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ACV Auctions Inc. (ACVA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

60 segments

Prepared remarks

OperatorOperator

Greetings. Welcome to the ACV Q2 2026 earnings conference call. Operator instructions were provided to participants. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tim Fox, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Tim. You may begin.

Timothy FoxVice President, Investor Relations

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining ACV's conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 financial results. With me on the call today are George Chamoun, Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Zerella, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, please note that today's comments include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future financial guidance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and involve factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. A discussion of the risks and uncertainties related to our business can be found in our SEC filings and in today's press release, both of which can be found on our Investor Relations website. During this call, we will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is provided in today's earnings materials, which can also be found on our Investor Relations website. With that, let me turn the call over to George.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Thanks, Tim. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with our second quarter performance and execution while facing a challenging market environment. We delivered record revenue with adjusted EBITDA exceeding the high end of guidance. In addition to solid financial results, we made significant progress on our three key objectives. First, we continue to gain market share and expand our dealer partner network to a new record. The combination of increasing our field capacity and penetration of our no-reserve offering contributed to our growth. Second, we had another strong quarter of performance in ACV Transport and ACV Capital, along with growing adoption of our value-added dealer solutions. And third, we are gaining traction with our emerging growth initiatives, including very strong demand for ViPR and momentum in the commercial wholesale segment. While macro headwinds caused conversion rates to compress below expectations in June and July, we believe conditions will begin to stabilize and remain committed to delivering double-digit revenue growth and increased adjusted EBITDA while investing in our exciting growth objectives. We're confident that executing on this profitable growth strategy will create significant long-term shareholder value. With that, let's turn to a recap of our results on slide 4. We delivered another record revenue quarter with growth of 10% despite continuing headwinds in the dealer wholesale market with volumes contracting approximately 6% year over year. And we continue to gain market share, selling 211,000 vehicles in the quarter. Next, on slide 5, we focus on the pillars of our strategy to maximize long-term shareholder value by delivering innovation that is driving growth and scale. I'll begin with growth. On slide 7, I will highlight our growth initiatives in dealer wholesale. As we discussed last quarter, we are investing in additional field capacity to broaden our regional growth performance, which resulted in a record number of dealer visits, inspections, and dealers transacting on our marketplace. We expect that these investments, along with improving conversion rates, will yield accelerated unit growth in the coming quarters. We also continue to leverage machine learning, combining inspection data and market data to provide real-time pricing. Our platform powers ACV guarantees to sellers and delivers no-reserve auctions to buyers. Our no-reserve offering remains the fastest-growing channel on our marketplace that benefits sellers, buyers, and ACV. We're removing seller market risk, accelerating bidder engagement, and increasing buyer satisfaction, while delivering a 100% conversion rate. We're confident our guaranteed offering will continue to be a key driver of market share gains. Turning to slide 8, let's review our marketplace service offerings. The transport team had strong execution in Q2 with 19% revenue growth and 125,000 transports delivered. By leveraging AI to optimize transport pricing, we continue to drive strong growth and operating efficiency. And despite the increase in diesel fuel during the quarter, the team executed incredibly well, delivering a transport revenue margin and attach rate that remained in line with our mid-term target. Lastly, our off-platform transport service continues to gain traction from our dealer partners, creating additional growth opportunities. ACV Capital also delivered strong performance, with attach rates reaching a new record in the high teens. Our expanded go-to-market strategy, new product offerings, and process enhancements to manage portfolio risk resulted in another strong quarter for the ACV Capital team. On slide 9, we highlight how we're further differentiating ACV and creating additional growth opportunities with our suite of AI-driven products. ClearCar and ACV MAX are adding tremendous value to our dealer partners and also contributing to our wholesale market share gains. By enabling our dealer partners to optimize inventory and automate vehicle selling and buying, we strengthen their ability to source more vehicles from consumers. As a result, our top 100 ClearCar customers doubled the volume of quarterly wholesale transactions on ACV after launching ClearCar. While ClearCar has proven to be a highly effective sourcing tool for our dealer partners, while increasing wholesale volumes on ACV, we're confident that ViPR delivers even more value through a powerful suite of ACV-enabled solutions. We have received very positive feedback during our successful early access beta program and are pleased that today marks the official launch of commercial availability for ViPR. We are already engaged with half of the top 50 dealer groups in the country, and our pipeline continues to grow. Through ViPR, our industry-leading inspection data and vehicle pricing capabilities enable dealers to unlock consumer vehicle acquisition at scale in the service lane and seamlessly identify service upsell opportunities. We are also on track to integrate with the leading dealer software vendors to create a truly seamless experience in dealership service lanes. We remain on track to grow ViPR's footprint in coming quarters, offering a ViPR bundle with wholesale to create a powerful new lever to drive unit growth and expand our network. In addition, we have also started to leverage ViPR for vehicle inspections at our remarketing centers. While it's still early, we are confident that this solution will be an additional lever to drive improved unit economics. Lastly, as we highlighted in recent quarters, the internal adoption of AI tools across ACV has enabled us to gain meaningful velocity and efficiency. As such, we have even more confidence in delivering our differentiated product roadmap to support our growth objectives. Next on slide 10, I'll wrap up the growth section with our commercial wholesale strategy, a large adjacent market with both upstream and downstream opportunities. Our team has made significant progress on our software platform, and we believe this new digital model and end-to-end experience will transform commercial vehicle remarketing. Our differentiated offering is attracting large commercial consignors. We recently began remarketing vehicles from a top 5 fleet consignor and are in the final stages of securing a second large-scale consignor. We're also integrating with a large captive finance off-lease company and adding another top 4 rental car consignor to our marketplace. The commercial segment provides another exciting growth lever for us, and we are confident that we can accelerate wholesale volumes in the coming quarters. With that, I'll hand over to Bill to take you through our financial results and how we're driving growth at scale.

William ZerellaChief Financial Officer

Thanks, George, and thank you for joining us today. ACV's second quarter results reinforce our commitment to deliver profitable growth while investing to drive dealer wholesale market share gains and to support key growth initiatives. On slide 12, let's begin with a brief recap of our second quarter results. Revenue of $214 million was within our guidance range, and grew 10% year over year compared to strong results in Q2 '25. Adjusted EBITDA of $21 million exceeded the high end of guidance, reflecting strong unit economics and expense discipline. Finally, non-GAAP net income of $10 million was at the high end of our guidance range. Next, on slide 13, let's review additional revenue details. Auction and assurance revenue was 55% of total revenue and grew 6% year over year against a tough comparison of 20% growth in Q2 '25. This performance reflects approximately flat unit growth in the context of a 6% decline in the dealer wholesale market. Auction and assurance ARPU of $554 grew 6% year over year. Marketplace services revenue was 41% of total revenue and grew 17% year over year, reflecting continued strong performance for ACV Transport and ACV Capital. Lastly, our SaaS and Data Services products comprise 4% of total revenue with growth of 3% year over year driven by further adoption of ACV MAX. Next, I'll review Q2 costs on slide 14. Non-GAAP cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue increased approximately 300 basis points year over year. The increase was primarily driven by a higher mix of no-reserve sales on our marketplace. As a reminder, no-reserve sales typically have modestly higher costs than standard auction sales. However, they drive strong blended conversion rates, improved marketplace liquidity, and importantly, are accretive to adjusted EBITDA. In fact, we delivered record adjusted EBITDA per unit, increasing 11% year over year in Q2. Furthermore, our two most profitable regions continue to expand EBITDA per unit with our most profitable region delivering over $300 per unit. Non-GAAP operating expense, excluding cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue, decreased approximately 300 basis points year over year, reflecting operating leverage in our model while continuing to invest in key growth initiatives. Moving to slide 15, I'll frame our investment strategy as we drive profitable growth. In 2026, we expect OpEx growth of approximately 6%, which is a decline from 12% in 2025. As a reminder, our 2026 OpEx includes additional go-to-market spending to support regional growth objectives. Even with these growth investments, adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to increase by approximately 100 basis points year over year. Next, I will highlight our strong capital structure on slide 16. We ended Q2 with $242 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $205 million in debt. Note that our cash balance includes $175 million of marketplace float and reflects the $50 million accelerated share repurchase program we announced last quarter. In terms of operating cash flow, the year-on-year decline for the first half of 2026 was primarily driven by the change in marketplace float. The amount of float on our balance sheet will continue to fluctuate meaningfully based on business trends in the final two weeks of each quarter, which has a corresponding impact on operating cash flow. Looking forward, we are expecting to generate positive operating cash flow in the back half of the year, reflecting continued adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion. Turning to guidance on slide 17, we are reaffirming our 2026 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance, despite uncertain macroeconomic conditions and our expectation that the dealer wholesale market will begin to stabilize in the back half of this year. Now for the details. Third quarter revenue is expected to be $219 million to $225 million, growth of 10% to 13%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $21 