Yahoo Finance

Sanjay Datta

Thanks, Dave, and thanks to all of our participants for sharing some of your time with us today. Financially, the first quarter of 2025 came in slightly ahead of expectations with outperformance on the top and bottom line, owing primarily to higher-than-anticipated net interest income. The impact of the typically soft tax seasonality in Q1 played out largely as expected and despite recent turbulence in the financial markets, the effects of the macro environment on credit performance, as in our estimation, remained relatively stable throughout the quarter and roughly consistent with our prior assumptions.
Total revenue for Q1 came in at approximately $213 million, up 67% year-on-year. This overall number included revenue from fees of $185 million, which was up 34% year-over-year. This amount was in line with guidance. Although from a mix perspective, we outperformed our expectations in super prime borrower segment, resulting in higher overall origination volumes than anticipated at lower take rates.
Additionally, net interest income represented roughly $28 million of overall revenue, exceeding our outlook by $13 million. Approximately half of this amount came in the form of higher net interest spreads from our balance sheet as we pass peak charge-offs from older vintages and half came in the form of unrealized fair value gains as the recently declining UMI trend worked its way into our various fair value marks.
The volume of loan transactions across our platform was approximately 241,000, up 102% from the prior year but down 2% sequentially and representing 163,000 new borrowers. Average loan size of approximately $8,865 nudged up from $8,580 in the prior quarter as the proportion of loans made to super prime borrowers increased.
Our contribution margin, a non-GAAP metric which we define as revenue from fees minus variable costs for borrower acquisition, verification and servicing, as a percentage of revenue from fees, came in at 55% in Q1, down 6 percentage points from the prior quarter and 2 points below guidance, largely due to the lower take rates realized in the primer borrower segments where we exceeded expectations.
GAAP operating expenses were roughly $218 million in Q1, down 3% sequentially from Q4. Expenses that are considered variable relating to borrower acquisition, verification and servicing were up 7% sequentially relative to a 2% decline in transaction volume, which is reflective of the lower contribution margins previously referenced. Fixed expenses were down 8% quarter-over-quarter as some of the temporary catch-up accruals from Q4 rolled off in the new year.
Taken together, Q1 GAAP net loss was $2 million, well ahead of expectation and reflecting the outperformance on net interest income against our tightly managed fixed cost base. Adjusted EBITDA was $43 million, also scaling nicely in accordance with our operating leverage. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.30 based on a diluted weighted average share count of $104 million.
We ended Q1 with $726 million of loans held directly on the balance sheet, which is down 21% from the prior year, but up sequentially from $703 million in Q4, as our newer R&D products continue to scale. Additionally, we recognized $89 million in loans from the consolidation of a securitization deal in which we retain minimal economic exposure.
We ended Q1 with unrestricted cash of approximately $600 million, down from $788 million in the prior quarter, with the delta primarily going towards R&D loan funding for new products, third-party risk capital partnerships and a reduction in working capital from beginning of year corporate bonus payouts. In Q1, we put in place a universal shelf and a $500 million at-the-market program which gives us additional balance sheet flexibility.
We remain extremely pleased with our network of third-party capital relationships and are excited to welcome the Fortress Investment Group as a new committed capital provider on our platform. Overall, these relationships now comprise well north of 50% of the funding on our platform, and they are demonstrating their intended resilience in the current market climate of uncertainty. As we look to Q2 and the remainder of 2025, much of the discussion has shifted to potential impacts from the macro environment.
As mentioned, we've seen little discernible impact of the macro on credit performance so far. Uncertainty has increased, and we see the potential for both upside and downside scenarios that are credible in the near to medium-term. The main near-term risk in our estimation is reinflation, as any persistent tariffs placed on a significant share of our import economy will make things less affordable for consumers, a clear negative influence on credit.
On the other hand, in the context of an already high default environment with razor thin savings rates, our continuing stance is that any dynamic, which tempers current high levels of consumption back into line with underlying income would represent a positive effect on credit. We remain sanguine about the prospective risks in the labor market, where we observe as many job openings in the economy as there are unemployed workers, and continue to perceive a structural shortage of labor supply that is under continuing pressure from demographic trends.
Given this context, our macro assumptions for the duration of this year remain consistent with the prior quarter. Namely, we factor in no explicit expectation of any rate cuts and are planning for a steady macro environment in which the Upstart Macro Index remains in the range of 1.4 to 1.5.
With this as background for Q2, we are expecting total revenues of approximately $225 million, consisting of revenue from fees of approximately $210 million and total net interest income of approximately positive $15 million. Contribution margin of approximately 55%, net income of approximately negative $10 million, adjusted net income of approximately positive $25 million. Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $37 million with a basic weighted average share count of approximately 96 million shares and a diluted weighted average share count of approximately 104 million shares.
For the full year of 2025, we now expect total revenues of approximately $1.01 billion, consisting of revenue from fees of approximately $920 million and net interest income of approximately positive $90 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 19%, and we expect GAAP net income to be positive in the second half of the year and positive for the full calendar year. Beyond the numbers, I would just like to reiterate our gratitude to all of the hard-working teams at Upstart who make these results achievable.
And with that, operator, over to you for Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Dan Dolev, Mizuho.

Dan Dolev

Hey, guys. Really nice results here. Congrats. I have one question and one follow-up. I was really excited to see the Walmart partnership. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And then, I have a follow-up as well. Thank you.

David Girouard

Hey, Dan. This is Dave. Thanks for the question. Yes, we only have so much we can really say there, but we did sign a one-year agreement with Walmart's majority-owned fintech called OnePay to basically make our products available to Walmart customers. And that's actually already been launched, which is kind of how it got out into the public sphere.
But I will just say, generally, I think with our move to have the best rates and best process for everybody, which I know you keep hearing from us, Walmart is the kind of partner that we're really excited about because they've been really focused on delivering value for American consumers for a very long time, like more than 60 years. So it's exactly the kind of partnership we like where can deliver the best value when it comes to a credit product. And hopefully, this will be a great win for both companies over time.

Dan Dolev

Got it, thank you. And just as a quick follow-up, and I apologize if this has been addressed. Can you maybe give us a little bit of a sense of trends in April and maybe early May, if there's anything you can provide, that would be great.

Sanjay Datta

Hey, Dan. How are you doing? It's Sanjay here. I think anything we can say with respect to this quarter, it's probably aptly captured in our guidance. I think that's about as much as color we can get.

Dan Dolev

Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Really appreciate it. Congrats, again.

Sanjay Datta

Thanks, Dan.

Operator

Ramsey El-Assal, Barclays.

Hi. This is John Coffey on for Ramsey. Thanks for taking my question. I just had two short questions. I was wondering now that you've been updating your models, and it seems like that's been a process that been ongoing. Is there a good way to think about your conversion rates for the remainder of the year or the next two quarters? Should we expect that those rates could start to touch that 20% level? So that's that first question I had.
And also, I noticed that it used to be your UMI had a slide like I think last quarter is maybe around page 10, and there were quite a few data points attached to it. When I look at this quarter, your push back to the back of the deck on slide 20, and I don't see any numbers really tied to it. Is there any reason for that? Are you deemphasizing this is something you're reporting to the Street?

David Girouard

Hey, John. Just quickly on conversion rates, I mean, the conversion rates, which really are a very principal driver of growth, they did grow nicely from, I think, 14% a year ago to 19% in the most recent quarter. And all else being equal, we would expect to drive them up with better models and improved automation, etc. And things like lower -- the Fed lower rates, those are things that can also be helpful. So there's a bunch of things that go into conversion.
Generally, we would like to drive it up and some of that is macro dependent and some of it is just technology that we could deliver. But we are definitely -- we kind of showed it in our investor deck a little bit new way to look at the conversion rate in terms of how many unfulfilled requests there were there. And we just think there's a lot of ways that we can begin to fill in those bar graphs and convert more people.

