NRDSNASDAQThe short version
NerdWallet, Inc.
NerdWallet runs a personal-finance site that routes readers into comparison marketplaces for cards, loans and insurance, and is paid by the financial institutions on the other side of the click.
Listed at $28.30 in November 2021, down to $6.51 in October 2023, back to $15.93 in December 2025, then $7.58 in May 2026 after the first-quarter print — $8.88 on 24 July 2026.
Mkt cap $482.2MP/E FY27E 4.3×
$8.88
Share price, 24 Jul 2026
$836.6M
FY2025 revenue
$113.4M
FY2025 free cash flow
49.8%
Of revenue spent buying traffic
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Snapshot
NerdWallet, Inc. in numbers
Price
$8.88as of 2026-07-24
Mkt cap
$482.2M
12m perf
−18.5%
3m ADV
$7.8M
| Year to Dec (USD) | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026E | 2027E | 2028E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 599.4M | 687.6M | 836.6M | 883.9M | 939.8M | 993.9M |
| EBITDA | 51.8M | 57.8M | 111.6M | 142.6M | 160.2M | 168.4M |
| EBIT | 3.6M | 9.4M | 65.2M | 77.2M | 95.6M | 112.3M |
| EBIT margin | 0.6% | 1.4% | 7.8% | 8.7% | 10.2% | 11.3% |
| EPS | −0.15 | 0.38 | 0.64 | 1.30 | 2.06 | 2.31 |
| P/E | n/a | 23.4× | 13.9× | 6.8× | 4.3× | 3.8× |
| FCF yield | 14.8% | 14.8% | 27.0% | 27.3% | 8.3% | 18.7% |
Consensus: S&P Capital IQ (CapIQ) · as of 2026-07-27Derived from run data; ratios use the latest price.
IThe business
How it earns
The reader pays nothing; the bank, lender or carrier on the other side does
FY2025 revenue by product category
Insurance$280.8M34%
Emerging verticals$189M23%
Credit cards$133.4M16%
Loans$133.4M16%
SMB products$100M12%
FY2025 revenue of $836.6m across the five categories the company reported through 2025.
- The mechanic. Reviews, comparison tables and calculators draw readers into marketplaces; partners pay per click, per lead, per completed application or per funded loan, depending on the product.
- The mix was rebuilt in two years. Insurance went from 8% of revenue in 2023 to 34% in 2025, while credit cards — the highest-margin and most search-dependent line — fell from $209.7m to $133.4m.
- The view has narrowed. From the first quarter of 2026 the categories sit inside two lines, Consumer and SMB; consumer revenue was $198m in that quarter, up 10% year over year.
Bought traffic
About half of each revenue dollar now buys the traffic that produced it
Revenue vs revenue after performance marketing ($M)
Performance marketing rose from $168.4m in 2022 to $416.9m in 2025 — 31.2% of revenue to 49.8%, and 54.8% in the first quarter of 2026.
- The spread. Reported revenue compounded at 15.8% a year from 2022 to 2025; revenue after the cost of buying that traffic compounded at 4.2%. In the first quarter of 2026 it fell 10%, $111.6m to $100.5m.
- The strongest fact against. After all sales and marketing the same window compounds at 15.5%, $163.3m to $251.9m, and rose about 48% in the first quarter of 2026 as brand spend was cut.
- The company's account. Consumers turning to AI overviews and language models, "resulting in steep organic search declines," offset by paid, direct and non-search referral channels.
The field
Mid-pack on margin, and the one rival with an owned login earns nearly twice it
Marketplace peers, latest fiscal year
| Company | Revenue ($M) | Operating margin |
|---|---|---|
| Credit Karma | 2,263 | 13.3%* |
| LendingTree | 1,117 | 5.8% |
| MediaAlpha | 1,114 | 2.0% |
| NerdWallet | 837 | 7.8% |
| EverQuote | 693 | 8.4% |
*Credit Karma is an Intuit segment. The 37% Intuit reports is struck before $8,698m of unallocated corporate items; allocated pro-rata it is 13.3%.
- What the trough showed. In 2023 NerdWallet and Credit Karma were the only names here to hold an operating profit — NerdWallet's was $3.6m — while every pure-play marketplace lost money.
- What is missing. Credit Karma does the adjacent job at 2.7 times the revenue on an owned, logged-in relationship. NerdWallet holds no exclusivity: its own filing notes users can go to partners directly.
- The cost of standing there. Sales and marketing took 69.9% of revenue in 2025, up from 67.0% in 2023 — about 70 cents of each dollar, of which some 50 goes to buying traffic.
IIThe record
The statements
Five years from a $39 million operating loss to $65 million of operating income
FY2021 → FY2025as reported · $
Revenue$837M+22%
Operating margin7.8%+6.4pp
Net income$49M+60%
EPS$0.64+68%
Free cash flow$130M+83%
Open the full statements →As reported. The free-cash-flow row here deducts equipment only; the report also deducts capitalized software.
- Growth. Revenue rose from $379.6m in 2021 to $836.6m in 2025, with $237.2m of that added in the last two years alone.
- Margin. Operating income went from a $39.0m loss in 2021 to $3.6m in 2023 and $65.2m in 2025, a 7.8% margin; GAAP diluted EPS was $0.64 last year against losses through 2023.
- Cash. Operating cash flow was $131.6m in 2025 and free cash flow $113.4m after equipment and the $16.9m of cash paid for capitalized software. Stock compensation fell to $28.6m from $38.8m in 2023.
What drove it
Insurance supplied $235.8m of the $237.2m by which revenue grew
Revenue: insurance and everything else ($M)
Revenue excluding insurance was $554.4m in 2023 and $555.8m in 2025 — a difference of $1.4m.
- One line carried it. Insurance grew from $45.0m to $280.8m in two years, taking it from 8% of revenue to 34%, while everything else together added $1.4m.
- Where it came from. Auto carriers reopened acquisition budgets after the 2023 underwriting trough. Insurance is also the one category paid per click rather than per completed application or funded loan.
- What it cost elsewhere. Credit cards fell $76.3m over the same two years, which the company attributes to continued pressure in organic search traffic.
Capital allocation
Nearly every dollar of free cash flow went to the buyback, at $11.53 average
Average price paid per share repurchased
FY2023 — 2.3m shares
$8.82
Q1 2026 — 6.0m shares
$11.10
FY2025 — 5.8m shares
$12.05
FY2024 — 6.5m shares
$12.40
20.6 million shares retired for $236.9m since May 2023 — about 40% of today's market value.
- Funded from cash. Free cash flow ran $42.6m, $50.5m and $113.4m across 2023–2025, plus about $31.5m in the first quarter of 2026 — roughly $238m, against $236.9m of repurchases and no funded debt.
- The balance sheet behind it. Cash was $98.3m at the end of 2025 and $56.3m at 31 March 2026 after $66m of buybacks and a $17m acquisition; the $125m revolver is undrawn, the current ratio 3.45x.
- What it bought. Across 2023–2025 the company retired 14.6m shares and issued 10.8m to employees, so about three-quarters offset dilution; the count has since gone from 71.3m to 65.8m.
IIIThe story now
The moment
At $8.88 the stock is a third of its first close, and under the buyback's average
Daily closes since the November 2021 listing; the May 2026 low followed the first-quarter results.
- The arc. $28.30 at the November 2021 listing, $6.51 in October 2023, $15.93 in December 2025, $7.58 on 14 May 2026 after the first-quarter print, $8.88 on 24 July 2026.
- What changed in May. Management flagged a large insurance carrier that pulled back in March and cut the low end of the full-year guide; the shares fell about a third from their early-May level.
- The record underneath. Over the same span revenue rose from $538.9m in 2022 to $836.6m in 2025, and the company moved from an operating loss to $65.2m of operating income.
Search
The account of organic search moved across seven quarters of calls
What management said about organic search
| Quarter | On the call |
|---|---|
| Q2 2024 | AI overviews "not much of an impact"; Google gaining share |
| Q3 2024 | Shopping traffic "took a turn for the worse"; AI overviews "affecting us" |
| Q1 2025 | After difficult quarters, "some stability" |
| Q2 2025 | Organic search "quite challenging"; users hit harder than revenue |
| Q4 2025 | "Steep organic search declines"; continued pressure expected |
| Q1 2026 | Model-referral share "dominant" but "a very small piece" of revenue |
Quarterly earnings calls, Q2 2024 through Q1 2026.
- The filing moved less. The conditional "may impact" became "could further impact" by the FY2025 10-K, and agentic AI gained its own risk factor. Past traffic losses were already conceded.
- Where it bites first. AI answers take the educational queries, so the audience metric fell faster than revenue; the high-intent shopping traffic has held up better.
- The replacement channel. The company says it is the most cited source in its competitive set in model answers, converting at higher intent — while calling that revenue a very small piece, unsized.
Insurance concentration
The vertical that carried the company runs on carrier budgets, and one has pulled back
Insurance-marketplace revenue, indexed to 2023 = 100
All three fell into the 2023 underwriting trough and rose together as auto carriers reopened acquisition budgets.
- The buyer base is narrow. One customer was 26% of 2025 revenue, about $217m, against a largest customer of 22% in 2024 and 13% in 2023. The 10-K names no vertical for it.
- It has begun to turn. "One of our large carriers pulled back in March," Chen said in May 2026; that partner's monetization ran below expectations, with a greater effect expected in the second quarter.
- The other side. Insurance is 34% of NerdWallet's revenue against roughly 90% for both pure-plays, and the company is adding carriers and building its own agency.
IVThe price
Forward estimates
Consensus has growth halving to about 6% a year
Revenue: reported and consensus ($M)
Six contributors on revenue, against a three-year historical growth rate of 15.8%.
- The guide. Full-year 2026 non-GAAP operating income is guided to $85m–$110m, a range that brackets the $96.0m delivered in 2025; the low end was cut for the insurance pullback.
- Thin earnings coverage. Adjusted EPS carries a single contributor: 2026 cut from $1.48 to $1.30, 2027 raised from $1.75 to $2.06. Both sit well above the $0.64 of GAAP diluted EPS reported for 2025.
- The street's view. Five price targets span $9 to $15 around a mean of $12, about 35% above the quote, with four buys against one hold and one sell.
Ownership
No insider has bought a share on the open market since September 2023
Net open-market insider flow, 2022–2026 ($M)
Form 4 open-market purchases net of sales, Dec 2022 – Jun 2026; tax withholding and gifts excluded.
- Alignment is intact. Chen controls 90.72% of the vote through Class B on roughly half the shares outstanding, takes all-cash pay of $1.54m with no equity grant, and has never sold into the market.
- Conviction is absent. His four purchases — 88,314 shares at $8.21 to $9.29 — ended in September 2023. The stock re-entered that band in 2026 and he did not add.
- The closest comparable holder sold. Topline Capital, a concentrated fund, added 461,777 shares near $11.43 in October 2024 and sold 1,961,860 near $9.11 in June 2026, about a third of its stake.
Margin of safety
At $8.88 the enterprise trades under five times last year's free cash flow
EV / non-GAAP operating income at a $528m enterprise value
Upside — NGOI $112m
4.7x
Base — guide midpoint $100m
5.3x
Downside — low guide $85m
6.2x
Enterprise value nets the $56.3m of cash held at 31 March 2026; on the December 2025 net-cash basis it is about $493m.
- A cash-flow floor, not an asset floor. About $113m of 2025 free cash flow against a $528m enterprise value is 4.7x. Net cash was roughly 16% of market value at the end of 2025 — solvency, not a floor.
- What the multiple sits at. It is a level a durable but decelerating cash flow would support, and it does not embed the 2024–2025 surge continuing; the buyback's $11.53 average sits above it.
- What could move it. The insurance line and the free-search funnel act on the same earnings power, and the March 2026 carrier pullback lands alongside rising vertical-integration spend.
What to watch
A cheap cash flow with a founder's alignment, and two levers under it that can move together
- 01Full-year non-GAAP operating income against the $85m–$110m guide: tracking below the low end would make that the run-rate rather than the trough.
- 02Insurance and the 26% customer: insurance revenue down year over year for two or more quarters, or the single-customer share rising again in the next 10-K.
- 03Revenue after performance marketing, derived from the sales-and-marketing line: it fell 10% in the first quarter of 2026, and turning positive would settle the spread question.
- 04Any open-market insider purchase in the $7.58–$8.88 window, or a disclosed dollar figure for language-model referral revenue.
This distills a guided study built chapter by chapter from the filings, the calls and the insider tape.
Compiled from the full report · 2026-07-28 · For information, not investment advice.