Executive Summary
Autodesk delivered solid top-line growth in QQ3 2025, highlighting an 11% reported revenue increase and 12% growth in constant currency versus the prior year, supported by a broad-based expansion across product lines and regions. The rollout of the new transaction model and accelerated shift toward direct billing contributed to a meaningful lift in billings (up 28% in the quarter, with the new model adding roughly $72 million to billings in Q3 and $108 million year-to-date). Despite a temporary margin headwind from Autodesk University timing and the transition, management reaffirmed and modestly raised full-year guidance, signaling confidence in mid-term profitability and free cash flow expansion as the company completes the transition and benefits from scale. The company emphasizes AI and cloud as core growth accelerants (including Bernini and Tandem), a strengthened go-to-market through self-service and direct relationships, and a continued focus on capital discipline (notably share buybacks) to create long-term shareholder value. While near-term FX and co-terming headwinds pose risks, Autodesk remains positioned to drive margin expansion toward the upper end of its long-term targets and to show durable gross margins and improving free cash flow over the next two fiscal years.
Key Performance Indicators
Key Insights
Revenue: $1.57B in QQ3 2025, up 11% YoY and 12% in constant currency. Gross margin: 90.6% (gross profit $1.423B). Operating income: $346M; operating margin: 22.0%. Net income: $275M; net margin: 17.5%. EPS (GAAP): $1.28; EPS (Diluted): $1.27. Free cash flow (quarter): $199M; FCF guidance for FY25 midpoint raised to $1.47–$1.50B, with FY26 midpoint around $2.05B. Billings growth: +28% in the quarter; new-transaction-model tailwind to billings: 5.0–5.5 percentage points in FY2025. RPO: Total $...
Financial Highlights
Revenue: $1.57B in QQ3 2025, up 11% YoY and 12% in constant currency. Gross margin: 90.6% (gross profit $1.423B). Operating income: $346M; operating margin: 22.0%. Net income: $275M; net margin: 17.5%. EPS (GAAP): $1.28; EPS (Diluted): $1.27. Free cash flow (quarter): $199M; FCF guidance for FY25 midpoint raised to $1.47–$1.50B, with FY26 midpoint around $2.05B. Billings growth: +28% in the quarter; new-transaction-model tailwind to billings: 5.0–5.5 percentage points in FY2025. RPO: Total $6.1B; current RPO $4.0B, up 17% and 14% YoY respectively. Deferred revenue: down 9% to $3.7B. Direct revenue: up 23% and represents 42% of total revenue. Net revenue retention: 100%–110% at constant FX. Cash and equivalents: $1.437B; total debt: $2.578B; net debt: $1.141B.
Income Statement
| Metric |
Value |
YoY Change |
QoQ Change |
| Revenue |
1.57B |
11.03% |
4.32% |
| Gross Profit |
1.42B |
10.57% |
4.25% |
| Operating Income |
346.00M |
3.59% |
0.87% |
| Net Income |
275.00M |
14.11% |
-2.48% |
| EPS |
1.28 |
13.27% |
-2.29% |
Key Financial Ratios
operatingProfitMargin
22%
operatingCashFlowPerShare
$0.97
freeCashFlowPerShare
$1.11
Management Commentary
Strategic execution and long-term model: Autodesk highlights ongoing optimization of go-to-market through a transition to consumption, self-service, and direct billing, with the goal of stronger direct customer relationships and higher sales/marketing efficiency. Quote: 'The new transaction model will enable tighter channel partnerships with less duplication of effort and more digital self-service and automation, which increases customer satisfaction and workforce productivity.' (Andrew Anagnost) AI and product strategy: Autodesk frames AI as embedded across products with Bernini as a top-down foundation model and emphasizes being ahead in AI integration and monetization potential. Quote: 'AI is embedded in everything we're doing... Bernini is a top-down type innovation where you're actually specifying things and trying to generate a preliminary outcome from those specifications.' (Andrew Anagnost) Construction/Manufacturing momentum: Construction cloud adoption is expanding, with net-new customer growth and stronger renewal/expansion. Several ENR contractor examples cited (Power Construction, Bouygues, Surbana Jurong) illustrating cross-domain value from unify design-to-construction workflows. Quote: 'Power will have a single source of truth for project data, enhanced collaboration capabilities and streamlined workflows on a single platform.' (Andrew Anagnost) Capital allocation and guidance: Betsy Rafael describes accelerated buybacks and increased authorization to ~$9B, and management raises midpoints for key metrics, citing ongoing noise from the transition but improving underlying momentum. Quote: 'We are raising the midpoint of our billing, revenue, margin, earnings per share and free cash flow guidance ranges.' (Betsy Rafael) Transition and leadership: Betsy Rafael discusses seamless transition and Janesh joining as CFO, emphasizing continuity of progress and governance during leadership change. Quote: 'We will continue to deploy capital to offset and buy forward dilution as our free cash flow grows... Janesh will be instrumental in sustaining momentum.' (Andrew Anagnost) Macro backdrop and portfolio: Management emphasizes a resilient business model, strong renewal rates, and bipartisan infrastructure spend trends that underpin Autodesk's near-term growth outlook despite macro headwinds. Quote: 'The things that matter to our customers are bipartisan things... infrastructure build outs and domestic manufacturing.' (Andrew Anagnost)
"The new transaction model will enable tighter channel partnerships with less duplication of effort and more digital self-service and automation, which increases customer satisfaction and workforce productivity."
— Andrew Anagnost
"AI is embedded in everything we're doing from a bottom up and a top down perspective... Bernini is top-down type innovation where you're actually specifying things and trying to generate a preliminary outcome from those specifications."
— Andrew Anagnost
Forward Guidance
Autodesk maintains a constructive full-year outlook with continued normalization of the billings and revenue trajectory as the new transaction model scales. Key takeaways: (i) Billings guidance raised by $10M to $5.90B–$5.98B, implying a 5.0–5.5 percentage point tailwind from the new model in FY2025. (ii) Revenue guidance increased to $6.12B–$6.13B, with the new model contributing about 1.0–1.5 percentage point to growth, while upfront revenue headwinds from Q4 FY2024 are expected to be offset over time. (iii) GAAP margin guidance raised to 21.5%–22.0% and non-GAAP margin to 35.5%–36.0%, reflecting an underlying margin improvement plus investments in people/processes/automation to support go-to-market optimization. (iv) Free cash flow guidance raised to $1.47B–$1.50B for FY2025, with a clear path to approximately $2.05B in FY2026 driven by renewal cohorts returning, multiyear contracts billed annually, and a larger EBA cohort. (v) Free cash flow is viewed as the best performance metric given the noise associated with the transition. Risks to guidance include FX headwinds, co-terming effects, and the pace of adoption of the new model across regions. Investors should monitor: (a) progress of the Western Europe rollout and remaining geography-wide transitions; (b) execution of AE/EB/Contract-automation initiatives; (c) renewal cohorts in FY2026 and potential upsell opportunities; (d) currency volatility; (e) progress on Bernini monetization and broader AI-enabled offerings. Overall, the trajectory appears achievable given the current momentum and disciplined capital deployment, but investors should remain mindful of the transition noise and macro uncertainty.