All right. Thank you, Dave.

Sanjay Datta

Hey, John, it's Sanjay. Just quickly touching on your question about the Macro Index. First of all, I think it's moved back in the deck, hopefully, because we put some more stuff in the front for you, so it wasn't meant to be personal with respect to the Index. And look, some of the numbers we had on there previously, it was all Fed reported data. It was things like the personal savings rate, some inflation indicators and some unemployment indicators.
I think it was causing a bit of confusion because I think people thought that we were deriving our Index from those numbers when, in fact, we just view those to be correlative. And so we've just cleaned up the page a little bit. I think if those Fed data points are useful, we can certainly point you to them. They're publicly printed.

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Simon Clinch, Redburn Atlantic.

Simon Clinch

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could just touch on the contribution margin and the mix impacts we've had on that. And just how to think about that through the year. Ultimately, what's embedded in your guidance is my first question.

Sanjay Datta

Hey, Simon. The contribution margin, I guess I would point out a couple of dynamics in our core personal loan product. I think in our historic choice of the borrowing base, we have a relatively consistent margin. I would point to two dynamics. One, we are increasingly adding to our mix, maybe on the primary side of the borrower segment. It's obviously more competed market. And so I think, the margins in that segment would not touch the level that we have in some of the more historic segments that we play in. And so that will sort of act to decrease the margin numbers as we talked about in some of the prepared remarks.
And then, of course, as the newer product scale, whether it's HELOC or auto lending or even some of our small dollar efforts, as those scale and gain traction, those because they're earlier in their life cycle, don't have mature margins yet either. And so those two things are going to act to bring down the average number on the P&L and some of what we pointed out with respect to our earlier remarks.

Simon Clinch

Okay. Thanks. And just as a follow-up, just in terms of the environment we're in, we're hearing from some other players in the industry that there's very strong demand for personal loans feeding off the desire to consolidate debt from very large credit card balances. I was wondering if you could just talk to that demand trend and any sort of fluctuations you might be seeing in that or if you can corroborate that.

David Girouard

Hye, Simon, I think credit demand continues to be strong. In fact, I would just say on a seasonal basis, it tends to strengthen at this time of the year as you come out of Q1. So we are definitely kind of experiencing the end of the seasonality, the sort of tax season seasonality. And whether there's anything special to this year, a little unclear. But I guess from our perspective, gross demand, sort of the amount of just gross demand for credit out there doesn't vary a time. It always tends to be quite strong. And for sure, right now, we're seeing a lot of demand out there.

Simon Clinch

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Kyle Peterson, Needham and Company.

Great. Thanks. Hey, guys. It's Sam Salvas on for Kyle today. Nice results and thanks for taking the questions. Good to see the agreement with Fortress today. I was wondering if you guys could talk a bit more about how you're thinking about funding and the funding mix given the more noisy macro climate we're in today.

Sanjay Datta

Hey, Sam. Yeah, just maybe as a refresher, contextually, there's maybe three general sources of funding we think about. There is the originations that happen by other lenders who are using our technology, they tend to be banks and credit unions originating for their own balance sheet. We've got a number of large-scale partnerships. You referenced the latest one we announced, which is the Fortress. And then, there's what you might think of as the at will or securitization market.
And we like a balance between all three of those. I think they each have a place in our ecosystem. Obviously, with the added uncertainty in today's market, securitization markets and sort of at will funding is a little bit less reliable. And I think that the things that were behind our strategy for creating a large -- a number of large, committed partnerships is kind of playing out right now and really shining. And so in the current market, maybe there's a bit more sort of reliance placed on those agreements given that they're sort of designed for this market in particular.

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. And then, you guys called out some take rate pressure from higher sub-prime borrowers. Could you talk about how you guys are thinking about take rates as you kind of update your models throughout the remainder of the year?

Sanjay Datta

Yeah. Sam, just to clarify, that sort of take rate, I wouldn't call it pressure, we're sort of increasingly successful in the super prime segment, not the sub-prime. And very prime borrowers have a lot of competitive alternatives, and take rates and margins are necessarily lower in that segment. So as we gain share or increase mix from maybe the prime and the super prime segments of borrowers, you'll see the average take rates come down.

David Girouard

I think it's also important to say that our contribution margin and take rates are well above what they were back in 2021. So we have a lot of room. It's not really our goal to maximize our contribution margin at this point. So diversifying into super prime loans has such value to us that I think taking down our contribution margin back towards where it was in our earlier days is actually a very good thing.

Okay. Got you. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Mihir Bhatia, Bank of America.

Mihir Bhatia

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. The first question I wanted to ask was about just how have funding partners reacted to the volatility? Did you see any pullback from either your forward flow partners or even from, I guess, the third-party partners, the more opportunistic capital in early April from the volatility we saw in the fixed income markets?

Sanjay Datta

Hey, Mihir. I think that these committed partnerships are frankly behaving exactly as designed. The basis of those partnerships was that we essentially committed to navigating the different parts of the macro cycle together. And the structure of these deals helped to even out the different phases of that cycle. And those things are going exactly the way we expect them to. We believe we have the tools to read and react to shifts in the credit risk environment very quickly on behalf of the partners.
And a lot of these partnerships, frankly, have now accumulated some overperformance in these structures that are there for a rainy day. So I think that they are behaving exactly as intended. More broadly, the sort of securitization markets and the at will markets are still functioning. I think that spreads are a little bit higher and events rates are not as high as they were before. But the beautiful thing about the large committed partnerships we have is that we don't have to rely as much on the at will markets. And so as a result, our funding rails are as resilient as ever and we haven't had any pullbacks.

David Girouard

Let me just add to that, Mihir. I mean just for clarity, we've had no pullbacks from our private credit kind of committed capital partners, and we likewise had no pullbacks from banks or credit unions. So I think our credit continues to perform. And I think the confidence they have on Upstart is quite strong.

Mihir Bhatia

No, that is helpful. Thank you. And then, just one other question. On a similar topic really in terms of the macro volatility. Dave, you mentioned you'll have more tools to react to it. I guess the question really is, how has Upstart reacted so far to -- like how have you changed to the rising uncertainty around macro? Have you changed any underwriting any of your -- the product mix, maybe where you're trying to commit more marketing dollars. Has there been any changes so far to how you're operating the business to the way the macro uncertainty has changed over the last four months? Thank you.

David Girouard

Well, I'll say, first of all, I mean, we're definitely a conservative business who is very careful about fixed costs and hiring and things of that nature. So we have been forever, but I think for years now, I think we're extremely cautious about how we plan our own business. Just by way of example, all of our guidance and all does not assume any reduction in Fed rates this year. So that would just be a sample of that.
With respect to credit, which I'm -- you seem like maybe you're asking that as well. Generally, we rely on our models being very quick and adapting to macroeconomic changes, and we also build some conservatism in there so that we don't assume the future will be as good as the past was. So that combination, we think, is as good as you get in the market. I don't think there's anyone else that has models that are adaptive and quick to hone in on any changes in the macro, and we have some conservatism built in. And it's serving us really well as well as, of course, our lending partners and our private capital partners.

Mihir Bhatia

All right. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Pete Christiansen, Citi.

Peter Christiansen

Thank you. Good evening. Nice trends here. Do you want to talk -- can you give some good color on the consumer credit side, seems still pretty healthy. Also, your partners on the at-will side still fairly healthy. I wanted to dig a little deeper on to the ABS side. I know you had a $320 million transaction two weeks ago. Just curious if you had any feedback on the health of what you're seeing in the ABS market for more consumer loans? Do you think there's opportunity to do more there this year? And then, if you could comment on some of your risk retention and how do you believe that that's going to trend in the next few quarters. Thank you.

Sanjay Datta

Yeah, hey, Pete. Yeah, we're really pleased with the way that the latest ABS deal printed, frankly. It was a very healthily oversubscribed book on the bonds. The spreads were a little bit wider than they were earlier in the year. That's sort of natural. But overall, I think, we're really happy with the way it worked.
And, in particular, we use that market opportunistically. We don't rely on it. Our committed capital departments don't rely on it. When it's available and we can print deals like that, it's great. But if it's not, it's not sort of a cog in the wheel that we've got a lot of reliance on. So all in all, it is a good story.
I guess the part of your question is where the ABS markets go from here. I don't know that we have a strong view on that. They're famously hard to predict. But I guess the fact that they are just an opportunistic channel for us makes it less acutely important.

Peter Christiansen

That's helpful. And then, I guess, on the Fortress plan and also, I guess, you added 15 new partners as well. Just curious if there's any trend changes in risk retention, co-investment and how that's been going?

Sanjay Datta

Not really. I think the structure of these deals is very consistent now. So no trend, particularly in other direction in terms of how they work or how they're structured or what the terms are.

Peter Christiansen

Okay. Thank you. Nice report.

Operator

James Faucette, Morgan Stanley.

Hey, guys. It's Mike Infante on for James. Thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to sort of dig in on how you're thinking about the TAM opportunity today. So if I just think about the overall unsecured personal lending market, like is there any rough segmentation you can provide just on how that TAM opportunity of, call it, $150 billion sort of segment by FICO score. I'm just trying to contextualize your relative penetration with a more traditional Upstart borrower versus a newer prime borrower? Thanks.

David Girouard

I would say we have some sort of like back of the envelope like notion of that. We don't try to measure that too particularly. But I would say roughly that consumers in the US split somewhat evenly between what you would call a prime -- even super prime borrower, 720 plus or more of the people that we have typically served low 600s to 720. And if you just want to -- I think the -- at least my take is, from a personal loan perspective, the size of those markets are relatively similar.
So I think from that perspective, as we began to really open up to the super prime part of the market, we've kind of doubled the TAM, particularly in personal loans. And then, of course, that's all quite small relative to the TAM in home and auto put together, but that's how we would think about that.

That's helpful. Maybe just on customer acquisition. Anything you would call out just in terms of how your mix is evolving between pure organic traffic to upstart.com, how much is originated via direct mail and what you're sourcing via third-party marketplaces. Thanks.

Sanjay Datta

Yeah, hi, Mike. Nothing really to call out in terms of channel trends from last quarter to this. It's been pretty steady.

Operator

[James] Hecht, Jefferies.

John Hecht

Hey, guys. It's actually John Hecht from Jefferies. Hope you are good. Thanks for taking my question. Real quick, Sanjay, maybe a little bit more just kind of on, I guess, thinking about the fluctuations in the take rate. Obviously, we know there's a difference between core and super prime or the prime customer, but maybe what are you guys thinking about in terms of mix over the quarter over this year? Will prime continue to be a growing part of the mix? And then, at maturity, what is the take rate of like HELOC and auto? I mean, I know those are different markets with different sets of factors. So what are the kind of mature take rates of those versus the current take rate?

Sanjay Datta

Hey, John. Sorry about the name slip there. I don't think we have an explicit split between maybe sort of like super prime and near-prime segments within our guidance. I will say that as we said in our remarks, I think we did disproportionately well in the primer segments, and we hope for that to continue. So it's an area we're bullish on. We're earlier on, obviously, and we're sort of maybe the more beginning stages, so we maybe hope to grow that disproportionately.
With respect to take rates on the newer products, it's still a little bit early to tell, I think. But I think, in general, I would, say both home and auto would have the profile of being larger loans, maybe with more modest, at least, initially more modest take rates until our models can create the type of separation we have in personal lending, which allows us to sort of increase take rates over time. But there'll be larger loans with initially lower take rates and maybe sort of similar dollar contributions per loan.
And then, in the case of some products such as maybe, for example, auto is a good one, that contribution will be more ratable by the life of the loan in the form of servicing economics and less about upfront transaction take as we have almost exclusively on our core PL business.

John Hecht

Okay. That's super helpful. And then, a follow-up. Clearly, the private credit markets, they can structure I guess, mutually favorable deals with you guys. And as a result, and they have a lot of liquidity in that market as a result, it's pretty active. How would you define kind of the banks? I know like there was -- earlier on, they were fairly active and obviously, just given economic uncertainty and inflation and just sort of the last few years, I think they've been less active. How would you characterize that? And then, what are you looking for in terms of ability to kind of reengage more aggressively with that group?

David Girouard

Well, I think the thing that you can say about banks is they love secured products much more than unsecured products. So personal loans, a lot of the funding at the primary end comes from credit unions and increasingly institutional capital, private credit blended in certain ways, we think we'll compete quite well in the super prime part of our business. But with respect to banks, they really prefer secured products. And right now, there is certainly more demand from them for our HELOC product. And I believe, soon enough, our auto products that we would be struggling to fill that demand for a very long time.
So I think that's okay. I think it's a good balance where personal loans are mostly credit unions plus institutional funding combined in interesting ways and then secured products really -- a lot of interest from banks. And honestly, it will take us some time to grow those businesses large enough to really begin to fill that demand.

John Hecht

Okay. Perfect. Thanks very much for the color.

David Girouard

Thank you.

Operator

Rob Wildhack, Autonomous Research.

Rob Wildhack

Hi, guys. A question on, I guess, both funding and the outlook. The Fortress agreement obviously comes with a big headline number. But the full year guidance kind of up only a little bit. I mean given that you're not seeing any pullback in funding and you've added sort of $1.2 billion in incremental funding from Fortress. I guess, I'm just curious why the 2025 outlook isn't up even more?

David Girouard

Hey, Rob. The short answer is that we were never short of funding per se. So we're not funding gated in 2025. Having more funding is good and allows us to handle upside scenarios and have more diversification in the funding, but really -- the gating item really is kind of economic acquisition of the right borrowers. And that's almost always in our history been what gates our growth. And so it's great to have more funding and we hope to add more partners, but it doesn't translate directly into growth.

Rob Wildhack

Okay. And if I could just ask one more on OnePay. Can you comment at all on the underwriting or credit box there? Is that Upstart’s decision? And then, are there like any minimum volume commitments or approval rates embedded in the agreement?

David Girouard

It is our underwriting in our models that drive these things to a joint venture structure with them that we have -- we sit alongside them and bear some of the risk, which is the nature of these co-investment partnerships, but it is purely our technology and our models that drive the originations.

Rob Wildhack

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Reggie Smith, JPMorgan.

Reggie Smith

Hi, guys. Congrats on the quarter. I'm not sure if this was covered, but I was curious, it was nice to see the increase in super prime borrowers over the last couple of quarters. I guess my question is, how do you drive that payers. Does that require different marketing messages or are you marketing in different channels? Like how are you kind of controlling that? And what's driven the shift there? And I have a follow-up if you have to have.

David Girouard

Hey, Reggie. This is Dave. Great question. I mean, this is a transition that is in process, but it started first with having a competitive product. And that means competitive rates for very high FICO, high credit borrowers and that really came through working with our lending partners to realize that we had to have a lower take rate ourselves and then they had to have lower expectations but also have corresponding lower loss rates. And that's what we announced as our T-Prime program a while back, and we've really been focused on that since mid-2024.
So if you sort of fast forward to today, we have very competitive products across the credit spectrum, including for the finest borrowers out there. And now, as you suggest, there's more to the puzzle in terms of becoming the leader in all segments, which is our goal and that really is to adjust our messaging and our marketing targets. But if most people perceive Upstart as really good for people who are treated poorly by traditional lenders then that's, of course, a dated message. And we have a lot of work going on to update our story to the market, particularly to consumers to realize that Upstart is always going to be a great first place to start if you want the best rate and the fastest process.

