INTU Intuit
Small-business ledger lock-in priced for 1% growth; AI fear overstates the risk to a sticky franchise.
The business
Intuit sells financial software to consumers and small businesses. TurboTax charges consumers to file taxes, QuickBooks sells accounting, payroll and payments subscriptions to small businesses, Credit Karma earns referral fees for matching users with credit products, and Mailchimp sells email marketing subscriptions. Most revenue recurs and grows through price increases, add-on services and moving customers up to higher tiers.
Quality gate · 84/100
Moat & management
| Moat | wide moat |
| Source | switching costs |
| Trajectory | stable |
| Management | adequate |
QuickBooks is the default ledger for US small businesses and their accountants; moving years of books, payroll and bank feeds is painful, and accountant networks reinforce it. TurboTax has a strong brand and years of stored customer data, though free filing and AI agents are chipping at its edges. Its proprietary financial data on roughly 100M users is an advantage for AI rather than a casualty of it.
Reinvestment returns are strong and the share count is shrinking about 1.5% a year, but heavy stock-based compensation eats into buybacks, and the roughly $12B paid for Mailchimp has earned a poor return. Debt stays modest at 0.5x net debt/EBITDA.
Owner-earnings inputs
| Owner earnings (TTM) | 5.19B |
| Owner-earnings yield | 7.0% |
| Free-cash-flow yield | 11.7% |
| Growth used (normalized) | 7.3% |
| Market-implied growth (reverse DCF) | 1.3% |
| Terminal growth | 3.0% |
| Discount rate (hurdle) | 9.6% |
Projected owner earnings
| Yr | Owner earnings | Growth | PV |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5.57B | 7.3% | 5.08B |
| 2 | 5.96B | 7.0% | 4.96B |
| 3 | 6.35B | 6.7% | 4.83B |
| 4 | 6.76B | 6.4% | 4.69B |
| 5 | 7.17B | 6.1% | 4.54B |
| 6 | 7.58B | 5.7% | 4.38B |
| 7 | 7.99B | 5.4% | 4.21B |
| 8 | 8.40B | 5.1% | 4.04B |
| 9 | 8.81B | 4.8% | 3.87B |
| 10 | 9.21B | 4.5% | 3.69B |
| 11 | 9.59B | 4.2% | 3.51B |
| 12 | 9.97B | 3.9% | 3.33B |
| 13 | 10.33B | 3.6% | 3.15B |
| 14 | 10.67B | 3.3% | 2.97B |
| 15 | 10.99B | 3.0% | 2.79B |
Key risks
- AI agents or LLM-native tools reduce the need for TurboTax and do-it-yourself bookkeeping, cutting pricing power
- Government free-filing or tax simplification, plus regulatory scrutiny of upselling practices
- Credit Karma's cyclical exposure to credit markets, and heavy stock-based compensation that flatters FCF compared with true owner earnings
Catalysts
- QuickBooks moving up-market (IES) and growth in attached services such as payments, payroll and lending
- AI-driven assisted tax and bookkeeping that lifts revenue per customer; if AI fears prove overdone, the valuation multiple could recover from its sell-off
Recent news
score · 8 articles
- Intuit (INTU) Stock May Look Reasonable As Investor Day Backs AI Plans
- Intuit (INTU) Is Getting Existing Customers to Spend More. Now It Needs More Customers
- Intuit vs. Oracle: Which Technology Stock Is a Better Buy in 2026?
- Intuit (INTU) Down 17.1% Since Last Earnings Report: Can It Rebound?
- Intuit (INTU) Bets on AI and Big Bets. Can They Offset Slower Growth?
- Agentic Commerce Could Hurt Booking, Intuit While Helping Meta, Microsoft, Joseph Carlson Says
- Intuit Crashed Over Agentic AI Fears in 2026: One Wall Street Analyst Says Nope, Near 50% Gains on the Way
- Trump's Latest Stock Disclosure Reveals a Surprising Trading Pattern
⚠ maintenance capex ≈ min(capex, D&A), capped at FCF · Price pays for ~1%/yr owner-earnings growth over 15y (reverse DCF); model credits 7%. Capped at market + 6pts. · Cheap, but still in a downtrend (down (-31% vs 200-DMA, 6m -33%)) — waiting for the trend to turn before buying (don't catch a falling knife).