Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Deluxe Q1 and full-year 2022 earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Today's call is being recorded. We will begin by opening remarks and introductions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Vice President of Investor Relations, Tom Morabito. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Welcome to the Deluxe Q4 and full-year 2022 earnings call. Joining me on today's call is Barry McCarthy, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chip Zint, our Chief Financial Officer. At the end of today's prepared remarks, we will take questions. Before we begin, as seen on this slide, I'd like to remind everyone that comments made today regarding management's intentions, projections, financial estimates, or expectations about the company's future strategy or performance are forward-looking in nature, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Additional information about factors that may cause our actual results to differ from projections is set forth in the press release we furnished today in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021, and in other company SEC filings.
On the call today, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including comparable adjusted -revenue, adjusted-a nd comparable adjusted- EBITDA, adjusted- and comparable- adjusted-EBITDA- margin, adjusted- EPS, and free cash flow. To streamline discussion about ongoing business operations, today and going forward, we will discuss both revenue and EBITDA on a comparable adjusted basis, which will exclude the inconsistency caused by acquisitions or divestitures in the prior periods. For purposes of full-year 2022, this will exclude the partial year impact of First American and impact of the divestitures done throughout the year. In our press release, our presentation, and our filings with the SEC, you will find additional disclosures regarding the non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable measures under US GAAP. Also in the presentation, we are providing additional reconciliations of GAAP EPS to adjusted- EPS, which should help with your modeling.
Now I'll turn it over to Barry.
Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. Deluxe delivered strong results for both the 4th quarter and full-year 2022, further proving we've become a payments and data company. As we expect, payments will become our largest segment by revenue during the 1st half of 2023. This will be a key milestone in the company's history. Before reviewing the results, let me take a moment to reflect on what was another strong year for Deluxe. Four key highlights from the year include, first, reporting our 2nd consecutive year of sales-driven revenue growth, an achievement not seen in over a decade, showing the strength of our One Deluxe model. Second, the accelerating success of our payments and data business. In payments, First American continues to perform well in its 2nd year as part of Deluxe, and we're expanding blended margins across the segments.
In the data business, we recorded record revenue. Third, strong performance in our print businesses, Promo and Check. Promo strongly rebounded after the impacts of COVID and supply chain disruptions, and Checks delivered its strongest top-line performance in over 10 years. This performance shows the durability of demand for these solutions. Fourth, our ERP implementation went live with its last major release earlier this week. This key milestone marks the completion of our major corporate infrastructure modernization. We also just announced the exit of our North American web hosting business, which was a non-strategic business line, allowing us to further focus on payments and data. Chip will provide more details on the transaction. We've also changed the name of our Cloud Solutions segment to Data Solutions to better reflect the more focused operations of that business.
Let me also take a moment to thank my fellow Deluxers for another strong year, for their endless dedication to our customers, and for their continued commitment to making Deluxe a payments and data company. The sales team gathered last week for our sales kickoff, the energy and excitement about 2023 was palpable. On to the results. For full-year 2022, comparable- adjusted- revenue was $2.1 billion, up 5.2% year-over-year. Reported revenue increased 10.7% above our guided range. Once again, this is our second consecutive year of sales-driven revenue growth. This is a key milestone. We continue to demonstrate the success of our One Deluxe model. For 2022, all four segments demonstrated comparable adjusted -revenue growth, an accomplishment which has not been seen in a very long time.
Long ago, it's outside the range of available data. Total adjusted-E BITDA dollars increased 2.5% from 2021. Comparable adjusted-EBITDA was down 4%. Going forward, we remain focused on driving growth in revenue, adjusted- EBITDA, and free cash flow for the long term. All of our actions drive towards these goals, which in turn we believe will drive greater shareholder returns. Moving on to some segment revenue highlights. For the full-year , on a comparable adjusted basis, payments revenue grew 4.7% and adjusted- EBITDA dollars grew 8.3%, with margins expanding 70 basis points from 2021. Merchant services revenue increased 4.4% on a comparable adjusted basis, in line with our longer-term expectations of mid-single-digit growth.
The rest of payments, which includes our receivables and payables business, grew nearly 5%, with growth across our product lines, primarily in digital payments and treasury management. Our pipeline continues to grow, and we continue to gain wallet share from existing customers as we remain on track for payments to be our largest revenue segment in the first half of the year. As I said earlier, this will be another key milestone for Deluxe as we've now become a payments and data company. Data had a strong year, growing comparable adjusted-r evenue 8.6% year-over-year as we continue to expand the business into non-interest rate sensitive verticals. Promo had a solid year on the top line, improving comparable adjusted-r evenue 6.1%. We were also pleased with the improvement in margins as the year progressed, which Chip will detail later.
Finally, our check business improved 3.7% year-over-year, an incredible accomplishment. However, we are expecting the segment to return to traditional secular decline rates this year as we've now lapped the growth from key wins in 2021. As discussed on prior calls, our strategic investments in new print-on-demand technology will help us manage costs to match volumes, allowing us to maintain our strong margin rate in the segment as we return to normal secular declines. We're about halfway through the implementation of this new technology. We're proud of both our Q4 and full-year results, which highlight our progress. Deluxe is now a fundamentally different company than what we were just a few years ago. With payments, a strong secular growth business, soon to be our largest revenue segment. We've proven our One Deluxe model delivers top-line growth.
This was achieved while simultaneously modernizing the company's entire infrastructure, navigating COVID and inflation, executing significant portfolio optimization, and more. I'll turn it over to Chip, who will provide more details on our financial performance.
Thank you, Barry, and good morning, everyone. Before we review the results for the quarter, I'd like to elaborate on the pending sale of our North American web hosting business. Last year, we sold our Australian web hosting operations, and upon completion of the latest transaction, we will have completely exited the hosting business. As a reminder, this business has historically been largely a white label service offered through telecom partners which did not allow for material cross-selling opportunities and did not fit within our overall portfolio. This pending deal also includes our logo business. For the trailing 12 months, these businesses generated approximately $66 million in revenue with adjusted- EBITDA margins in the mid to high 30% range. The web hosting business was previously fully impaired due to its capital-intensive nature and recurring revenue declines.
This was further evidenced in the Q4, where revenue declined 8% year-over-year. 2023 revenue will be impacted by approximately $45 million and adjusted- EBITDA and free cash flow each will be impacted by approximately $20 million. These impacts are included in our guidance, which I'll discuss in a moment, and mostly affect our data segment with a very small impact to the promo segment. I know there have been many changes to the portfolio recently, but they reflect a methodical effort to simplify and focus the business. For more information about the business exits and impact to guidance, please refer to the reconciliations in our press release and presentation. Additional details of the transaction can also be found in our recently filed Form 8-K with the SEC.
Now let's go through the consolidated highlights for the quarter and year before moving on to the segments. For the Q4, total comparable adjusted-revenue improved 1.2% to $564 million. On a reported basis, revenue declined 1.2% year-over-year. We reported Q4 GAAP net income of $19 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, up from $14 million or $0.32 per share in the Q4 of 2021. adjusted-EBITDA came in at $112 million, down $3 million or 2.8% on a comparable adjusted basis from last year. Improvements in payments, data, and promo were offset by checks and employee benefit costs in the corporate segment. Comparable adjusted-EBITDA margins were 19.9% and in line with our expectations.
Q4 Adjusted Diluted EPS came in at $1.04, down from $1.26 in last year's Q4. This decrease was primarily driven by interest expense. As a reminder, nearly 60% of our debt is fixed rate, which should help insulate the company from future rate hikes. For the full-year , on a reported basis, we posted total revenue of $2.24 billion, up 10.7% year-over-year and above our guided range. As Barry mentioned, comparable adjusted-revenue increased 5.2% year-over-year. We reported full-year GAAP net income of $65 million or $1.50 per share for the year, up from $63 million or $1.45 per share in 2021.
Full-year adjusted-EBITDA was $418 million, up $10 million or 2.5% as reported from last year. adjusted-EBITDA margins were 18.7%, down from last year's 20.2% due to business mix and the impact of pass-through price increases to offset inflation. On a comparable adjusted basis, EBITDA dollars declined 4% for the year, and EBITDA margins were 18.5%, down from 20.3% last year. Full-year adjusted EPS came in at $4.08, down from $4.88 in 2021, primarily due to higher interest expense, depreciation, and amortization. Turning up to our segment details, starting with our growth businesses, payments and Data.
Payments grew Q4 revenue 2.5% year-over-year to $171 million, with merchant services growing 3.3% year-over-year. As we indicated on the last call, we anticipated slower growth for a few quarters as all of payments was up against tough year-over-year comparisons. We do, however, expect growth rates to improve as the year progresses. Payments adjusted-EBITDA margins were 21.6%, up from last year's 20.6%, largely driven by operating leverage in our treasury management business. For the year, payments grew revenue 33% year-over-year to $679 million, driven by the acquisition of First American and sales-driven growth for standalone Deluxe.
For the year, and including First American, adjusted-EBITDA increased 36.9% and adjusted-EBITDA margins were 21.3%, up 60 basis points. On a comparable adjusted basis for the year, payments revenue increased 4.7%, EBITDA increased 8.3%, and EBITDA margins were 21.4%, up from 20.7%. For 2023, we expect to see mid-single-digit revenue growth and adjusted-EBITDA margins in the low to mid 20% range. Data had another strong quarter. Comparable adjusted-revenue increased 11% year-over-year to $63 million. On a reported basis, Data's revenue was up 0.3% from the Q4 of 2021. We once again saw strength, particularly in our data-driven marketing business, delivering another significant revenue growth quarter.
We specifically saw a few customers accelerate campaigns, pulling Q1 plan spend into Q4. As such, we expect the Q1 result to decline low single digits due to the timing shifts of these campaigns. Data Solutions' adjusted-EBITDA margin in the quarter increased 340 basis points year-over-year to 27.6%, which again relates to timing as well as operating leverage from strong data-driven marketing volume. On a comparable adjusted basis, EBITDA margins improved 300 basis points. For the year, the Data Solutions segment comparable adjusted-revenue increased 8.6% year-over-year to $268 million. On a reported basis, Data Solutions grew 2% for the year.
For 2022, Data's adjusted-EBITDA margins declined 130 basis points versus prior year to 25.5%, driven by business mix and the investments in our data platform. On a comparable adjusted basis, EBITDA margins declined 170 basis points. For 2023, we expect to see low single-digit revenue growth on a comparable adjusted basis. We also expect to see comparable adjusted-EBITDA margins in the low 20% range. Turning now to our print businesses, promo and checks. Promo's Q4 revenue was $154 million, up 3.1% on a comparable adjusted basis, driven by new sales wins and pricing actions. On a reported basis, revenue declined 1.5% year-over-year.
Promo's adjusted-EBITDA margins increased 100 basis points year-over-year to 19.3%, improved nearly 600 basis points sequentially as we benefited from continued pricing actions, stable supply conditions, and normal seasonal upticks. On a comparable adjusted basis, EBITDA margins improved 50 basis points from the Q4 of 2021. For the year, Promo's revenue was $563 million, up 6.1% year-over-year on a comparable adjusted basis or 3% on a reported basis. adjusted-EBITDA margins for the year were 14.1%, down 150 basis points, and on a comparable adjusted basis, we're down 190 basis points. For 2023, we expect to see low single-digit comparable adjusted-revenue growth and adjusted-EBITDA margins in the mid-teens.
Checks Q4 revenue decreased 4.6% from last year to $176 million as the business returned to expected secular declines with Q4 results now lapping all the major new customer wins from 2021. Q4 adjusted-EBITDA margins were 42.5%, down 270 basis points year-over-year as we experienced off-cycle supplier price increases for both materials and logistics inputs, some of which are temporary seasonal-based surcharges. We have factored these and future expected increases into our 2023 customer price increases. As a result, we believe the margin rate will improve in Q1.
Checks full-year 2022 revenue was $729 million, up 3.7% year-over-year, adjusted-EBITDA margins were 44%, down 210 basis points, consistent with our long-term expectations of mid 40% margins. For 2023, we are expecting mid-single-digit revenue declines and adjusted-EBITDA margins in the mid 40% range. As Barry mentioned, our print-on-demand technology will help maintain margins, we are about halfway through the implementation. Turning now to our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the year with a net debt level of $1.6 billion, down from $1.64 billion last year, demonstrating our continued commitment to pay down debt. Our net debt to adjusted-EBITDA ratio was 3.8x at the end of the year, improving from 4x a year ago.
Our long-term strategic target remains approximately three times. Free cash flow, defined as cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures, was $37 million in the quarter, up from $34 million in the Q4 of 2021 due to improved working capital and lower cloud computing arrangement, or CCA spend, partially offset by higher interest payments. This was also a sequential improvement from the third quarter. Q1 2023 free cash flow is expected to be negative, as it'll be impacted by incremental interest expense, one-time expenses from our ERP implementation, and annual employee compensation payments, should improve as the year progresses. For the year, free cash flow was $87 million, down from $102 million in 2021 due to higher interest payments, cash taxes, and working capital.
Our board approved a regular quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share on all outstanding shares. The dividend will be payable on March 6, 2023 to all shareholders of record as of market closing on February 21, 2023. We are focused on taking a balanced approach to capital allocation. As a reminder, our capital allocation priorities are to responsibly invest in growth, pay our dividend, reduce debt, and return value to our shareholders. Turning now to guidance. Today, we are providing our expectations for 2023, keeping in mind all figures are approximate and reflect the expected impact of the web hosting and logo divestiture. Revenue of $2.145 billion-$2.21 billion. adjusted-EBITDA of $390 million-$405 million.
Adjusted EPS of $2.90 to $3.25. Free cash flow of $80 million-$100 million. To be clear, on a comparable adjusted basis, 2023 revenue represents a range of -1% to +2% growth. The comparable adjusted-EBITDA range represents -2% to +2% growth. To further clarify, EPS is expected to decline year-over-year due to the full-year impact of rising interest rates, incremental depreciation and amortization, and an estimated $0.25 impact from the announced divestiture. However, factoring in the impact of the divestiture, the free cash flow guide is an increase year-over-year on a comparable adjusted basis.
In order to assist with your modeling, our guidance assumes the following: interest expense of $120 million-$125 million, an adjusted tax rate of 26%, depreciation and amortization of $170 million, of which acquisition amortization is approximately $75 million, an average outstanding share count of 43.7 million shares, and capital expenditures of approximately $100 million. This guidance is subject to, among other things, prevailing macroeconomic conditions, including interest rates, labor supply issues, inflation, and the impact of other divestitures. To summarize, we are pleased with the Q4 and full-year 2022 results. Our sales pipeline continues to expand with new customers, and we continue to see increased growth from our existing customer base.
We look forward to continuing the momentum in 2023, a year which we expect to be highlighted by continued revenue growth, increased operational efficiencies, and increased free cash flow. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Lance Vitanza from Cowen. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks very much for taking the questions. Kind of a lot to unpack here, let me start with the web hosting and logo divestiture. Did you call out the EBITDA margin on the asset sale?
We did. We said that it was mid to high 30s. As you know, Lance, that is a business that was a consumer of capital, and it was in decline. We also mentioned that in the Q4, revenue in that segment declined 8%.
Right. If it was $65 million of revenue, then kind of like $25 million-ish of EBITDA, something in that range or in that general vicinity. I guess that was for the trailing 12 months. Where I'm going with this, Barry, is I'm thinking about your adjusted-EBITDA guidance of $390 million-$405 million, which right on the face of it looks like it's down versus the $418 million that you printed this year or for 2022. If we add the $25 million-ish, right, from the asset sales, then we're sort of, we're getting to that slight EBITDA positive that you talk about in the 8-K filing. Is that sort of the right way to think about it?
This is Chip. As you have time to digest this, you'll see at the back of our earnings release and slides, we provided some information that will reconcile that for you, especially on the guidance side. Your back of the napkin math is roughly right. You know, around $25 million of EBITDA for a full-year . We are of course modeling into our guidance only 3 quarters of impact. That's where we get the roughly $45 million revenue impact and approximately $20 million EBITDA impact that I just referred to on the call. All of those things, plus the impact of last year's exits rolling forward are reconciled in the back.
That's why we thought it was important to move this to comparable adjusted dynamics so that it can be much more transparent on how the business is doing on an apples-to-apples basis.
Okay, great. Maybe moving on to the Data segment that continues. You know, you mentioned during the call continued diversification into non-interest rate sensitive verticals. I'm wondering how much of the Data segment, again, on a go forward basis, how much of that Data segment currently is in non-interest rate sensitive verticals?
You know, Lance, I don't think we've ever provided sort of the sources of revenue at that level.
You know, the reason that business continues to perform well in a period of rising interest rates, I think, is because those non-interest rate sectors or categories are experiencing really attractive growth rates that are more than offsetting things that were highly sensitive, like mortgage. If you look back in our history, you can see, you know, previous interest rate cycles like this, that business was pretty significantly impacted, and we're actually showing growth. I think that gives you a good sort of direction that it's increasingly about non-interest rate sensitive categories.
Is it possible to talk a little bit about which of those non-interest rate sensitive verticals present the most obvious or most compelling opportunities for Deluxe? Are there any examples of recent wins to call out? Anything like along those lines?
Sure. I'm gonna give you two parts of this. You know, the business historically was focused on financial services industry. Within the financial services industry, dollars are being shifted in those financial services companies away from interest rate sensitive things like mortgages towards things like certificates of deposit, normal DDA accounts, high reward credit cards, other solutions that the financial institution is, you know, attacking to deliver their own growth. We've shown an ability to move into those sectors, away from, you know, the interest rate sensitive area. Beyond that, we've also moved into and are providing now campaign services to a very wide range of solutions. Everything from one of the largest online retailers to insurance companies and others that are interested in growing and finding new customers.
The focus on all of this really are businesses that have high lifetime value for a customer. The reason the solution is valuable to them is that we are providing to that company a very, very high converting lead list so that company can invest materially in its marketing plans with the confidence that it will turn into new customers. We're growing the business because we're just really, really good at it.
That's helpful, Barry. Thanks. Quick question on the checks side. You know, margin was a bit weaker than we had expected. How has the margin performance compared to your own expectations? Was there anything going on in there that drove, in the quarter, that drove margin performance one way or the other that's worth kind of calling out? I apologize if I missed that during your prepared remarks.
It's Chip again. You're right. The 42.5% for the quarter was a bit below our expectations. We mentioned kinda 2 factors. There were 2 out-of-cycle supplier price increases that we experienced, both on the material side and logistics side. Logistics specifically was more of a seasonal-based surcharge that will correct itself now in the start of the year. The out-of-cycle price increases obviously happened. They were out-of-cycle, which means as we set our final forecast for the year, we didn't see them yet. That was a bit of a surprise. As I said, we'll be able to bake those increases into this next price increase early in the year. Obviously it's very great that the overall portfolio was able to offset that issue and deliver the results exactly where we thought they would be.
Thanks. Just last one for me, I promise. Just on corporate expenses, they were up again about 5% year-over-year. Is that just sort of the inflationary environment, or is there anything in particular going on there? Really more to the point, I guess, it looks like you're running close to 9% of revenues on that corporate line, and it might even be higher on a comparable adjusted-revenue basis. I'm just wondering if that's sort of the right... Is that the right percentage for a company this size, or is there... Should we be thinking that maybe there's some improvement there to come or no? Is this just kind of a good level that you guys are happy with? Anything you could say there would be helpful. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, sure. Turning to the quarter, I think you got to recall, we've mentioned a few times throughout the year that we restored our 401(k) match earlier this year. That's been weighing on the corporate segment. When you really look at the growth year-over-year, mostly a function of that. There's puts and takes across the other areas. Other increases related to inflation offset by operational efficiencies. Net-net, the real driver year-over-year in the Q4 was that 401(k) match. As we look forward to 2023, you are right. I would tell you, as you're thinking about your guidance and your modeling, you have to roughly model somewhere around $200 million or roughly 9% of revenue to get to the ranges we've provided. Let me just give you a little bit of context what's going on there.
You know, we continue to deal with inflation. It's a factor of the environment. We've got the investments in the technology we've mentioned a few times. We also have the function of the divestiture. Once we divest those assets, there will be some stranded costs that are corporate in nature that'll come back to the corporate cost center. All those things equally look like we are kind of staying flat, which we know is not where we need to be. I'll just reiterate that this remains a major focus area for us. Getting cost out of the corporate segment is one of the most strategic factors for us as we get into the year and look to over deliver our results and overdrive our internal plan.
I would just advise you to kind of model it as this 9% roughly or $200 million for now. Know it's a major focus of ours, and we think we can make progress as the year goes on to try to bring this spend down.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Congrats on the solid quarter.
Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Strauzer from CJS Securities. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. If we could talk a little bit about the divestiture yesterday in the hosting business. And if you look at the sale earlier in the year of the Australian piece, it seems that, you know, the sale, you know, kind of the all-in sale price was, you know, below where this business was bought, you know, back I think in 2008. And seems, you know, the price tag is a little bit low, but wondering there, you know, what transpired in terms of, you know, a potential, you know, kind of shopping, you know, kind of a go shop, if you will, in that process.
Charlie Strauzer, you're right. The company acquired those assets before, quite a while ago. You'll recall that as in 2019, we had fully impaired between 2019, early 2020, we fully impaired the asset entirely because the market for that business had changed so materially. As we look to the future, really recognize that those businesses, web hosting really weren't a fit and a match with becoming a payments and data company. We went to market looking for suitable buyers, a very robust process. We came out with what we think is a fair transaction.
It avoids for us, the ongoing need to put, you know, significant capital into the business in a business with, you know, secular declines, and a much better fit for the acquirer because they're in that. That's their core business. They have leverage and scale from adding our portfolio to their business. It was a profile and an opportunity we didn't have. We took the opportunity to divest that. We think it'll be very focusing for the company. You heard us say that we're changing the name of the segment from Cloud because it was a distributed set of assets, and now it's very, very focused on our Data business, which is what we've been saying is the jewel in that business for some time.
We think that makes it much more clear, and we think it's a good outcome.
Got it. You know, staying on the topic of divestitures, you know, are you planning to, you know, potentially divest more businesses, you know, going forward here, or are we kind of at the tail end of that process?
You know what, we will continue to look at the portfolio for pruning opportunities. Charlie, if the question really is are you going to look to us to lop off one of the four legs, check promo, Data or Payments, I think we're at the place where we feel confident that's not on the horizon here.
Makes sense. Thank you very much on that. Then, you know, looking at the guidance for the year, you know, pretty wide range of outcomes there, you know, at the, at the high end on revenue growth, you know, given that we're going into, you know, potentially a recession here with, you know, inflation and higher interest rates, you know, kind of in the forecast, you know, what gives you confidence there at the high end of that range and kind of what are some of the assumptions behind the guidance overall?
I appreciate the question, Charlie. It's Chip. I would just say, I think, you know, the high end of the range, what gives us confidence is just the execution success we've seen over the last two years. The ability to cross-sell within the portfolio, the way we've invested in the products over the last few years to improve the functionality, the market attractiveness of it, to build a robust pipeline and just continue the sales momentum. If I think about from a revenue side, I mean, obviously we did our range responsibly for all the right reasons you mentioned. There still is uncertainty, and you don't know what's going to happen. We look at that top end and think it's very achievable.
As you flow it down, obviously, the ranges get a bit wider as you go down my list of things I guided because the uncertainty and room for variance can get larger and larger. We just feel good about where the company's positioned, the internal plan we've established, and just being able to execute on the momentum we've had the last 2 years from a top-line perspective. When you get to the EBITDA, you know, it just can't be said enough how much we're going to focus on cost out, cost efficiencies, operating leverage, the corporate cost center, as I said, and just get very maniacally focused on our cost profile so that we can make sure we deliver that EBITDA result and start to grow EBITDA even more. That'll obviously help our deleveraging.
Got it. Great. quick housekeeping on the check side. just, you know, in terms of volumes, you know, how did the clients, you know, look there? you know, what should we think about in terms of volumes for the full-year ?
On checks. I mean, checks did return to secular declines again in the quarter. If you think about kind of volume-price dynamics, it's a little bit more difficult to describe here. Obviously, price continued to be a function of the revenue because we took pricing action throughout the year that rolled forward. But after we lapped all the customer wins, we did return to kind of normal secular declines. We still had volume increases despite that. But when you net it all out, you know, net reduction in revenue, which is what we're anticipating will be the same for 2023. We're forecasting mid-single-digit declines, but the ability to keep margins in that mid 40% range. If, if I take checks aside and look at the other three segments, we continue to see a nice blend of volume and price.
It was actually nearly 50/50 once again for the quarter. Just excluding the secular decline aspect of the business, we just continue to see a really good, healthy mix of volume and price, and that gives us confidence going into 2023 as well.
Great. Thank you very much on that. Then, lastly, just can you repeat on the what you said about payments, you know, growth through the year, and margin expectations there? I missed that.
Payments we see as a mid-single digit grower for the full-year . We do think it's gonna be maybe a little bit lower in the Q1, then it will pick up some steam as it gets into Q2 and beyond. That's a function mostly of just some year-over-year comps that we're coming up against. We do believe it's gonna be mid-single digit on the revenue side. On the adjusted- EBITDA margin side, you know, this is an area that this business is finally really starting to show the value of why we love it so much is it's starting to get operating leverage. You know, low to mid 20% margins. I think if you look at the trend of that business over the last few quarters, you're starting to see this operating leverage that we've been talking about.
We're feeling pretty good about the ability to, of course, grow the mid-single digits and then also just get EBITDA expansion, which would be nice, to help hit that overall EBITDA guidance and offset the declines in checks that we're planning.
Great. Thank you very much. Just lastly, what should we be thinking about assumption-wise for share-based comp for the year?
Share-based comp, give me just a second. I would say somewhere around $25 million would be what I would assume.
Got it. Great. Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate it.
Your next question comes from the line of Marc Riddick from Sidoti. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit. I appreciate all the details that you've already provided. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about thoughts on potential headcount adjustments for the year. You know, you've talked about, you know, trying to, you know, keep the costs under control, but I was sort of wondering about maybe where you might stand as far as adding headcount and sort of maybe talk a little bit about any investment initiatives for the year.
Sure. On headcount, you know, we are very disciplined about managing headcount. You know, we go through periods of pruning, including one earlier in January, but we are not a company that has historically just done across the board reductions. We're very disciplined at managing particularly professional staff. I think that the rest of the question really is how do we think about cost management for the rest of the year and going forward? The thing I would really tell you is we really focused on getting revenue growing in the company, and we've now proven the company's capable of that. Some people didn't think we would actually deliver that. We've now delivered it for two consecutive years.
The next big thing we go attack is profitability, and particularly where the, you know, the corporate cost center is a particular target. We're gonna be very disciplined and thoughtful, just like we have on the portfolio and just like we have been on growing revenue, to attack that next to help us, you know, expand the profitability of the company from here.
Great. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about it. You touched on some of the customer behavior that you're seeing, you know, given the environment that we're functioning in here. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about if there are any particular industry verticals or pockets that are a little stronger than others or, you know, is pretty much the behavior that you're seeing largely across the board with customer verticals.
What I would tell you is overall, we're seeing, you know, very, you know, durable demand across our entire portfolio of services. You know, we are seeing some shift between verticals or between different periods, where volume is up or down modestly by sector or time period. In aggregate, we continue to see, you know, strong and continuous demand for solutions. That's, you know, you can see that on our performance from a revenue perspective.
Great. I guess the last thing I was sort of thinking about is, I wanted to sort of circle back on the commentary that you had on the vestiture and sort of the opportunity for future pruning. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe on a bigger picture, maybe what you're seeing with the opportunities within the M&A pipeline, sort of thoughts on, you know, current valuation and whether that's, if you've seen any changes there, any greater willingness of folks to engage or if that's changed much over the last few months given the recessionary environment? Thank you.
You know, the broader M&A market I think had been fairly frozen for some period of time. We're seeing maybe a little bit of, you know, a slight thaw in that. You know, I think our perspective for our business is we really like the core assets that we have in payments and data. Our, you know, first objective is of course, invest in the company for its success and continue to pay down debt. Are we gonna be active in the M&A market to acquire assets, which is where I think you're going?
you know, the hurdle rate for that kind of a transaction would be really, really high right now with interest rates and, you know, I think that we believe that valuations are still a little bit.
A little bit frothy. You know, you never say never, but, you know, we like the businesses we have, and we like our pathway to continue to pay down debt, and we see that sort of as the, as the first and primary pathway.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Maben from Stephens. Your line is open.
Hi. This is Alex Newman on for Chuck here. Sorry if I missed the call out, but did you give expectations for revenue growth for the data segment in 2023, given some of that pull forward of revenue from Q1, and then just some of the drivers behind that revenue growth for the year? That'd be great.
Yeah. Hey, Alex, it's Chip. Yeah, we did. For the full-year , we're expecting low single-digit revenue growth, and it's important to note that we refer to that as on a comparable adjusted basis because that one will obviously have the change in the divestiture occurring over time. We'll continue to reconcile that and give you guys that. For the full-year , we see low single-digit growth. That's a bit slower than what we saw across the data segment this past year, but that's because this past year was such a large growth year. I mean, that business grew north of 20%. Obviously we just know that it's a high hurdle to clear.
The Q1 specifically, we're expecting to be a little difficult just because of those handful of campaigns that shifted into the Q4 out of the Q1. It kind of depleted the pipeline just a bit. The team continues to work their pipeline, their list of deals. We do know that the start of the year may be a little slower, but we don't see any reason that that business can't grow low single digits for the full-year .
Okay. Just within the merchant services, could you speak to what you're seeing in terms of what's on the ground from your SMBs and what volumes are looking like and just the overall health?
I think in the merchant business overall, we continue to see, you know, robust volume. You know, there's lots of media attention about, you know, and speculation what's happening in SMBs. I think overall we're seeing pretty solid volume there. You know, our Q4 delivered exactly what we expected it to. I'm sure you've seen the Commerce Department numbers for December. We just didn't experience that. We delivered the quarter in the way we expected to deliver it. We feel like the variety of business we have there and the market verticals where we compete, you know, help balance each other out in good times and in tough times. We feel like that's pretty solid business right now.
All right. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of David Silver from C.L. King. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. I think I have a first question would be on your free cash flow forecast, and then I'd have a maybe a more strategic question about SaaS-generated revenue. Regarding your free cash flow, the $80 million-$100 million range you provided. I mean, I've noticed that that's, you know, kind of in the range of the last 2 years. I think the term is kind of maybe a flywheel, but is it the case that, you know, should operating results exceed, you know, your budget, you may increase your discretionary spending and kinda keep your free cash flow within that targeted range?
Or, you know, alternatively, if results fall a little below target, would you cut back on investments, let's say, either capital spending or working capital, again, to kind of keep that free cash flow within a targeted range? I mean, how should we think about, you know, that free cash flow target in terms of, you know, flexibility there or how inviolate it might be? Secondly, on your CapEx spend, let's say of $100 million, can you remind me what the sustaining portion of that is versus what you would consider discretionary spend? Thank you.
David, it's Chip. On your first question, the guidance of $80-$100, keep in mind we're kind of approximating that the divestiture is roughly a $20 million impact to that. All things equal, that's a guidance range of more $100-$120 based off apples to apples, which you'll see is getting us back to kind of our historical range that we were, you know, two, three years ago, despite all the increases in interest costs. I think that's a good place to land.
Right.
To hopefully answer your question, though, you know, when we set the investment target for the year, whether it's the $100 million CapEx or anything we may doing inside the P&L, you know, we actually look to achieve those, if not underspend those. We don't look to throttle up discretionary investment just because the results are trending better. We view those as kind of starting points, and we're going to do our best to spend our money wisely, come in under, and make sure we can overdeliver the free cash flow the best way possible because there's many of others go, whether it's interest expense or taxes. We know we have to manage this. I wouldn't be concerned that if operating results trend better that we're gonna throttle up investment. That's not what we would do.
To answer your last part of the question, in the guide of $100 million, I would think of it as roughly $40 million-$45 million of that is the sustaining. We call it KBR, keep the business running side, with the rest of it, the 55-60 being growth related. High level 60/40 growth to maintenance capital. As you know, we're doing the print-on-demand upgrade in checks, that's something that we're halfway through, over time that work will go down. You know, we just continue to invest responsibly in our growth products with payments and Data and to try to make the company more efficient.
Thank you very much for that. My next question is, you know, maybe a little more strategic or philosophical, but, you know, Barry, you've taken a number of steps over the last couple years to transform your company into, as you pointed out today, a payments and data company. I'm just wondering, you know, underneath that, you know, there's different kinds of revenue generation. I think in your slide deck, you know, the emphasis on SaaS driven revenues or has been increasing, you know, pretty steadily over time.
I'm just wondering, you know, beyond, you know, the headlines of or the column headings of payments and data, whether, you know, underneath that there's also targets or goals for SaaS-driven revenues, which I consider more stickier and more relationship-based versus maybe, you know, transactional sales of one-time sales of services to companies that might, you know, handle the service themselves. What are your goals maybe for that maybe more differentiated, SaaS-driven revenue, where maybe there's a service, a differentiated service component in there that could make for, you know, more durable revenue streams of stickier customers and that kind of thing? Thank you.
That is a really insightful question, and it goes right to the very core of our sort of corporate strategy, which is we are trying to build the payments and data businesses because by their nature, they are stickier businesses. For example, in our receivables and payables business, customers choose and adopt 1 platform to run their and build their business upon, and increasingly they're choosing our platform. We have a number of banks that are reselling our receivables platform as a branded version of their bank. You don't know that it's Deluxe providing the solution. You know that it's the bank providing the solution to their customer. That is extremely sticky because once the customer has a commercial bank relationship with the bank and they're using our platform to manage their receivables and payables, that customer doesn't attract.
That's driven by delivering a great experience and set of tools, you know, software-as-a-service type model where that customer is building their business on the platform. That's honestly where we're making our investments as a company. We are gonna launch later this year improved tools for our receivables business that will give us, you know, really attractive, really easy-to-use tools, for the customer. We've invested in our platform for our data business, which someone was asking earlier about how we're, you know, diversifying the business. It's because we've invested in our platform that's allowed us to grow that business into new business verticals. You know, we're not here to say that we're a software-as-a-service company.
We're absolutely clear, though, that we are moving the company towards a much bigger percentage of revenue from recurring revenue, where businesses are building their business on our platform. It's completely true in our receivables/payables business. It's the foundation in our merchant services business, and it's the very foundation and core of what's happening in data. It's absolutely where the company is going and going forward, and we're making our investments for growth.
Yeah. Okay. No, thank you for all that color. I mean, I've just noticed with a number of my companies the difficulty in procuring, you know, sufficient IT resources, I thought the way you're already interacting with them, it would kinda be a natural opportunity for your company over time. Thank you for that. That's all I had.
We have a follow-up question from the line of Lance Vitanza from Cowen. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks, guys. Just two quick follow-ups that I forgot about. The first is on the proceeds from the web hosting sale. I know that there's about $10 million or so in the 8-K that's sort of deferred, I think, over a 6-12 month period from the time you close it. I'm just wondering, is that like an earn-out? Are there any sort of performance-related contingencies there that we should be aware of? My second question is just, with respect to the payments business, I'm wondering if you could kind of step back and walk me through the margin outlook in 2023. I apologize, I think you mentioned that you had some opportunities there, but if you could recap that for me, that would be great. Thank you. This is Chip.
I'll take both of those. On the sale of the web hosting business. We announced a base sales price of $42 million in our 8-K the other day. 32 of that is kind of a payment to occur at time of closing, with the other $10 million, 180 days later and 360 days later, I believe. Neither of those $10 million are contingency based. There is up to another $10 million, which could take the total sale price up to a max of $52. Those are contingency based, subject to performance obligations. You know, look at the sale price as a range of $42-$52. The $42, it will happen, and it has the second and third payment, which is just a timing factor as the business transitions over.
The question about payments. Yeah, you're right. We did talk about that a bit. We are forecasting EBITDA margin rates in the low to mid-20s. I think what I said is if you look at the last few quarters, you're starting to see that business realize operating leverage. Margins are expanding. That's a function of the volume growth. We've got operational efficiency in our treasury management business, specifically Lockbox, that's improving profitability there. Then, of course, as we continue to take price to keep up with inflation, that's helping as well. All things equal, this is a business that we believe will expand margins nicely in 2023.
Thank you so much.
There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Tom Morabito, I turn the call back over to you for some closing remarks.
Thanks, Rob. Before we conclude, I'd like to mention that management will be participating in the Truist Securities Technology, Internet and Services Conference on March 7th, 2023, and the Sidoti Virtual Small-Cap Conference on March 22nd. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you in May as we share our Q1 2023 results.
This concludes today's Conference C all. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.