million to $24 million, reflecting a 10% to 11% margin. We continue to expect 2026 revenue of $845 million to $855 million, growth of 11% to 13%. Note that full year revenue guidance assumes that our go-to-market investments are expected to drive modestly higher growth in the second half of the year. We continue to expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be $73 million to $77 million, growth of approximately 27% year over year. We are expecting 2026 cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue to be modestly higher than in 2025, more than offset by OpEx efficiencies. Lastly, we are expecting non-GAAP OpEx excluding cost of revenue to grow approximately 6% year over year as we continue to drive further cost optimizations. And with that, let me turn it back to George.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Thanks, Bill. Turning to slide 18, I will summarize. We are pleased with our Q2 execution, delivering record adjusted EBITDA of $21 million, while navigating through challenging market conditions. We continue to enhance our technology and operating models, ultimately making us more resilient. We are attracting new dealer and commercial partners to our marketplace and expanding our addressable market, which positions ACV for attractive growth as market conditions improve. We are delivering on an exciting product roadmap, powered by ACV AI to further differentiate ACV and drive operating efficiencies. With ViPR now available and our commercial offering ready, we are entering an exciting new phase of growth. We are focused on achieving strong adjusted EBITDA growth and delivering on our mid-term targets that we believe will drive significant shareholder value. We are committed to achieving these results while building a world-class team to deliver on our goals. Before we begin the Q&A session, I would like to thank Bill for his partnership and the contributions he's made during his tenure as CFO. He has been instrumental in our evolution, supporting the company through its IPO and scaling ACV into the industry leader we are today. We wish him the best in his next chapter. I'm also very pleased to welcome Tim into his new role of CFO. Tim is exceptionally well-suited, bringing proven financial acumen and a deep understanding of ACV's strategy, operations, and growth opportunities. He has played a pivotal role in shaping our financial strategy and communicating our vision to the investment community. We are confident he is the right leader to help advance our strategy to create value for shareholders. In turn, I'll turn it over to Tim so he can share closing thoughts.

Timothy FoxCFO

Thank you, George. Look, I'm very honored to be named CFO and to continue working with you and the ACV leadership team to further propel our growth trajectory and build on a really strong foundation. There's really four key themes that I'd like to stress. One, our business model continues to deliver with adjusted EBITDA per unit setting a new record in the quarter. Secondly, our new field investments are beginning to pay dividends. If we look at the five emerging regions where we've leaned in mostly on go-to-market capacity, we delivered mid-teens unit growth in the second quarter. It's starting to really pay off. Thirdly, ViPR is at an exciting inflection point as we begin to secure commercial agreements and scale production to support strong growth in 2027. And lastly, our differentiated commercial strategy is gaining real traction with major commercial consignors, and we're confident it will be another meaningful growth driver going forward. And lastly, of course, I'm supported by an incredible team here at ACV and look forward to executing on our strategy. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator to begin our Q&A session.

Questions and answers

OperatorOperator

Operator instructions were provided to the participants. Our first question comes from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan.

Rajat GuptaAnalyst (JPMorgan)

I wanted to wish Bill best of luck and also congratulate Tim on the appointment. I look forward to working with you more closely. So maybe just on the quarter, it looks like you beat EBITDA numbers slightly. You're reiterating the full-year EBITDA guidance, revenue guidance, but OpEx was lowered and I'm curious if you could help understand the moving pieces there and why gross margins are trending lower, if you can help clarify that, and I have like a quick follow up.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Sure, Rajat, I'll start and then I'll have Tim chime in a little bit more. So really, we're showing commitment to hitting our EBITDA numbers regardless of all the macro challenges. We mentioned that there was a different conversion rates. But even with some of these challenges, you're just seeing strong execution. And we've been really informing our investors that revenue margin has changed a little bit over time, but EBITDA is growing. And I think also Bill shared on the call that in our largest regions, we hit all-time highs in EBITDA per unit. So very strong business model, very strong management from an overall OpEx perspective, you are starting to see AI help us become more efficient. So lots of benefits over here, but Tim, any more you want to chime in?

Timothy FoxCFO

Yes, I think that covers it. We mentioned revenue margin is compressing a little bit more than we had originally thought. But that's being more than offset by OpEx efficiencies. And given the current market headwinds, we really just want to be prudent about our cost structure and continue to drive a focus on the adjusted EBITDA expansion.

Rajat GuptaAnalyst (JPMorgan)

Got it. Yes, I just wanted to follow up on that philosophy. I know, George, we had this conversation a few quarters ago on an earnings call around this philosophy on EBITDA versus maybe going for growth. I mean you clearly have a competitor who is scaling pretty rapidly. It's a big TAM. Why wouldn't you prefer to accelerate some of the investments around go-to-market to maybe just target growth a little more aggressively? And just on a related point, would the company still be open to partnering with a strategic partner in order to maybe just help accelerate those investments, if that is a philosophy you're leading with to protect EBITDA right now?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes, Rajat, thanks for asking. To clarify: we are hiring materially in the field from a sales perspective and have a number of open roles. We’ve been hiring throughout the year, and Tim mentioned that in a handful of our regions we grew well year over year. Looking at the overall expense envelope, we will have more salespeople across ACV in the field selling — probably somewhere in the range of 15% to 20% more salespeople by the end of the year, maybe a little higher. There will also be more inspectors out in the market, so year over year you’ll see increases in both inspectors and salespeople. In other parts of the organization we needed fewer folks in some roles, so overall expenses reflect that. We are a lot more efficient by leveraging AI and in producing and building software, and we’re benefiting from scale. We are definitely leaning into sales between now and year end and expect our unit numbers to look better in the back half of the year; we’re going to execute on that. On the question of strategic partners, I don’t think a public call is the right time to discuss that, so no comment beyond that. On these other efforts, we’re feeling very good about the incremental investments we’re making in the field. If you visit our website you’ll see we’re recruiting for a number of roles, and so far so good.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Bob Labick with CJS Securities.

Bob LabickAnalyst (CJS Securities)

Super sorry about that. I'm not in my office, so I'm clearly confused here. Anyway, congrats to Tim. And Bill, it's been a real pleasure working with you, so good luck going forward. I appreciate you guys taking the call for my questions. I wanted to dig in on the last topic we were just talking about, the number of VCIs and territory managers kind of added. You talked about by year end you'll have 15% to 20% more territory managers and you'll be adding the inspectors as well. Where do you stand? Walk us through the ramp for these people. How much of the benefit has been seen so far or when does that benefit of this hiring kind of show up in the numbers, not the P&L, not their costs, but in the sales numbers and in the units and things like that?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes, thanks, Bob. I'll try to go a little bit deeper into this since we've had multiple questions. So one is we're doubling down by not only having our traditional territory manager role, but we're also adding in very focused sales executives who are just opening up new rooftops. We found that as an additional area of need. As we grow out there in the field, many of our territory managers who are selling 500 to 1,000 cars a month end up spending a lot of their time farming and a little bit less hunting. So we did some work across the country opening up some sales roles and we're finding that to be a help. So the role of the territory manager and these new sales executives collectively are getting us more touch points with dealers. And between the two of them, the expansion, we believe we're going to have a back half of the year that's going to give us the growth that we need. So was there a second question there?

