Craig E. Boelte
Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software
Thanks, Chad. Before I review our third quarter results for 2023 and our outlook for the fourth quarter and full-year 2023, I would like to remind everyone that my comments related to certain financial measures will be on a non-GAAP basis.
We delivered fundamentally strong results this quarter with solid revenue and earnings growth. Revenue of $406.3 million was up approximately 22% compared to the prior year period. They came in below our guidance range as a result of lower-than-expected service revenues and unscheduled payroll runs. As Chad mentioned, Beti adoption and usage creates tremendous value to clients as they experience perfect payrolls and eliminate errors corrections, and unscheduled payrolls which would otherwise be billable items.
In addition, our CRR teams continue to focus on Beti adoption and overall system usage, which resulted in lower cross-selling revenues. We delivered very strong GAAP net income and adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter. Net income was $75.2 million or $1.30 per diluted share based on approximately $58 million shares and adjusted EBITDA was $165.6 million representing a third quarter margin of nearly 41%, up over 300 basis points year-over-year. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2023 was $102.4 million or $1.77 per diluted share up 39% from the prior year period.
During the quarter, we repurchased over $76 million worth of stock and paid nearly $22 million in cash dividends. As of September 30, 2023, we have retired nearly five million shares and when combined with dividends, we have returned over $700 million to stockholders. We still have $1 billion remaining under our buyback authorization and the Board has approved our next quarterly dividend of $0.375 per share payable in mid-December.
Adjusted sales and marketing expense for the third quarter of 2023 was $94.3 million, representing 23.2% of revenues. We continue to hire top talent to expand our sales footprint and invest in marketing to drive lead volume. Adjusted R&D expense was $46.2 million in the third quarter of 2023, or 11.4% of total revenues, up 20 basis points year-over-year. Adjusted total R&D costs including the capitalized portion were $69 million in the third quarter of 2023. The capitalization rate increased to approximately 33% in the quarter as we continue to invest in new products and support our international expansion efforts. Third quarter GAAP tax rate came in at 26.3%. For the full-year 2023, we expect our effective income tax rate to come in at approximately 29% on a GAAP basis and approximately 26.05% on a non-GAAP basis.
Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with a very strong balance sheet, including cash-and-cash equivalents of $484 million and total debt of $29 million. The average daily balance of funds held on behalf of clients with approximately $2.1 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
Now let me turn to guidance. Throughout 2023, we have been seeing moderating upside to our guidance model which corresponded with increases in Beti usage and macro headwinds from inflation that may impact each client differently. Now that more clients are achieving the ROI that Beti has to offer, it has eliminated certain billable items which is cannibalizing a portion of our services and unscheduled revenues.
With 10 months of data from increased Beti usage, we are incorporating the impact that our client's ROI achievement has on our model. Based on these factors, we expect fourth quarter 2023 total revenues to be in the range of $420 million to $425 million, representing a growth rate over the comparable prior year period with approximately 14% at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter in the range of $169 million to a $174 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 41% at the midpoint of the range.
With our Q3 results and our Q4 guidance, we now expect fiscal 2023 revenues to be in the range of $1.679 million to $1.684 million or approximately 22% year-over-year growth at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $712 million to $717 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of nearly 43% at the midpoint of the range. Combining our expected revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin, we're still on track to reach the Rule of 65 in 2023.
As we look out to 2024, we have a number of strategic initiatives that we believe will further strengthen the value clients receive from our offering. We are making strategic performance and client value decisions that we feel are best for our long-term relationship with our clients. Our mission is to ensure and achieve client value and that is our focus. Our guidance for the next 15 months, assumes the impact from the strategic revenue decisions we are and we'll be making. As a result, we believe it is prudent for us to set expectations for 2024 year-over-year revenue growth of between 10% and 12%. We'll have more visibility when we provide formal guidance in early February.
With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator?