INTUIT INC. (INTU): what the price requires
At today's price, INTUIT INC. (INTU) is priced for +15.3% growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-13 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/INTU
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | INTU |
| Company | INTUIT INC. |
| Current price | $287.77/sh |
| Composition | QuickBooks Online Accounting 22% / Online Services 22% / QuickBooks Desktop Accounting 9% / Desktop Services and Supplies 6% / Consumer 26% / Credit Karma 12% / ProTax 3% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Implied growth | 15.3% |
| Multiple paid | 16x operating income |
Solve inputs: computed at a 10% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~6.4pp.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.02σ |
| cohort percentile (of 177 peers) | 24 |
| sustained it ~5 years at this level | 50% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based land below the price.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 1.60x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.36x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 0.55x | 5 | justifies |
| Growth | 0.58x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.5%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=18)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $989.69 | 0.29x | yes | FCF base $8.7B, growth 17% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.5%, 6yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $499.96 | 0.58x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 12.2x / 14.2x / 16.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $527.44 | 0.55x | yes | P/E 27.93x (blended: sector 35x + trailing (TTM) 17x), scenarios: 23.0x / 27.9x / 32.9x (bear / base = sector held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 25x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $179.55 | 1.60x | yes | BV/sh $74.74, ROE (TTM) 22.2%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $276.93 | 1.04x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $295.86 | 0.97x | yes | Rev $20.9B, growth 17% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.1x / 3.8x / 4.5x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $197.28 | 1.46x | yes | EPS $16.44, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=8.66 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $120.39 | 2.39x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $4.06B × (1−24%) / WACC 8.5% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $259.08 | 1.11x | yes | BV $74.74 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 22.2% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $166.27 | 1.73x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $16.44 × BVPS $74.74) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $513.88 | 0.56x | yes | EBITDA $5.79B × sector EV/EBITDA 25.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $291.83 | 0.99x | yes | FCF $7725.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $211.96 | 1.36x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $5.69B (FCF $7.72B − SBC $2.04B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $530.46 | 0.54x | yes | EPS $16.44 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $113.44 | 2.54x | yes | BV $74.74 × (ROIC 12.9% / WACC 8.5%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $606.52 | 0.47x | yes | Revenue $20.93B × sector P/S 8.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $616.50 | 0.47x | yes | EPS $16.44 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $177.73 | 1.62x | yes | EPS $16.44 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net cash | $618.0m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -0.17x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -0.13x (net cash) |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -0.9% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- Intuit owns the two financial tasks small businesses and households cannot avoid: bookkeeping through QuickBooks and tax filing through TurboTax, and it has begun folding Consumer, Credit Karma, and ProTax into a single consumer business.
- The main risk is the price, not the business: the stock trades where only the optimistic methods reach, so a buyer is paying for double-digit growth to persist rather than for the profit Intuit already produces.
- Watch the fiscal fourth quarter ending July 31, where management guided to roughly 11% to 12% revenue growth, after Q3 revenue rose 10% to $8.56 billion and the company raised full-year revenue guidance.
Bull Case
Begin with the gap between what Intuit costs and what the conservative methods say it is worth, because that gap is the whole argument. The price sits well above the asset-based and earnings-power lenses and is reached only by the relative-multiple and forward-growth methods. For most companies that pattern is a warning. For Intuit it is the natural signature of a high-margin software franchise that compounds, because the methods that price a company on its book value or its current earnings systematically understate a business whose value is the recurring relationship, not the assets on the balance sheet.
The franchise is unusually durable because it sits on tasks people and businesses must do every year. QuickBooks is the accounting system small and mid-market firms run their operations on, and the 10-K describes the Global Business Solutions segment as serving "small and mid-market businesses around the world, and the accounting professionals" who work with them. TurboTax is the do-it-yourself tax product the company describes as "easy to use yet sophisticated enough for complex tax returns", spanning the full range from simple filings to investors and small-business owners. Once a small business keeps its books in QuickBooks, switching means re-entering years of financial history, which is why the relationship renews. Add Credit Karma, which grew about 19% over the period, and the consumer side is no longer just a seasonal tax product.
The economics behind the moat are what justify the premium. Intuit earns interest coverage above 23 times, carries net cash, and has actually shrunk its share count slightly over recent years, the rare large-cap that funds buybacks net of stock compensation rather than diluting through it. Management has tied the next leg of growth to its AI expert platform, combining its proprietary financial data with AI and human expertise. The bull case does not require a new story. It requires the existing story, double-digit revenue growth at expanding margins, to keep printing, which it did again in the most recent quarter.
Bear Case
The bear case begins with a simple observation a holder would rather not dwell on: you are paying a premium price for a company whose growth, while strong, is decelerating toward the low double digits. Intuit is no longer a hypergrowth story; it is a mature, dominant franchise growing revenue around 10%. The bear question is not whether the business is good. It plainly is. The question is whether 10%-ish growth justifies a price that the methods grounded in current earnings and assets cannot reach.
That price-to-fundamentals disconnect is the spine of the bear. The earnings-power and asset-value families both land below the current price, and only the relative-multiple and forward-growth methods reach it. Translated, the price requires roughly mid-teens segment growth to persist for an extended stretch. If that growth fades toward the broader software-sector pace, the multiple the market is willing to pay compresses, and a high-multiple stock falling to a lower multiple is a painful arithmetic even when nothing goes wrong operationally. The premium is the durability bet, and durability is exactly what slows as a franchise matures.
Two structural pressures sit underneath. First, seasonality concentrates a large share of consumer profit into a single tax season; the 10-K notes the Consumer and ProTax offerings have "a significant and distinct seasonal pattern", which means one weak season can swing a year. Second, the competitive environment is intensifying as financial services digitize: the company itself describes "a more dynamic and highly competitive environment where customer expectations are shifting" as the array of choices grows. AI lowers the cost of building tax and bookkeeping tools, and free or near-free filing options have nibbled at TurboTax before. The balance sheet is pristine, so this is not a solvency bear. It is a multiple-and-durability bear: the business is excellent and the price already knows it.
Valuation
The price embeds a clear assumption: that Intuit keeps growing its core segments in the mid-teens for a sustained period. That is the bet, stated plainly. It is not an outlandish bet for a franchise this entrenched, but it is a specific one, and it is what the buyer is underwriting at today's price.
The methods sort into the familiar two camps. The relative-multiple and forward-growth families reach the price; the asset-based and earnings-power families sit below it. For a capital-light software business that is the expected pattern rather than a red flag, because book value and trailing earnings cannot capture the value of a renewing customer base. The signal is in how far above the conservative methods the price sits and whether the growth assumption that closes the gap is reasonable. With segment growth still running in the mid-teens for Global Business Solutions and Credit Karma, the forward-growth method has a defensible foundation; the risk is entirely in the word sustained. Among its software peers, this is a name priced for continued compounding rather than a turnaround or a re-rating.
Solvency does not bound this story so much as remove it from the discussion. Intuit holds net cash, covers its interest more than twenty times over, and has nudged its share count down rather than up, which is direct evidence that buybacks are outrunning stock-based compensation. There is no leverage risk and no dilution drag to clear. The decisive variable is not the balance sheet; it is the growth rate. The price is high because the business is good, and it will stay supported only as long as the double-digit growth that the optimistic methods are extrapolating actually shows up in the prints.
Catalysts
The most recent quarter, fiscal third-quarter 2026 ended April 30, beat expectations on the metrics that matter and Intuit raised its full-year revenue guidance. Revenue rose 10% year over year to $8.56 billion, TurboTax revenue grew 7% to $4.4 billion, and Credit Karma grew 15% to $631 million. The company lifted full-year segment guidance, with Global Business Solutions to roughly 16% growth and the Consumer segment to about 10% growth.
The next scheduled event is the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends July 31, 2026, and closes the fiscal year. Management guided fourth-quarter revenue growth of roughly 11% to 12%, GAAP diluted EPS of $0.73 to $0.79, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $3.56 to $3.62. Because tax season concentrates so much of the consumer result, the fourth quarter and the closing read on the just-finished tax year together set the tone for fiscal 2027.
The strategic thread is AI. CEO Sasan Goodarzi has framed the company around an AI-driven expert platform that pairs Intuit's proprietary financial data with AI and human expertise. Management positions AI as a net tailwind to monetization rather than a threat, and the market's willingness to keep paying the premium will track whether AI features translate into higher attach rates and pricing rather than into new free competitors.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Global Business Solutions (reported)
- PAYC (Paycom Software, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PCTY (PAYLOCITY HOLDING CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BILL (BILL HOLDINGS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PAYX (Paychex, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BL (BlackLine, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- WDAY (Workday, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SAP (SAP SE)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Consumer / ProTax (reported)
- CRM (Salesforce, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- NOW (ServiceNow, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BILL (BILL HOLDINGS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PAYC (Paycom Software, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SQ (Block, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- XYZ (Block, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SHOP (Shopify Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- VEEV (Veeva Systems Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Credit Karma (reported)
- SOFI (SoFi Technologies, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- LC (LendingClub Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- UPST (Upstart Holdings, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Article Insight (Recent News Sentiment)
Sentiment score: 65.00 (MEDIUM confidence) FUD/Hype: NONE Claim alignment: MIXED
The articles collectively suggest a cautiously optimistic outlook for Intuit, with analysts maintaining Buy ratings and high price targets despite recent share price weakness.
Is Intuit Inc. (INTU) A Good Stock To Buy Now? - Insider Monkey
- Scope: Summarizes a bullish thesis on Intuit, emphasizing its dominance in financial software.
- Data: The stock traded at $408.68 on April 22nd, with trailing P/E of 26.59.
- Verdict: Validates the core business strength identified in the analysis.
Deutsche Bank Reaffirms Buy on Intuit (INTU) After TurboTax Survey Insights - Insider Monkey
- Scope: Reports Deutsche Bank’s reaffirmed Buy rating and $600 price target.
- Data: Survey indicates TurboTax may meet or exceed guidance, with modest share growth.
- Verdict: Supports the potential for revenue growth within the TurboTax segment.
INTU Stock Analysis , Why Intuit Is Trading Near Its 52-Week Low Despite $600 Average Analyst Targets - Financial News
- Scope: Notes Intuit’s trading near its 52-week low despite positive analyst outlooks.
- Data: No specific data point provided, focuses on the price discrepancy.
- Verdict: Irrelevant to the core thesis, simply observes market behavior.
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Intuit FY2025 10-K · Intuit Q3 FY2026 earnings release · Intuit FY2026 guidance update · Intuit Q4 FY2026 guidance · Intuit Q3 FY2026 earnings call