Three announcements from Similarweb landed today in a single morning: first-quarter financial results, a formal CEO succession search, and an expanded data integration with Manus AI agents. Taken individually, each is a routine business disclosure. Together, they sketch a company positioning its data assets at the centre of an AI-driven intelligence market while preparing for a leadership change after nearly two decades under its founder.

Revenue and profitability

Similarweb reported total revenue of $73.9 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026, a 10% increase compared with $67.1 million in the same period of 2025. The result came in at the top of the company's guidance range. Non-GAAP operating profit reached $2.4 million, or 3% of revenue, compared to a non-GAAP operating loss of $1.3 million in Q1 2025. That swing from loss to profit represents a five-percentage-point improvement in non-GAAP operating margin year-over-year.

On a GAAP basis, the picture remains a loss. GAAP loss from operations was $4.4 million, or negative 6% of revenue, compared to $9.3 million loss in the same period last year - a reduction of roughly $4.9 million. Net loss narrowed to $6.4 million from $9.3 million, and net loss per share improved to $0.07 from $0.11.

Normalized free cash flow was $6.6 million in Q1 2026, marking the tenth consecutive quarter of positive normalized free cash flow. According to Ran Vered, Chief Financial Officer of Similarweb: "This was our tenth consecutive quarter of positive normalized free cash flow, reinforcing our commitment to disciplined execution, profitable growth and durable cash generation. Our first quarter performance provides a solid base for 2026, and we are raising the low end of our full year guidance to reflect increased confidence in our outlook."

Free cash flow on a reported basis was negative $0.3 million, reflecting deferred payments related to business combinations totaling $6.9 million in the quarter. Net cash provided by operating activities was $0.2 million, down from $4.9 million in Q1 2025, with the difference largely attributable to changes in working capital.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at $65.3 million as of March 31, 2026, compared to $72.4 million at the end of 2025.

Customer metrics and ARR composition

The number of customers with annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $100,000 or more grew 12% year-over-year to 461 as of March 31, 2026. That cohort contributed 64% of total ARR, up from 61% as of March 31, 2025. Dollar-based net retention rate (NRR) for this group was 103% in Q1 2026, compared with 111% in Q1 2025, indicating some contraction in expansion revenue from existing large accounts even as the group itself grew in size.

Overall NRR across all customers was 98% in Q1 2026, compared to 101% a year earlier. That figure - below 100% - suggests modest net churn or contraction at the broader customer base level.

Multi-year subscriptions now account for 64% of overall ARR as of March 31, 2026, a meaningful jump from 52% at the same point in 2025. Similarweb posted 58% multi-year subscription share as of September 30, 2025 - the continued climb signals that customers are committing to longer contract terms, which provides revenue visibility. Remaining performance obligations (RPO) rose 18% year-over-year to $297.7 million, compared to $252.7 million as of March 31, 2025.

According to Or Offer, Co-Founder and CEO of Similarweb: "I am proud of the first quarter financial results that reflect solid execution and the resilience of the Similarweb team during an eventful quarter. We delivered revenue and non-GAAP operating profit at the top end of our guidance range. Sales productivity improved for the third consecutive quarter and contributed to our strongest first quarter ARR increase since 2022."

LLM data contracts and AI pipeline

One of the more unusual disclosures in the earnings materials concerns LLM data training contracts. According to Similarweb, the company signed a seven-digit LLM data training contract with an existing large technology customer in Q1 2026. This was one of two contracts that had been deferred from Q4 2025. A second large LLM data contract is expected to be signed over the coming quarters.

These deals point to a revenue stream that Similarweb has been developing separately from its core subscription business: licensing its aggregated digital data directly to companies building large language models and generative AI applications. Offer framed this in the earnings release as part of a broader commercial trend: "Commercial interest in our AI-related data and solutions continues to expand, and our growing pipeline of opportunities provides us with confidence in our strategy to build an AI-driven data powerhouse that delivers profitable growth."

The framing matters for the marketing industry because it illustrates how a company that built its reputation on competitive intelligence for digital marketers is now also an upstream supplier to the AI systems that marketers are increasingly using.

Retail intelligence expansion

During the first quarter, Similarweb launched Similarweb Retail Intelligence, described as a unified suite combining Amazon IQ with Cross-Retail IQ. The product covers Amazon marketplaces and more than 650 online stores and marketplaces, giving brands and retailers data on product mix, availability, pricing, competitive positioning, and emerging retail trends in a single layer. The launch extends the company's data coverage well beyond web and app traffic into the granular territory of ecommerce shelf analytics.

The Manus partnership: what changed and how it works

In May 2026, Similarweb and Manus expanded their existing data integration by embedding additional datasets into the Manus AI agent experience. The new data types made available include keyword data, search traffic, incoming and outgoing referrals, landing pages, and popular pages. These are accessible to all Manus Pro subscribers without any additional setup.

The initial integration between the two companies had been announced in January 2026 and covered web traffic and engagement data. According to Similarweb, this first version gave Manus AI agents the ability to identify which sites are winning traffic in a given category. The May expansion deepens that to explain why - adding the signal layers that help analysts understand what keywords drive that traffic, where visitors come from, and which pages capture attention.

According to Mike Sadler, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AI and Data Partnerships at Similarweb: "In January, we gave Manus's AI agent the ability to see who's winning online. With this expansion, businesses can put AI agents to work obtaining deeper insights into the signals that turn a traffic snapshot into a strategy."

The technical mechanism underlying the deeper integration is the Similarweb MCP Server, which joint customers of Similarweb and Manus can access for data beyond the usage limits bundled with the Manus Pro subscription. Power users who need full access but do not already hold a Similarweb licence can obtain one through the MCP integration. The MCP path is intended for users whose research volume or data requirements exceed what the standard Manus Pro tier includes.

PPC Land has covered the growing adoption of MCP servers across marketing analytics, including Google Analytics, AppsFlyer, and Microsoft Clarity - all of which released MCP integrations in 2025. Similarweb's own MCP Server, launched in September 2025, connects its digital market intelligence directly into AI agents and workflows. According to Similarweb, the Manus collaboration sits within a growing ecosystem of AI-native integrations that also includes ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, and Cursor, among others.

The Manus context carries a specific wrinkle. As PPC Land reported in February 2026, Manus was acquired by Meta in December 2025 and integrated into Meta Ads Manager. That acquisition means Similarweb's data is now accessible, through the Manus agent, inside Meta's advertising infrastructure - a connection that is not addressed directly in the announcement but has implications for how Manus Pro users in advertising contexts will use the expanded Similarweb datasets.

CEO succession: timing, structure, and rationale

The leadership transition announcement is the most structurally significant of the three disclosures. Similarweb's board has initiated a formal search for the company's next Chief Executive Officer. Or Offer, who founded Similarweb in 2007, will reach the 20-year mark in May 2027. The board confirmed Offer informed them of his intention to transition out of the CEO role as that milestone approaches.

Offer will continue to serve as CEO through the conclusion of the search and a transition period with his successor. The leadership transition is expected to be completed by mid-2027. According to Offer: "Similarweb has been my life's work. When I started this company nearly 20 years ago, I always believed that the right time to begin planning for the next chapter would be as I approached two decades of leading it. We are about to reach that point, the company is performing strongly and I believe we will have a strong year. We have a very strong leadership team in place and I have full confidence in them and in the foundations we have built for our next phase of growth."

Harel Beit-On, Chairman of the Board of Similarweb, said: "Or has built Similarweb into a global category leader with a unique data asset and a strong, durable business. The Board is grateful for his vision and his continued leadership through this transition. We are fully aligned with Or on the timing and the process, and we are committed to running a thorough, considered search to identify a successor with the experience to lead Similarweb through its next phase of growth and innovation."

The board has engaged a leading executive search firm, though no firm is named in the announcement. Similarweb confirmed there is no change to its strategy, operations, or financial outlook as a result of the succession process.

The timing is deliberate. Initiating the search roughly 12 to 14 months before the target completion date gives the board time for a thorough external process while allowing Offer to remain active and fully focused on execution. The structure also reduces the risk associated with abrupt transitions: Offer has explicitly committed to working closely with the incoming CEO during a handover period, which is significant given how much institutional knowledge founders carry in companies of this type.

Guidance for Q2 2026 and full year

For Q2 2026, Similarweb is guiding total revenue of $74.5 million to $76.5 million, representing approximately 6% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. Non-GAAP operating profit guidance for Q2 is $3.0 million to $5.0 million.

For the full year 2026, total revenue guidance is $307.0 million to $315.0 million, representing approximately 10% growth at the midpoint. The company raised the lower end of this range following Q1 results. Non-GAAP operating profit guidance for the full year stands at $17.0 million to $19.0 million.

At the midpoint of full-year revenue guidance, the implied H2 2026 run-rate is approximately $80 million to $85 million per quarter, higher than the $73.9 million reported in Q1. That step-up would depend on the LLM data contracts materialising, continued enterprise customer expansion, and stable or improving retention rates.

Why this matters for digital marketing professionals

Similarweb occupies an unusual position in the marketing technology stack. Its data is simultaneously used by marketers who want competitive intelligence about rivals, by financial analysts benchmarking companies, by AI platforms grounding their agents in real-world traffic data, and now by large language model providers training their foundation models. PPC Land has tracked the company's product expansion closely, from the GenAI Intelligence Toolkit launched in July 2025 to AI Studio released in February 2026.

The Q1 results and associated announcements matter to the marketing community for several reasons. The expansion of multi-year subscription share to 64% of ARR suggests customers are treating Similarweb's data as infrastructure rather than a discretionary analytics tool. NRR slightly below 100% for the broad customer base warrants monitoring, as it indicates that retention pressure exists alongside the enterprise growth story.

The Manus expansion reflects a broader structural shift: as MCP adoption grows across marketing analytics platforms, data providers are competing not just on data quality but on how efficiently their data can be piped into AI agent workflows. Keyword data, referrals, and landing page metrics - the datasets added in the May expansion - are exactly the inputs that a competitive intelligence agent would need to generate actionable briefs, not just traffic rankings.

The CEO transition, finally, adds an element of uncertainty to an otherwise straightforward growth narrative. Similarweb went public on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2021. Offer has been the founder-CEO throughout that period. Successor choices in this type of company carry significant strategic weight: whether the board selects an operator focused on margin expansion, a product-oriented executive, or someone with a strong AI background will signal which direction the company prioritises in its next phase.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Similarweb Ltd. (NYSE: SMWB), a digital data and analytics company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Or Offer, founder and CEO since 2007. Ran Vered, CFO. Harel Beit-On, Chairman of the Board. Manus, an AI agent platform now operated by Meta.

What: Similarweb today reported Q1 2026 revenue of $73.9 million (up 10% year-over-year) and non-GAAP operating profit of $2.4 million. Separately, the board announced a formal CEO succession search, with Offer expected to transition out of the role by mid-2027. Simultaneously, Similarweb expanded its data partnership with Manus, adding keyword, referral, landing page, and popular page datasets to the Manus Pro AI agent integration, and making the Similarweb MCP Server available to joint customers requiring deeper data access.

When: All three announcements were made on May 13, 2026. Q1 results cover the period ended March 31, 2026. The CEO transition is targeted for completion by mid-2027. The expanded Manus integration was made available to Manus Pro subscribers starting May 13, 2026.

Where: Similarweb is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Manus is Singapore-based and now owned by Meta. The expanded data integration is available globally to Manus Pro subscribers.

Why: Similarweb's CEO announced plans well in advance of his departure to allow for an orderly transition after nearly 20 years as founder-CEO. The company simultaneously expanded AI agent integrations and launched new product lines - including Retail Intelligence and LLM data licensing - to diversify beyond its core web analytics subscription base as it pursues profitable growth and positions its data as infrastructure for the broader AI ecosystem.

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