Summary

  • Thryv’s SaaS segment produced US$114.5 million in Q2 2026, down 0.5% year over year; Marketing Services fell 62% to US$36.2 million. SaaS therefore rose to 76% of a much smaller revenue base, not because the quarter showed rapid SaaS-dollar growth.
  • The U.S. print-directory business recognizes revenue when a book is delivered, typically once in a 24-month cycle. That timing makes quarterly comparisons lumpy, but the company’s own monthly normalization showed a 26% decline in average revenue per directory versus its prior publication.
  • Thryv is moving selected digital marketing products into SaaS at no additional base cost. The upgrade can reduce acquisition expense and preserve customers, but those products carry lower gross margins and management warns that converted clients could churn faster.

The number on Thryv’s earnings slide comes with a calendar attached. A U.S. Yellow Pages directory can be printed for an intended market, delivered, and then contribute no comparable print revenue from that same book until its next publication—typically 24 months later. Thryv recognizes that print revenue at delivery. A quarter with fewer deliveries can therefore make the software share of total revenue rise before the software business has grown much at all.

That is close to what the second-quarter 2026 Form 10-Q shows. Thryv reported US$114.480 million of SaaS revenue, US$36.248 million of Marketing Services revenue and US$150.728 million in total. SaaS was about 76.0% of the total. A year earlier, SaaS had been US$115.005 million on US$210.470 million of total revenue, or about 54.6%. The mix shifted by more than 21 percentage points while SaaS revenue itself declined US$525,000, or 0.5%.

The arithmetic matters because the rest of the business did most of the shrinking. Marketing Services fell US$59.217 million, or 62%, year over year; total revenue fell US$59.742 million, or 28.4%. SaaS was not flat over every comparison window: for the first six months of 2026 it grew 2.2% year over year. But the quarter’s 76% share cannot be read as a 76% growth rate, nor as evidence that new software demand alone transformed the business.

The print schedule explains some of the quarter-to-quarter noise. Thryv’s filing says most U.S. directories now have a 24-month publication cycle and that it normally records revenue for each published U.S. directory only once in that cycle. It began moving U.S. directories from 18-month to 24-month cycles in late 2024. Fewer directories were delivered in Q2 2026 than in Q2 2025, and the company explicitly cautions that publication timing makes year-over-year print comparisons less representative of underlying demand. Its investor presentation separately notes that the SaaS share can fluctuate with upfront print-revenue recognition.

But timing does not turn the decline into a mirage. On a publication-by-publication basis, extending the cycle from 18 to 24 months increased average total revenue per directory published in the quarter by 10% versus its prior publication. Divide that amount by the longer lifecycle, however, and average monthly revenue per directory fell 26%. Thryv reported a net 16% decline in revenue per directory published in Q2. Those are the company’s own comparisons, not an independent demand index, but they point in the same direction: the calendar affects when print revenue lands; weaker economics per directory affect how much a full cycle is worth.

Print is only one part of the contraction. Thryv’s Marketing Services segment also includes Internet Yellow Pages properties and paid search marketing. Q2 print revenue declined US$42.1 million, or 62.8%, to US$24.9 million. Digital marketing services revenue declined US$17.1 million, or 60.2%, to US$11.3 million. The filing attributes digital declines to a shrinking client base and competition in search and display advertising, as well as conversions to the company’s platform. Those components should not be collapsed into the print calendar: they have different products and causes.

The reporting issuer is Thryv Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: THRY), which files for itself and its subsidiaries. The company serves small and medium-sized businesses, primarily in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Europe. Its legacy products sell directory advertising and digital visibility; its SaaS products package business-management and marketing functions on the Thryv platform. That makes the migration attractive on paper: move a customer’s selected marketing product into a software environment, retain the relationship, and later try to sell additional functions.

The company says it began this strategy in late 2023 by initiating selected upgrades outside the traditional sales process, at no additional base cost at the time of conversion. It also avoids the sales commission normally paid for an upgrade. Over the 12 months to June 30, 2026, about 11,000 clients with digital Marketing Services products who were not already SaaS customers were converted; about 9,000 remained SaaS clients at quarter-end. Thryv attributed US$5.0 million of Q2 SaaS revenue to this group.

Separately, it converted digital marketing products for about 4,000 clients who already had a SaaS product, attributing another US$1.8 million of Q2 SaaS revenue to that group.

These are two different customer populations, not a combined count of 15,000 newly acquired SaaS clients. The group that already had SaaS did not become a new logo; its product mix changed. The US$7.6 million and US$3.2 million first-half cohort revenue figures also should not be added to reconstruct segment growth. Thryv’s separate segment bridge attributes US$4.0 million of first-half SaaS revenue to 2026 conversions and US$8.4 million to new sales and expansion, partly offset by US$12.9 million of net revenue changes in products sold or converted before 2026. These disclosures use different scopes.

The economics of the bridge are not yet settled. Thryv warns that upgrades initiated outside the regular sales process could cancel at materially higher rates than other SaaS customers. It reported that churn among converted clients was in line with other SaaS customers in the first half of 2026—a useful early observation, not a long-run retention result. At the same time, the company said migrated digital marketing products have lower margins than its existing SaaS products. SaaS gross margin fell to 63.5% in Q2 from 72.1% a year earlier, and management attributed the decrease primarily to these conversions, alongside other factors.

That makes the 76% share an incomplete operating metric. Thryv also reported US$394 SaaS monthly ARPU, up 11.9%, 95,000 SaaS clients and 90% seasoned net revenue retention. Each needs its own definition: ARPU includes Keap, while seasoned retention excludes it; the company’s “quality customer” measure also excludes acquired Keap customers. None answers how many initiated upgrades become durable, higher-value accounts or how much incremental gross profit follows a free base upgrade.

The company has said it intends to terminate Marketing Services by the end of 2028. That is a management decision, not a completed exit. The shift will have to be carried by some combination of paid software growth, customer retention, spending changes and a wind-down of print and digital products. Thryv’s August restructuring announcement adds another clock: US$20 million to US$25 million of expected charges, with gross annualized savings of US$55 million to US$60 million anticipated upon completion and savings expected to begin in 2027. Those are forward-looking estimates, not realized cash savings.

The cleanest reading is neither “the 76% is fake” nor “the SaaS transformation is complete.” SaaS is the majority of reported revenue and was modestly up over the first half, while Q2’s mix shift mostly reflects the steep decline in the other segment. Print delivery timing makes that segment volatile; normalized revenue per directory shows real pressure beneath the timing effect. Customer conversions can help bridge the business, but they come with a price, margin and retention test. For Thryv, the next proof is sustained SaaS dollar growth, the quality of migrated revenue and an orderly exit from products it has chosen to end.

Sources