we mentioned in the previous calls, the team that’s going after new business, new locations is a lot more mature. It’s been around for 10 years plus. And the upsell team is newer and we continue to refine and build it out. We do see it as an opportunity for us. We think there’s headroom in the terms of everything from growing that team to continue to optimize the motion and how we partner between the new business team of lending restaurants, how we expand ARPU over time. And as I mentioned in the script in the long-term, we see this as an important part of our growth story over time.

Jason Kupferberg: Thank you.

Aman Narang: Thanks, Jason.

Operator: Thank you, Jason. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Josh Baer with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Josh Baer: Thank you for the question. I was hoping you could double-click on the GPV per location commentary. If you could provide any data or insights into what seeing as far as the number of items on the ticket or trading down other consumer behaviors just as it relates to restaurant sales.