Timothy FoxCFO

Yes, I mean, just to follow up and put the final point, Bob, we talked earlier in the year about basically five or six emerging regions that we needed to get a little bit more field capacity out there, including VCIs. And so what I shared was that in five of these regions where we really leaned in quite a bit on go-to-market investment, we have mid-teens growth. Now, granted, some of them are on the smaller side of the region, but some of them are still growing at a really, really nice pace. We had one that grew in the 30s. So I'd say it's starting to show up in certainly some of these emerging regions. We are clearly expecting it to pick up in the third quarter and then the fourth quarter, as you can infer from our guidance. So that's really kind of a back half story and certainly into '27.

Bob LabickAnalyst (CJS Securities)

Okay, great. And then just as it relates to the ViPR rollout, can you kind of remind us your goal for where you'll end this year with units out there? And then really the bigger point is the acceleration in '27, and if you're set to bring that on, and if there's any goals for the number of units that'll be rolled out in '27.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes, certainly. So the feedback has been tremendous. We mentioned on the call that of the top 50 dealer groups, over 50% of them today are in some type of significant conversation with us or either already ordered ViPR or about to order ViPR. So we're feeling really good about the pipeline that's developing. What we said on prior calls is that we are building over 100 of them this year, and we're starting to deploy those units. Some dealer groups have ordered seven, some dealer groups have ordered 20; they're all at different stages of ordering ViPR. The business model is both a subscription model and also a commitment for wholesale, where they start to commit to selling some wholesale volume with ACV. So there's sort of two benefits of the business model. Next year, although it's early now, I would say our goals are over 500 units. Next year, it could be significantly more than that. But it's still early. I would say it's going to be a big number for us. With the amount of enthusiasm we have right now, it could be 1,000 units. But it's going to be over 500; it's going to be out there. We're going to listen to our customers. If they want us to build a lot of these, which it looks like they do, we're just going to build and be the leader of the category overnight.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Andrew Boone with Citizens.

Andrew BooneAnalyst (Citizens)

I wanted to talk about macro and just the conversion rate issues that you guys saw in the quarter. Can you unpack that and then just be very specific about kind of the stabilization that you guys talked about for the guidance for the back half? Is that an improvement from current levels or what exactly does stabilization mean? And then on the commercial opportunity, it would be great to just understand what you guys are seeing today. What is attracting kind of new, large consignors to the marketplace? And what has to take place for this to be a larger portion of the business on a go-forward basis?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes, first on the price disconnect between sellers and buyers. What was it, 500 basis or 600 basis points?

Timothy FoxCFO

600 basis points impact on unit growth.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes. So why would this happen? Many of you have read that used car values continue to go down. As these used car values go down, sellers are asking for more than buyers are willing to pay. But this dislocation is not new to us. We've seen it in the past, and it's typically temporary. I'll tell you why we believe it's temporary. Dealers aren't here to collect cars on their lots. These values are going down. They're paying floor plan fees, and they have to sell these cars. So we do think there will be a shift back to wholesale and being serious about wholesaling these vehicles. We feel good that we're out there. We're reaching all-time highs in the number of dealers we're inspecting cars with, number of sellers, number of touch points. So we really had the listings number coming into the last quarter; we would just have a little bit higher conversion rate and we would all have been jumping up and down. This usually corrects itself over a month or two. Tim, anything you'd like to add?

Timothy FoxCFO

Yes, just to emphasize the point about listings, we actually nailed the forecast with listings, which in this kind of market is a real testament to the team, the growing team out there, and the kind of value that we're bringing. We did mention we have record number of sellers and buyers. So that top-of-funnel momentum has been great and it's very important. You get about a 300 to 350 basis point contraction in the conversion rate for the quarter. Unfortunately, it has a pretty dramatic effect on units. But again, as George said, we've seen this playbook before. It's going to be temporary and self-correcting over a month or two typically. We do expect the market will be better, certainly from a conversion rate perspective. And from a year-over-year growth perspective, the comps actually get a little bit easier in the back half. Whether they're flat to maybe just slightly down, they should be better than what we saw in June, which was down 6%. July just came out, and that was down 8% year over year in dealer wholesale.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

On commercial, it's been very exciting. We've had a great few months in commercial. We've got some of the largest fleet companies starting to sell cars. At least two of the big players are starting to sell cars on our platform, which is very important vehicles because buyers love these cars; they provide great diversification of our marketplace. We've had further momentum in the repo category and across the board, both upstream and downstream. The software release that Bill was talking about for several quarters is now live and operationalizing, and we're selling cars. This integration we've done with AutoIMS allows us to inspect a car upstream at a fleet location and assess what type of reconditioning needs to be done or not. It's a very unique integration we've built. We can now go upstream to a fleet location, inspect the car, and not even have to send it downstream. That software works; we've been leveraging it in the market over the last period. We're feeling really good about it. Another important milestone is we're opening up our second greenfield center in Chicago over the next 30 days. We previously opened one in Houston. Looking forward to expanding both our upstream and downstream opportunities.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs.

Eric SheridanAnalyst (Goldman Sachs)

I'll echo the thanks to everyone for Bill and congrats, Tim, on the new role. I'll have to ask a capital allocation question. You've been returning capital, but you're also trying to grow the business and especially the mix of value-added services. How are you guys thinking about the various return profiles of returning capital against where the stock is today as opposed to the potential return profile that presents itself over maybe a longer duration period of time if you continue to invest in the business and keep driving some of the key platform initiatives, especially value-added services forward and just how you think about striking that right balance in the years ahead?

William ZerellaChief Financial Officer

Tim or George, you want me to take this one? Look, we still have a really strong liquidity position. We had about $250 million in the bank at the end of the quarter, and that's after dispersing the $50 million for the ASR, which we're progressing on. The way we think about this is we are continuing to invest in the business. We think it's the right level of investment. As George mentioned, we're starting to get much more efficient on the OpEx side. That's why we exceeded the high end of our EBITDA guidance for the quarter despite being towards the lower end for revenue. We think we've got the right balance in place. The company is continually looking to make sure we maximize our investments as needed to drive share gains and unit growth. As Tim said, that is starting to show up in a number of regions where we can already start to see some of that improvement in unit volume. So I think we've got the right balance today. At the same time, we made the decision to buy back some stock because we thought the company was undervalued and wanted to take advantage of that and put more shares back into the treasury. I don't know if George or Tim want to add something to that.

Timothy FoxCFO

No, I think that covers that. Maybe just one point about incremental margins. The incremental margin profile, EBITDA margin for this year is basically flattish. That's really reflecting that roughly $10 million of investment into field capacity. If you pro forma that out, incremental margins would have been around 30% from an EBITDA perspective. We do expect to start driving much more material incremental margins heading into 2027. A lot of investment being done this year. ViPR investment will continue, but we've been putting a lot of investment there. The commercial software, as George mentioned, is largely complete from an upstream perspective. So we've got a lot of opportunity for leverage in this business going forward.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

Christopher PierceAnalyst (Needham & Company)

If I look at the model, I want to understand Marketplace services revenue per unit. It seems like there was a hefty jump up there. Is that just increased transport penetration and increased capital penetration, or was there something else like pricing action within the quarter?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Yes, Chris. One is we've been successful in growing a great take rate for transport over time. There's a big reason to take ACV Transport: buyers get a commitment on when vehicles are delivered, which is a huge advantage, and they also get additional days for arbitration and other rights. So taking ACV Transport has been a strong advantage. ACV Capital take rates have also gone up. We've done a great job of both growing ACV Capital from a take rate perspective and being disciplined in backing the right dealers and having the right processes behind the scenes. Both teams did well. On transport, ARPU did increase in the quarter. Diesel prices rose, and we were disciplined in how we handled price changes while still hitting our margin objectives. With the use of AI and a strong team, we were able to absorb the diesel price changes and make sure we're charging the right amount per move.

Christopher PierceAnalyst (Needham & Company)

Okay. And then the 6% OpEx growth, the new guidance there, should we expect that to be higher in 2027 because of all these hirings you're making in ops and tech and that's sort of for SG&A and that this year you're not — you’re able to squeeze down expenses because of the hiring that's happened midway through the year and you'll have a larger expense base next year on top of the additional hiring you're doing right now? How do you balance that?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

I think more to come as a new norm, but I would say AI efficiency here is significant and we can have a larger sales team, field team, while also having additional efficiency across a broader base of ACV. If you think about the context, there are several thousand teammates here across the board in many different roles. We had parts of our company where, as we've grown, we haven't had to hire additional folks because of the use of technology and the leveraging of AI. So more to come, but generally I would say you're starting to see a new norm of a much more effective company that does not need as many incremental personnel as it grows.

Christopher PierceAnalyst (Needham & Company)

Okay, and then one last one: ViPR and the inventory management system — is that still a priority? Is it getting crowded with lead gen players trying to get into that space? I want to take your temperature there.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Chris, I'll answer that in two ways. One, please go and watch the video that Tim and the team posted. It's a recent dealer in the Brooklyn area who has one of the more successful dealerships. What's fascinating is how he articulates how he's using ClearCar, ACV MAX, and why ViPR doubled down on that. He talks about the only way for him to get to his objectives of selling a one-to-one new-to-used ratio is to appraise every vehicle. When you listen to him, you can hear how he's leveraging ViPR to operationalize what he was already using ClearCar for. We also mentioned that our top 100 customers using ClearCar have doubled their wholesale volume on ACV. So this is a win-win: they are buying more cars from consumers. If we can get ten or more incremental wholesale cars per month because of this product suite, we've already seen this with ClearCar. We're confident that bundling and integrating MAX, ClearCar, and ViPR together offers tremendous value. We have hardware companies we compete with and software companies we compete with, but they don't have this benefit. Unless you have the total package, you can't appraise cars quickly and do the things you'll see in the video. This is the new ACV; it's not just a standalone wholesale company. We're going to be the leading AI automotive company in the world. When you hear it from the voice of the customer, you can see that we are ahead of competition in helping them leverage AI, streamline buying cars out of their service drive, and have the right inventory decisions. We feel very good about where we're at.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Naved Khan with B. Riley Securities.

Ryan James PowellAnalyst (B. Riley) - on behalf of Naved Khan

This is Ryan Powell on for Naved. Wanted to ask a couple on ViPR. First off, congrats on the launch of commercial availability. Of adopting dealers to date, how has usage trended? We understand there are multiple benefits outside of just units, but any insight into how many incremental vehicles dealers are acquiring per month with ViPR? Second, what's the share of dealers that are opting for the wholesale commitments versus paying the flat fee?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Certainly. Dealers are moving from appraising some vehicles to appraising all vehicles. That's a huge difference. We've heard dealers say they are buying 20 more cars a month; one told us 50 more cars a month. These are significant numbers. Dealers are also catching potential issues in inspections — for example, undercarriage issues — that would have caused them to overpay. They are starting to upsell consumers on opportunities within their service department, like detecting when a car needs tires automatically. All in all, dealers are seeing this prove out. What they're asking for are better integrations with third-party service department software vendors. We are working on integrations with many leading vendors so ViPR is seamless within dealer workflows. Getting those integrations done between now and the end of the year will be key to seeing many hundreds of ViPR units delivered next year.

Ryan James PowellAnalyst (B. Riley) - on behalf of Naved Khan

I had a follow-up on no-reserve sales. I'm not sure if I heard a portion of sales that were guaranteed. I'm wondering if you could quantify that, and then also potential long-term mix.

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

We grew no-reserve quarter over quarter. The overall units sold via no-reserve were in the mid-20% range this quarter. We're growing it well, and we see this probably as a longer-term mix in the vicinity of 30% of overall units, potentially more. Over the next few years, you'll see no-reserve continue to rise as a differentiator.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from John Babcock with Barclays.

John BabcockAnalyst (Barclays)

Are you able to quantify the impact of the higher diesel cost in the quarter, recognizing it was offset by pricing?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

Do you have that number?

Timothy FoxCFO

We don't have that number on the call. We can follow up with you after the call and unpack that for you.

John BabcockAnalyst (Barclays)

On the rental car side of things, you talked about adding some business here. How should we think about quantifying that on a go-forward basis? Is it meaningful or not meaningful at this time?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

First and foremost, we have agreements with most of the top rental car companies and we're starting to sell units both upstream and downstream. This is step one of the process: integrations are live and we're becoming another partner for the rental car companies. I don't have specific numbers to share at this time, but I'm pleased we're getting agreements in place and starting to sell cars with most of the leading rental car companies.

John BabcockAnalyst (Barclays)

My last question — can you provide a number around how much you're investing in go-to-market spending this year? I recognize the efficiencies you're trying to gather through OpEx, but that might be a useful number for us.

Timothy FoxCFO

Think in terms of around $10 million for the full year on various go-to-market roles, including VCIs and some of the sales roles that George was highlighting earlier.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Jeff Lick with Stephens Inc.

Jeff LickAnalyst (Stephens Inc.)

Bill, best of luck in your next role, and Tim, congrats. I want to drill down on the conversion issue. You talked about the listings being there, but a 600 basis point spread. Can you drill into whether it's the seller pricing too high, the buyer being stingy, and to the extent units don't sell in your marketplace at that price, where are these units going? Are you able to track that to help you address the conversion issue?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

We have ACV MAX, which gives us visibility into dealer behavior: how many cars dealers are wholesaling, how many they're listing, and whether they're serious about wholesaling versus retailing. We're seeing dealers follow our guidance more often, meaning sellers are starting to accept the lower prices. Others in the industry like Black Book and NAAA have reported similar dislocations. At the end of the day, you need to consult dealers on the fact that used car values have declined. We've seen this before; it's temporary. We lean in, educate dealers, and typically over a few months the market corrects itself.

Jeff LickAnalyst (Stephens Inc.)

A follow-up on the five markets seeing mid-teens growth: are these smaller markets where percent growth looks large, or are there things you're learning there that you can apply elsewhere?

Timothy FoxCFO

Jeff, there are several markets that are a little bit smaller where the law of small numbers applies. There are also a couple that are decent-size emerging regions. Ultimately, it's about getting in front of dealers, pitching the story, building relationships, showing platform value, and putting more bodies in the field. Dealer visits were another record in the quarter, and that capacity ramp will continue into Q3 and Q4. We're pleased with the progress.

OperatorOperator

Our final question comes from Josh Beck with Raymond James. Glenn Shell is on for Josh.

Glenn ShellAnalyst (Raymond James) - on behalf of Josh Beck

Confirming that I heard correctly: you intend to build 500 to 1,000 units of ViPR in 2027. Is that supposed to be one ViPR per rooftop? What will it take to scale production and how much investment is required to hit 1,000 units next year?

George ChamounChief Executive Officer

To be clear, I first said 500 and noted it could be 1,000. We haven't finalized next year's plan yet; we're still working on it. Demand is high. At this point, it's likely demand could be over 500 units, perhaps up to 1,000, but we don't have firm signed contracts for 500 to 1,000 rooftops yet. We just announced general availability and are starting to put contracts in front of customers. Regarding per-rooftop deployment, one top-10 dealer group has ordered multiple ViPRs and is installing two per rooftop in some cases; another top-5 group is doing roughly one per rooftop and ordering about 20. We haven't set a consistent pattern yet. On pricing and business model, dealers can opt to pay a larger subscription or provide more wholesale cars; the subscription price declines as they wholesale more cars with us. Ultimately, we're solving their #1 problem — sourcing more cars — and the customer response has been enthusiastic. We believe we're positioned extremely well to add value and be rewarded for it.

OperatorOperator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Tim Fox for closing comments.

Timothy FoxCFO

Thank you, Dylan. Thanks, everybody, for joining and all the kind words on the call today. We look forward to engaging with you on the conference circuit this quarter. Again, I really appreciate your support and interest in ACV. I hope everybody has a great evening. Thank you.

OperatorOperator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Transcripts come from a third-party provider (Alpha Vantage), not first-party parsing. Speaker titles are as supplied and are not normalized.