Reggie Smith

Got it. Okay. That sounds good. And then, just you have a slide toward the back of your deck that shows you kind of return bands and it compares it to the two-year treasury yield. And clearly, that spread has widened the last couple of quarters, which is great. I guess how your do investor partners kind of think about that dynamic? And what type of spread is reasonable? Or are they satisfied with over the two year yield? Like how do you think about that? I would imagine the volatility of returns plays in that as well. But like that -- the interplay between those two variables, like how was that received thought about by your investment partners.

Sanjay Datta

Hey, Reggie, let's see. On the institutional side, it's very much a function or a reference with respect to how the market is in credit. And obviously, when uncertainty is higher is now spreads are wider, and we would then reflect that in our product that we deliver to investors. If you rewind many years before this chart, if you were a wine pre-COVID and sort of like the 2018, 2019 timeframe, base rates were low and spreads were also very tight, and you would have seen a much tighter spread. So I think that spread there is just a reflection of the risk environment, the environment of uncertainty. And that's exactly how it functions in the underlying credit markets as well.

Reggie Smith

Got it. And I guess to drill in on that, at where it is today, is that kind of perceived as excess spreads to those guys, like is there alpha in there for them or is that about kind of where your expectations are?

Sanjay Datta

I mean, their expectations ultimately are around return on equity. The spread is a component of the return on equity. And the spread itself, you think of as -- I mean, I guess, from premium above what you might think of as a risk-free rate or a government rate. In this case, it's the treasury. So the way that this builds is, there is some requirement of spread given the uncertainty of the environment and that results in a certain target ROE and ultimately what we talk about with our counterparties as the ROE.

Reggie Smith

Okay. It sounds good. Thank you for taking the questions. Congrats on the quarter.

David Girouard

Thank you, Reggie.

Sanjay Datta

Thanks, Reggie.

Operator

Giuliano Bologna, Compass Point.

Giuliano Bologna

All right. Good afternoon and congrats on the quarter. One thing I'm curious about kind of digging into a little bit is -- the first thing is that, obviously, you mixed a bit more towards prime and that's putting pressure on take rate. I'm curious if there's been any real change in the take rate for sub-prime or if it's entirely mix driven?
And then, related to that, if I think about sales and marketing as a percentage of origination volume, that stayed roughly flat, and I think completely flat at 263 basis points the last few quarters. I would think that if you're mixing more words prime, that would come down to reflect the lower take rate for prime, but I'm curious how we should think about the interplay of those two dynamics.

Sanjay Datta

Hi, Giuliano. I guess the first question is what's going on with the take rates and maybe the sort of the core or the near-prime segments, I would say they're largely stable. We are doing some, what we call, revenue signs, some origination fee experimentation. And so I guess, on the different parts of the curve, we're maybe going through optimizations and that may have some final impacts, but I think at large, these are relatively stable take rates.
And then, your second question had to do with acquisition costs, I believe, and whether they're very different in the prime space. I don't think they're dramatically different. Our margins are consequently slimmer, which we called out. And as Dave said, I think our distribution programs and our marketing are still at a relatively nascent stage in this sort of relatively new segment for ours so that they're not yet at a place where they're mature. But I think when they are, you'll see something like maybe similar acquisition costs, lower take rates and consequently more modest margins in a more competed space. But also, I guess, important to point out that this is all dollar accretive, right? This is all additional dollars to the bottom line, which is ultimately what we care about.

Giuliano Bologna

That makes sense. And so you changed the slide around in the presentation at loan performance and the tracking over time. It looks like the 4Q 2024 mentions is coming down a little bit versus Q2. I'm curious if that's because there's a higher mix of primary loans in there or if that's just representative of kind of the core sub-prime or lower credit tier loans?

