UiPath, Inc. (PATH): what the price requires
At today's price, UiPath, Inc. (PATH) is priced for +13.5% 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: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/PATH
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | PATH |
| Company | UiPath, Inc. |
| Current price | $11.79/sh |
| Composition | Licenses 38% / Subscription services 59% / Professional services and other 3% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | revenue-multiple |
| EV / sales paid | 3.2x |
| Steady-state operating margin assumed | 33.3% |
| Implied growth | 13.5% |
Solve inputs: computed at a 13.2% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage, holding a 33.3% terminal operating margin (83.2% gross margin x the 40% mature-conversion prior); each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied revenue growth ~5.5pp.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.82σ |
| sustained it ~5 years at this level | 53% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; earnings-power 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 | 1.50x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.61x | 4 | expensive |
| Relative | 0.71x | 5 | justifies |
| Growth | 0.70x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Earnings
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.0%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=16)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $22.22 | 0.53x | yes | FCF base $0.4B, growth 15% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.0%, 6yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $16.76 | 0.70x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 45.7x / 47.7x / 49.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $16.65 | 0.71x | yes | P/E 35x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 28.7x / 35.0x / 41.3x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 31.82x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $6.71 | 1.76x | yes | BV/sh $3.61, ROE (TTM) 17.2%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $9.03 | 1.31x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $11.70 | 1.01x | yes | Rev $1.7B, growth 15% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.0x / 3.7x / 4.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $7.20 | 1.64x | yes | EPS $0.60, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=9.50 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | $9.06 | 1.30x | yes | BV $3.61 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 17.2% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $6.98 | 1.69x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $0.60 × BVPS $3.61) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $6.51 | 1.81x | yes | EBITDA $0.12B × sector EV/EBITDA 25.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $8.40 | 1.40x | yes | FCF $375.2M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $2.92 | 4.04x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.11B (FCF $0.38B − SBC $0.27B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $19.36 | 0.61x | yes | EPS $0.60 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $0.44 | 26.78x | yes | BV $3.61 × (ROIC 1.1% / WACC 9.0%) (excluded from median) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $25.35 | 0.46x | yes | Revenue $1.67B × sector P/S 8.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $22.50 | 0.52x | yes | EPS $0.60 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $6.49 | 1.82x | yes | EPS $0.60 / 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 | $1.3b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -532.99x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -293.04x (net cash) |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -0.7% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- UiPath sits on $1.3 billion of cash and no debt, a balance sheet that funds the AI transition entirely from its own pocket rather than from creditors.
- The recurring base is the business: subscription services were 59% of revenue and the company runs as a single reportable segment "manages business activities as one operating and reportable segment", with annual recurring revenue reaching $1.901 billion at the most recent print.
- The watch item is whether agentic-AI demand outruns the threat that the same AI wave erodes the older automation product, the next read being the pace of new annual recurring revenue against the FY2027 guide.
Bull Case
The first thing a creditor would notice about UiPath is that there is nothing to lend it. The company carries about $1.3 billion of cash and no gross debt at all, a net-cash position that runs to a large fraction of the equity value at today's price. For a software company still proving its margin model, that balance sheet is the difference between transitioning a product line on its own schedule and transitioning it under pressure. Management has been reshaping the cost base deliberately, streamlining operational and corporate functions to redirect spending "streamlining our structure, particularly in operational and corporate functions, to better prioritize our go-to-market investments and focus our research and development investments on AI", and a debt-free company gets to make that choice from confidence rather than necessity.
The recurring engine underneath the cash is what makes the bull case more than a balance-sheet story. UiPath reports as a single segment, but the revenue mix tells the structure: subscription services were 59% of revenue and licenses another 38%, with professional services a rounding error. The recent quarter put annual recurring revenue at $1.901 billion, growing 12% year over year on $49 million of net new recurring revenue, and the largest customers are expanding fastest, the cohort spending over $1 million a year grew 18%. That is the shape of a platform customers standardize on rather than a tool they trial and drop.
The profitability inflection is the part the market has been waiting for. The most recent quarter was the first GAAP-profitable quarter in the company's history, with GAAP operating income turning positive and non-GAAP operating income of $92 million at a 22% margin. The bet embedded in the price is that this margin trajectory continues, the price reads against sales because it assumes the business eventually earns an operating margin near 33% while growing revenue in the mid-single digits. The recent print is direct evidence the margin half of that bet is moving in the right direction, and the company is funding the AI pivot, the agentic products management says are moving from pilot to production, without touching its cash cushion. A debt-free software company turning profitable while its recurring base compounds is the cleanest version of the bull case.
Bear Case
The variable with the most leverage on this thesis is the AI wave itself, and it cuts both ways for UiPath. The company's core franchise is robotic process automation, software that mimics human clicks through legacy systems, and the same generative and agentic AI that the bull case celebrates is also the technology most capable of making that older approach obsolete. The 10-K is unusually direct that the competitive field includes free alternatives: open-source automation tools offered at no cost may pull customers away "open source alternatives for automation that are offered at no cost may impact our ability to sell our products to certain customers who may prefer to rely on these tools", and larger vendors in adjacent markets compete on price and bundle "that operate in adjacent markets and compete with our products". A platform whose moat is workflow automation faces a real question when the cost of building automation collapses.
Enterprise software demand is also macro-sensitive in a way the price does not fully discount. UiPath sells into IT budgets, and automation projects are discretionary, the kind of spending that gets deferred when corporate buyers tighten. The recurring base provides some insulation, but net new annual recurring revenue, $49 million in the latest quarter, is the figure that slows first in a soft budget environment, and it is the number the growth assumption in the price depends on. The price embeds revenue growth of roughly 4.8% a year alongside that 33% terminal margin; the growth rate looks modest, but it must persist for years across exactly the macro cycles that hit discretionary software hardest.
The quality of the current profitability deserves a closer look before celebrating it. Free cash flow looks healthy on a simple read, but a meaningful slice of it is paid for in stock: the cash-flow method that charges for stock-based compensation lands far below the headline free-cash-flow read, which is the model's way of flagging that the reported cash partly reflects compensation the company hands out in shares rather than dollars. The share count has been roughly flat to slightly lower, so the dilution is being managed, but the gap between the two cash measures is the honest cost of the margin story. The balance sheet is the bear's one concession, $1.3 billion of net cash and no debt mean there is a genuine floor under the stock. The worry is not solvency; it is whether a legacy-automation platform earns its keep in a world where the AI doing the automating is the disruptor, not the product.
Valuation
Because trailing operating profit sits below the steady-state level the price assumes, the market reads UiPath against its sales rather than its earnings. At roughly 2.6 times revenue, the price implies the business eventually reaches an operating margin near 33% and grows revenue about 4.8% a year for the next several years. The growth half of that is undemanding against what the company has recently delivered; the stretch is in duration and in the margin, the leap from a business that only just turned GAAP-profitable to one that sustains a software-grade operating margin.
The methods split cleanly. The relative-multiple and forward-growth families reach the price: a blended P/E near 28x and the discounted cash-flow and future-market-cap models land at or near the quote. The asset and earnings-power lenses sit above the price, which for a company at this stage means they read it as not cheap on book value or current earnings, exactly what you would expect from a name being valued on its sales and its future margin rather than its trailing profit. The single sharpest model is the one that capitalizes free cash flow after charging for stock-based compensation: it lands well below the price, a reminder that the cash the business generates is partly funded by share issuance. The pattern is coherent, the price is justified by where the business is going, not by what its balance sheet or current earnings are worth today.
Solvency removes the downside tail that usually shadows an unprofitable-turning-profitable software name. UiPath holds about $1.3 billion of cash against no debt, and it is not burning cash, so the leverage ratios are negative by construction and the runway question simply does not arise. That floor is real and it bounds the bear. What it does not do is settle the valuation: the price is a bet on the margin trajectory holding, and the balance sheet buys the company time to prove it rather than proving it outright. The most decisive number here is not a multiple, it is the net new recurring revenue that has to keep arriving for the growth-and-margin assumption to come true.
Catalysts
The fiscal first quarter, reported May 28, 2026, was the inflection the story needed. Revenue rose 17% year over year to $418 million, and the company posted its first GAAP-profitable quarter ever, with GAAP operating income of positive $28 million and non-GAAP operating income of $92 million at a 22% margin. Annual recurring revenue reached $1.901 billion, up 12%, on $49 million of net new recurring revenue. The customer base told the expansion story: roughly 10,600 total customers, the cohort spending over $100,000 a year up 11% to 2,620, and the over-$1-million cohort up 18% to 374.
The AI narrative is now central to the numbers rather than a side note. CEO Daniel Dines said the company's agentic products are moving from pilot to production a year into general availability, and management reported that 16 of the top 20 deals in the quarter included AI, with AI-involved expansions running materially larger than those without. This is the lever that has to outrun the same AI wave's threat to the legacy automation product.
Guidance frames the year. UiPath now expects full-year fiscal 2027 revenue of $1.776 billion to $1.781 billion, annual recurring revenue of $2.058 billion to $2.063 billion, and non-GAAP operating income of $430 million. The company also continued returning capital through buybacks alongside the results. The figures to watch over the next two quarters are net new recurring revenue and whether the AI deal momentum converts into the sustained margin the price is underwriting.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
UiPath (consolidated) (reported)
- FRSH (Freshworks Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ESTC (Elastic N.V.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GTLB (GITLAB INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- DT (Dynatrace, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MDB (MONGODB, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BRZE (Braze, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- KVYO (Klaviyo, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SEMR (Semrush Holdings, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
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
PATH Q1 FY2027 earnings release, May 28, 2026 · PATH Q1 FY2027 earnings call, May 28, 2026