ACCESS Newswire (NYSEAMERICAN:ACCS) executives used the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call to frame 2025 as a year of operational change, including a rebrand, a shift toward recurring subscriptions, and continued platform investment aimed at accelerating growth in 2026.
Fourth-quarter results: flat revenue, higher margins
Founder and CEO Brian Balbirnie reported fourth-quarter revenue of $5.8 million, which he described as up about $100,000 sequentially and essentially flat year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA increased slightly to $881,000 from $871,000, representing 15% of revenue. Gross margin was 77%, up from 75% in the year-ago quarter.
Full-year 2025: revenue down 2%, subscription mix rises
CFO Steve Knerr said fourth-quarter revenue was down $27,000 from the fourth quarter of 2024 and full-year 2025 revenue totaled $22.6 million, down $438,000, or 2%, from $23.1 million in 2024. Knerr said core press release revenue increased about 2% year-over-year in the quarter and 1% for the full year, with the quarterly increase driven by higher volume, while full-year volume was “slightly lower” than the prior year.
Knerr said growth in press release volume was more than offset by declines in “pro plan revenue, webcasting, and IR website revenue.” He also said subscriptions represented 53% of revenue in the quarter, up from 45% in the same quarter of the prior year.
Gross margin was 77% for both the fourth quarter and full year of 2025, compared to 75% and 76%, respectively, in 2024. Knerr attributed the improvement primarily to lower headcount due to increased operational efficiency, partially offset by increased distribution costs related to expanding the company’s distribution footprint.
Impairments, operating loss swing, and non-GAAP metrics
Knerr reported an operating loss of $761,000 for the fourth quarter and $1.9 million for the full year. Those figures compare to operating losses of $14.3 million and $16.3 million in the same periods of 2024, a change Knerr said was largely driven by an impairment loss of $14.15 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2024 tied to reducing the estimated useful life of the Newswire trade name following the rebrand in early 2025.
Excluding impairment losses, Knerr said fourth-quarter operating expenses increased $446,000, or 10%, year-over-year, primarily due to a one-time contract settlement cost of about $336,000 and increased advertising and trade show spending related to the pressrelease.com launch and new branding. For the full year, he said operating expenses decreased $674,000, or 3%, due mainly to lower headcount in sales and marketing earlier in the year and lower product and development consulting expenses.
The company also recorded a $250,000 impairment charge in the fourth quarter of 2025 related to a right-of-use asset and leasehold improvements due to a sublease executed in December. Knerr said the sublease is expected to save about $80,000 per quarter.
On a GAAP basis, Knerr reported a loss from continuing operations of $509,000, or $0.13 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared with a net loss of $11.0 million, or $2.85 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, he reported a net loss from continuing operations of $1.6 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, compared with $13.3 million, or $3.47 per diluted share, in 2024.
Knerr also detailed non-GAAP results. Fourth-quarter EBITDA was $251,000 (4% of revenue), compared with $770,000 (13%) in the year-ago quarter, while full-year EBITDA was $1.3 million (6%) versus $840,000 (4%) in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $881,000 (15%) in the quarter, essentially flat with the prior-year quarter, and adjusted EBITDA for the full year increased to $3.2 million (14%) from $1.8 million (8%).
Non-GAAP net income was $675,000, or $0.17 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter, compared with $819,000, or $0.21 per diluted share, a year earlier. Full-year non-GAAP net income rose to $2.2 million, or $0.57 per diluted share, compared with $720,000, or $0.19 per diluted share, in 2024.
Cash, taxes, and deferred revenue
Knerr said the company ended the quarter with $3.0 million in cash. Adjusted free cash flow was $467,000 in the fourth quarter, up from $413,000 a year earlier. For the full year, adjusted free cash flow was $1.3 million, down from $2.8 million in 2024. Knerr said 2025 included more than $2.2 million in taxes, primarily related to the sale of the compliance business, compared with $342,000 paid in the prior year.
Deferred revenue increased $522,000, or 11%, to $5.3 million as of Dec. 31, 2025, compared with $4.7 million a year earlier, which Knerr described as revenue generally expected to be recognized over the subsequent year.
Subscribers, product rollouts, and 2026 targets
Balbirnie said the company completed a rebrand, divested its compliance business, reduced debt by over 83%, reduced operating expenses, and “moved the business to majority recurring subscriptions.” He said the company ended the fourth quarter with 974 subscribing customers, up slightly from 972 in the third quarter and 965 in the year-ago quarter, while acknowledging the company was “not pleased” with churn and the pace of subscriber growth. He said the company sold 90 new customers in the fourth quarter with an average ARR of $12,991.
Balbirnie attributed a significant portion of reported churn to payment issues, stating in response to a question that about 70% of churn in the subscription business was due to credit card failures. He said the company is retooling payment systems and has begun removing monthly options in favor of quarterly or annual payments to reduce those issues.
Management also described multiple product initiatives and monetization approaches for 2026, including premium subscription tiers and per-release add-ons. In response to an analyst question, Balbirnie said customers upgrading to include social media monitoring would see an ARR lift of about $200 per month. He also described offering products such as social monitoring and enhanced reporting on a “pay-per-use” basis for customers buying single press releases.
Among the product updates discussed on the call were:
- Real-time social monitoring integrated into the ACCESS PR subscription platform, including sentiment analysis across more than 30 social media platforms.
- Marketplace integrations, including an add-on integrating Hootsuite for scheduling, publishing, and analyzing content across networks.
- #KillTheReport, which Balbirnie described as an AI-powered reporting and insight tool intended to replace traditional distribution reports with real-time analytics.
- ACCESS Verified, a customer-facing version of the company’s AI editorial validation tools, which management said provides automated review for tone and compliance while retaining human editorial review.
- ACCESS EDU, tied to the PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition and expanded to thousands of students across universities, which management described as a long-term pipeline and brand-building initiative.
Balbirnie also discussed pressrelease.com, describing it as a feeder for customers who want to start with a single press release rather than an annual subscription. He said pressrelease.com brought in about 100 new customers and roughly $40,000 of revenue over a four- to five-week period in the fourth quarter, and that about half of those customers returned to repurchase.
Looking ahead, Balbirnie said the company is targeting up to 1,500 subscriber customers by the end of 2026 and expects adjusted EBITDA margins to move into the “mid- to high teens” in the second half of the year. He also said the company expects operating expenses to hold at or below 2025 levels, citing additional optimization efforts and lease-related savings.
On capital allocation, Balbirnie said the company repurchased a small amount of shares in the fourth quarter under a previously announced $1 million repurchase plan and indicated the company intends to continue, noting that roughly three-quarters of the authorization remained.
About ACCESS Newswire (NYSEAMERICAN:ACCS)
Issuer Direct Corporation operates as a communications and compliance company, provides solutions for both public relations and investor relations professionals in the United States and internationally. The company provides press release distribution, media databases, media monitoring, and newsrooms through media advantage platform; ACCESSWIRE, a news dissemination and media outreach service; and Webcaster Platform, a cloud-based webcast, webinar, and virtual meeting platform that delivers live and on-demand streaming of events to audiences of various sizes, as well as allows customers to create, produce, and deliver events.