Sanjay Datta

Yeah. That's the main thing going on, which is as you get a higher mix of primary loans, you'll get lower spreads and lower returns. There may be some -- also some normalization. I think that in the Q2 to Q3 vintages, we were probably overperforming our targets and the models will act to recalibrate that over time. But I think the main dynamic is the one you called out.

Giuliano Bologna

That’s very helpful. I appreciate the time, and I’ll jump back in the queue.

David Girouard

I just want to add a comment. I had gotten a question -- this is Dave. I got a question earlier from Rob about the OnePay Walmart partnership. I misheard him and my answer was referencing the Fortress partnership. So just so it's clear, I don't want any confusion there. I was actually referencing Fortress and if Rob wants to hop in again and re-ask about OnePay Walmart. We're happy to talk about it.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Matt O'Neill, FT Partners.

Matt O'Neill

Yeah, hi. Thanks so much. I think most of the questions were asked and answered. So I'll follow up on Rob's on One Finance Walmart. And in addition, could you just make it clear, is that being accounted for in any of the guidance changes or did that deal have any effect on the guide? Or any other moving pieces to the guide beyond the 1Q results, obviously?

David Girouard

Matt, this is Dave. I think we said that this OnePay Walmart agreement, we didn't expect to be materially financial this year. It doesn't mean it can't be. It just means we unable to know that right now because it's very early stage, just launched in the last few weeks. So I certainly think there's upside to it. We're hopeful there's more things we can do beyond the initial phase with them. But it is not today sort of influencing our 2025 guidance.

Matt O'Neill

Got it. And as far as any other sort of underlying changes, whether it's macro or otherwise? Any other moving pieces to the guide beyond the results being incorporated?

David Girouard

I think, what we said is we assume the macro doesn't change dramatically one way or the other. We also assume no reduction in Fed rates or no reduction in the underlying rates that tend to fuel the platform. So there's upside and downside in those, but we take what we feel is fairly conservative stance. And we always have confidence that our pipeline of model improvements and technology improvements will lead to growth, and we try to account for them conservatively as well. So I think we feel pretty good to reaffirm and at least modestly raise the guidance that we shared.

Matt O'Neill

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Rob Wildhack, Autonomous Research.

Rob Wildhack

Hey, guys. Thank for that Dave and thanks for let me back on. I was just curious with respect to OnePay, who controls the underwriting and credit box there, if that's Upstart decision? And if there were any minimum volume commitments or approval rates in the OnePay agreement. Thanks again.

David Girouard

Hey, Rob. No, it's entirely our business, our model, all the 100-plus banks, credit unions, private credit have exposure to that or can benefit from that borrower flow. So it's fairly perfect. I mean there are people who will get from Walmart that could be 800 FICO and wealthy. There's certainly people that are Middle America. So that's the beauty of our platform. And I think one of the reasons we have that agreement is that we can serve a very, very broad swath of America with the products and the diversity of the marketplace structure that we have. And so I think the timing works out perfectly with this whole notion of best rate for everybody.

Rob Wildhack

Got it. Thanks. And just quick, do you share any economics back with OnePay, maybe like take rate or anything like that?

David Girouard

Well, for sure. They have a financial interest in it. I mean, they're kind of bringing a customer to us. So there is some share, but we feel very good about the economics and the agreement. I think it is definitely a win-win for them, for us, for their customers. So very excited about the partnership.

Rob Wildhack

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, that was the end of our question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back to Dave for closing remarks.

David Girouard

Thanks, everybody, for joining. We're actually really pleased with the progress that we've had so far in 2025. And I think the rest of the year might be even more exciting. So we'll see many of you at AI Day next week in New York, and I hope that many others will be joining us via streaming if you can find the time in your day to do that. If you really want to really understand what we're building in Upstart, I think AI day will be super fun and an informative event. Thanks again for joining us.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye