The Trade Desk, Inc.Full report →1 / 15
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The Trade Desk, Inc.

The Trade Desk rents advertisers and their agencies a platform for buying digital advertising and keeps a percentage of everything they spend through it: $13.4 billion of client spend in 2025, $2.90 billion of revenue.

The shares closed at $139.51 on December 4, 2024 and at $17.29 on July 24, 2026 — an 87.6% decline spread across two calendar years rather than one gap.
Mkt cap $8.5BP/E FY27E 8.1×
$17.29
Share price, July 24, 2026
$2.90bn
FY2025 revenue
$13.4bn
Client spend on the platform
21.6%
Revenue as a share of that spend
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Snapshot

The Trade Desk, Inc. in numbers

Price
$17.29as of 2026-07-24
Mkt cap
$8.5B
12m perf
−79.7%
3m ADV
$374.4M
Year to Dec (USD)2023202420252026E2027E2028E
Sales1.9B2.4B2.9B3.2B3.5B3.7B
EBITDA280.9M514.7M705.1M1.3B1.4B1.5B
EBIT200.5M427.2M589.3M663.3M757.9M889.2M
EBIT margin10.3%17.5%20.3%20.9%21.8%23.9%
EPS0.360.780.901.852.152.24
P/E48.0×22.2×19.2×9.3×8.1×7.7×
FCF yield6.5%7.5%9.3%9.1%10.4%11.3%
Consensus: S&P Capital IQ (CapIQ) · as of 2026-07-30Derived from run data; ratios use the latest price.
IThe business
How it earns

It owns no advertising inventory and keeps 21.6 cents of every dollar spent through it

Share of revenue by channel, Q1 FY2026
Midpoints of the bands given on the May 2026 call; the four buckets cover about 99% of the platform.
  • The mechanic. Agencies and brands buy inventory through the platform; the company invoices the media, remits it, and keeps a fee on the total — $13.39 billion of spend, $2.90 billion of revenue in FY2025.
  • Nothing of its own to sell. The pitch is objectivity — with no impressions to favour, it can pick the best one for the buyer. Its own filings name Google and Amazon as the large, well-established rivals.
  • Sticky, but not contracted. Client retention has run above 95% for eleven straight years, on agreements that carry no spend commitment and end on 60 days' notice.
3,843 employees in 21 countries at the end of FY2025; the United States was about 82% of revenue in the March 2026 quarter.
The market it plays in

Revenue grew with the field in 2025; the money crossing the platform did not

Calendar 2025 growth, selected advertising measures
Gross spend is the volume measure the company says it uses internally to assess market share and scale.
  • The open web shrank. Google Network, the incumbent in third-party publisher monetisation, fell 1.9% to $29.79 billion on 7% fewer impressions. Against that pool, 11% volume growth is a gain.
  • The nearest same-model peer grew 18%. Viant, an independent platform that also owns no inventory, lifted contribution ex-TAC 18% against a US programmatic market it sizes at 13% growth.
  • The channel the case rests on. Forecasts put US connected-TV spend at $38.0 billion in 2026, with 89% already bought programmatically — a large pool whose conversion leg is nearly finished.
IIThe record
The growth arc

Through FY2024 volume and revenue grew together; in FY2025 they came apart

Gross spend growth vs revenue growth
The FY2025 wedge is the rising cut: 20.30% of client spend in FY2024, 21.62% in FY2025.
  • Volume halved. Gross spend compounded at 24% to 25% a year for three years, then grew 11%. Reported revenue grew 18%, because the company kept 132 basis points more of each dollar.
  • The company names the driver. The FY2025 filing credits higher platform fees and increased pricing on value-added services and data, alongside the 11% increase in spend.
  • The precedent cuts the other way. A comparable rate step in FY2022 was followed by two more years of 24% to 25% volume growth, so a rising cut is not by itself a signal of decline.
Cost structure

Operating margin rose ten points on overheads while running the platform got dearer

Operating cost lines as a share of revenue
Platform operations reached 26% of revenue in the March 2026 quarter.
  • Nine of the ten points. Operating margin went from 10.3% to 20.3% across FY2023 to FY2025. General and administrative expense was flat in dollars — $520 million to $519 million — while revenue grew 49%.
  • That line stops falling here. Its FY2025 decline came chiefly from a $61 million reduction in the charge for the 2021 CEO option, which had been fully expensed by March 2026.
  • Hosting moves the other way. Platform operations rose to 21.4% of revenue in FY2025 and 26% in the March quarter, driven by query volume and new data centres rather than by a discretionary budget.
Cash generation

The cash generation is real, and equity compensation takes most of it

Operating cash flow, free cash flow, and free cash flow after stock compensation
On a trailing basis through March 2026, free cash flow after stock compensation was $358 million.
  • $783 million, then $292 million. FY2025 free cash flow was $783 million; the $491 million stock compensation charge, settled in shares rather than cash, sits between that figure and the shareholder.
  • Flat only because one grant ran off. The charge held near $490 million for four years, but everything other than the CEO option grew from $237 million to $424 million, near 15% of revenue throughout.
  • The balance sheet has not deteriorated. $1.41 billion of cash and short-term investments at March 2026, no drawn debt, and $2.0 billion of working capital.
IIIThe story now
The inflection

Revenue growth has fallen in every quarter since the start of 2025

Revenue growth, year over year
The final point is the company's own June-quarter guide of at least $750 million against $694 million a year earlier.
  • Management's account is macro. Consumer softness and input-cost inflation at packaged-goods brands, tariffs restraining automotive. Asked directly, the chief executive said competitive pressure had not risen.
  • The floor is usually cleared. Eight of the last nine quarterly guides were beaten, by a median of 1.7%; on that pattern the June quarter lands nearer 10% growth than the 8% the headline implies.
  • Operating leverage stalled first. March-quarter revenue rose $72.8 million while adjusted EBITDA fell $1.8 million, against 41 cents of every incremental dollar reaching adjusted EBITDA in FY2025.
Pricing

A third or more of last year's revenue increase came from the price, not the volume

Revenue increase split into volume and rate ($M)
Charted on the convention that assigns the price-volume interaction to the rate leg; the other convention puts FY2025's rate contribution at $159 million.
  • $159 million to $177 million. Between 35% and 39% of the $451.5 million FY2025 revenue increase came from the higher cut. Held at the FY2024 rate, growth would have been 11.2% — the gross-spend figure.
  • Earned rather than reclassified. The FY2025 expense bridge names hosting and personnel, not data costs; clients who moved most spend onto Kokai grew it more than 20% faster than those who had not.
  • The lever has a visible end. Kokai already carried about three-quarters of client spend by August 2025, and bundled data began arriving as cost in the March quarter — $11 million of a $39 million increase.
The phrase "take rate" appears in the FY2021 through FY2024 annual reports and in neither the FY2025 10-K nor the March 2026 10-Q.
Decomposition

The slowdown sits in the non-video half of the platform, and in the United States

March 2026 quarter, implied growth by cut of the platform
Cut of the platformRevenue growth
Audio+34%
Video, including CTV+21%
All non-video+3%
Mobile−8%
International+55%
United States+5.4%
Total platform+11.8%
Channel growth applies the verbal bands given on calls to reported revenue; geography uses the recast 10-Q split.
  • Video still compounds. Video, which is about half the platform, grew roughly 21% in the March quarter while everything else grew about 3%, and mobile — a high-28s percent share — contracted.
  • The domestic business has stalled. US revenue grew 5.4% against 54.8% international, on percentages the 10-Q recasts for both years. International is 14.5% of revenue, too small to carry the company.
  • Both readings rest on soft ground. The channel shares are verbal bands, not audited figures, and geography follows the client's billing address — one agency group's rebooking could produce the same table.
Control and pay

The founder bought $148 million of stock; Class A holders lost both votes they were given

11.2%
Jeff Green's share of the equity
49.7%
His share of the votesClass B carries ten votes a share
$148.1m
Bought in the market, March 2026At $24.68 average, against $17.29 now
73% / 69%
Class A votes against the control extension, then the pay plan
Beneficial ownership at March 6, 2026; vote totals from the September 2025 and May 2026 filings.
  • Bought, not granted. Green purchased 6.0 million shares over three sessions in March 2026 at an average $24.68, unlevered — the insider policy bars pledging. At $17.29 the block is down $44 million.
  • Both ballots carried on the ten-vote shares. Roughly 73% of Class A votes opposed extending the structure to 2035 and 69% rejected the pay plan; 67% withheld from the one director Class A elects alone.
  • The board thinned, then rebuilt. Four directors resigned across five weeks in March 2026, taking it from eight to five and the audit committee to a single member; it was back to seven by July 2026.
Reported CEO compensation went from $6.8 million in 2024 to $27.4 million in 2025; compensation actually paid, the mark-to-market measure, was negative $856.8 million. Nasdaq issued a letter of reprimand over the dual-class amendment in December 2025.
IVThe price
Valuation

What the business costs turns on whether equity pay is treated as a cost

Enterprise value of $6.74bn against successively stricter measures
Measure, FY2025AmountEV multiple
Adjusted EBITDA$1,196m5.6x
Free cash flow$783m8.6x
Adjusted EBITDA less stock comp$706m9.5x
GAAP operating income$589m11.4x
Free cash flow less stock comp$292m23.1x
At $17.29 on 471.0 million shares, less $1.41 billion of net cash and with no drawn debt.
  • The spread is one line. Adjusted EBITDA adds the $491 million equity charge back and cash measures never deduct it; GAAP carries it in full, which puts FY2025 earnings of $0.90 at 19 times the price.
  • Forward, on the company's own commitment. A 40% FY2026 adjusted-EBITDA margin on consensus revenue is $1.27 billion, or 5.3 times enterprise value; adjusted earnings are 9.3 and 8.1 times.
  • The buyback bought little count. $2.45 billion of repurchases since FY2023 lowered shares 4.0%, about $156 of cash per net share removed; $327 million of authorisation remained at March 2026.
Downside

Revenue would fall 20% to reach a GAAP loss and 41% to zero adjusted EBITDA

FY2027 revenue cases against a frozen FY2025 cost base
Thresholds hold every FY2025 cost dollar flat. They bound the downside rather than forecast it.
  • No funded debt, and a syndicate that leaned in. In April 2026 a $750 million facility to 2031 replaced a $450 million one, at a narrower margin grid and lower commitment fee, with $1.41 billion of cash behind it.
  • The cost base has never contracted with revenue. In the one quarter revenue has ever fallen, down 13% in June 2020, operating expenses rose 21%. Cash costs grew 18% in the March quarter against 12%.
  • The exposure is the receivable book. $3.32 billion of receivables reserved at 0.49%, with two agency clients at 30% of the book, and suppliers paid on schedule whether or not clients pay.
Estimates and targets

Estimates reset in May and have held; the published target sits 41% above the price

Consensus adjusted EPS, path of revisions ($)
Vintages as of late July 2026; almost the whole move fell in the window containing the May 7 first-quarter report.
  • Roughly 10% growth in both years. Consensus revenue is $3.18 billion for FY2026 and $3.48 billion for FY2027, against 18% delivered in FY2025. Adjusted earnings were cut 10.6% and 10.5%.
  • The tail is one-sided. The FY2027 revenue range runs $2.63 billion to $3.80 billion; the low end is 9.2% below FY2025 actual, so at least one forecast has revenue declining two years out.
  • A split book of ratings. Thirteen buy against eighteen hold, four sell and one strong sell, with an average target of $24.32 — from the same body of analysts that cut FY2026 earnings 10.6% in May.
What to watch

Debt-free and cash-generative at 11 times operating profit; decelerating on its own market-share measure

Read the full report →

This distills a guided study built chapter by chapter from the filings, the calls and the proxy record.

Compiled from the full report · 2026-07-30 · For information, not investment advice.