← All companies ← SES Manual SF → ← SCI Commercial Services & Supplies SPPL →

SEZL, Sezzle Inc.

Commercial Services & Supplies diversified Cyclical

Sezzle Platform offers a payments solution for consumers that instantly extends credit at the point-of-sale, allowing consumers to purchase and receive the ordered merchandise at the time of sale while paying in installments over time.

Launched in 2017, we have built a digital shopping and payments platform that provides consumers a flexible alternative to traditional credit.

Our platform addresses the shortcomings in legacy payment offerings consumers face by providing a flexible, secure, omnichannel alternative with the structural benefit of "creditizing" traditional debit products.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

SEZL · Sezzle Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$236M

+69.2% YoY · 32% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $261M 5-yr avg $113M

Operating margin 75.1% 5-yr avg −25.4%

ROIC 72% 5-yr avg −133%

Owner-earnings margin 94% 5-yr avg 29%

Free cash flow margin 94% 5-yr avg 29%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 75% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −48%) — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Stock-based pay runs about 11% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −141%, above 15% in 2 of 5 years). By owner earnings: roughly 14% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
							Income statement
$59M	$115M	$12M	$61M	$139M	$236M	$261M	RevenueRevenue
12%	14%	137%	14%	8%	7%	7%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($28M)	($69M)	($28M)	$22M	$82M	$177M	$196M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−47.5%	−59.8%	−237.8%	36.6%	59.0%	74.9%	75.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($32M)	($75M)	($38M)	$7M	$79M	$133M	$148M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	8%	—	18%	18%	Effective tax rateTax rate
							Cash flow & returns
($25M)	($72M)	$9M	($26M)	$131M	$210M	$246M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$428K	$749K	$847K	$856K	$965K	$1M	$2M	DepreciationDeprec.
$145K	($12M)	$35M	($41M)	$46M	$69M	$90M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$411K	$686K	$52K	$82K	$70K	$655K	$979K	CapexCapex
0.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($25M)	($73M)	$8M	($26M)	$131M	$209M	$245M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−42.9%	−63.4%	70.7%	−42.5%	93.7%	88.7%	94.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($25M)	($73M)	$8M	($26M)	$131M	$209M	$245M	Free cash flowFCF
−42.9%	−63.4%	70.7%	−42.5%	93.7%	88.7%	94.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$611K	$3M	$381K	$2M	$24M	$65M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-142%	-141%	-517%	—	69%	59%	72%	ROICROIC
-54%	-199%	-431%	32%	89%	78%	75%	Return on equityROE
−54%	−199%	−431%	32%	89%	78%	75%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$84M	$77M	$68M	$68M	$73M	$64M	$120M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$61M	$97M	$83M	$74M	$69M	$56M	$58M	Accounts payablePayables
$173M	$221M	$170M	$209M	$258M	$352M	$411M	Current assetsCur. assets
$68M	$108M	$99M	$187M	$106M	$90M	$113M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.5×	2.1×	1.7×	1.1×	2.4×	3.9×	3.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$174M	$223M	$173M	$213M	$298M	$400M	$454M	Total assetsAssets
$40M	$78M	$64M	$250K	$104M	$140M	$144M	Total debtDebt
($44M)	$727K	($5M)	($67M)	$31M	$76M	$24M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-6.5×	-13.0×	-3.3×	1.4×	6.0×	12.6×	13.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$60M	$38M	$9M	$22M	$88M	$170M	$197M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
11.9%	12.3%	86.2%	11.4%	3.7%	2.8%	2.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
187M	200M	5.4M	5.7M	35.9M	35.7M	34.9M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.31	$0.57	$2.20	$10.68	$3.88	$6.60	$7.47	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.17	$-0.38	$-7.00	$1.25	$2.19	$3.72	$4.24	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.13	$-0.36	$1.55	$-4.54	$3.64	$5.85	$7.03	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.13	$-0.36	$1.55	$-4.54	$3.64	$5.85	$7.03	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.00	$0.01	$0.01	$0.00	$0.02	$0.03	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.32	$0.19	$1.62	$3.89	$2.45	$4.75	$5.63	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/36.8 into 2022 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×6.32 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	5-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+83.8%/yr	+83.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+52.8%/yr	+52.8%/yr
Book value / share	+71.4%/yr	+71.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

36Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

59%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

0.4×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$209Mowner earningsvs.$133Mnet incomelow FY2021

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2022FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $133M of profit into $209M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$133M

Owner earnings$209M · 89% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$133M	$79M	$7M	($38M)	($75M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1M	+$965K	+$856K	+$847K	+$749K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$7M	+$5M	+$7M	+$10M	+$14M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$69M	+$46M	−$41M	+$35M	−$12M
Cash from operations	$210M	$131M	($26M)	$9M	($72M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$655K	−$70K	−$82K	−$52K	−$686K
Owner earnings	$209M	$131M	($26M)	$8M	($73M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	89%	94%	-43%	71%	-63%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $7M), owner earnings is nearer $203M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 12.6×

Comfortable

Operating income $177M ÷ interest expense $14M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $76M · 0.4× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $64M − debt $140M

What this means
Netting $64M of cash and short-term investments against $140M of debt leaves $76M owed, about 0.4× a year's operating profit (0.8× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -141%

Below average through the cycle

5-yr median, range -517%–69%; 59% latest = NOPAT $144M ÷ invested capital $246M

Industry peers: median -2%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 5 years (it ran 59% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 89%

Positive this year, negative across the cycle

latest $209M = operating cash $210M − maintenance capex $655K (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (6-yr median -43%)

Industry peers: median 6%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 89% of revenue this year, a -43% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $7M of SBC) leaves $203M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.58×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $210M ÷ net income $133M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 31%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $65M ÷ Owner Earnings $209M

What this means
Of $209M Owner Earnings, $65M (31%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $65M buybacks. Net of $7M stock comp, the real buyback was about $58M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.48×

Harvesting

Capex $655K ÷ depreciation $1M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $236M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 3.92×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $140M vs $262M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (6-yr record) · 3 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.17/share (latest year $3.96), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.05/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2020–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 3 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 2 of 5 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −115% → 57% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −115% early to 57% lately, median −48% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC —

What this means
The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.
Worst year 2022 · −237.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Technological advances, including investment in artificial intelligence (AI), and the continued growth of e-commerce activities have increased consumers' accessibility to products and services and led to the expansion of competition in digital payment options such as pay-over-time solutions.…”

The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$411M

Cash & short-term investments$120M
Other current assets$291M

Current liabilities$113M

Accounts payable$58M
Other current liabilities$55M

Current ratio3.65×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio3.65×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio1.07×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$299Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+29.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.1× → 3.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$193Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$154MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$792K$792K of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$6Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2025

Over the record, the business generated $226M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$2M · 1%
Buybacks$94M · 41%
Retained (debt / cash)$131M · 58%

Returned to owners$94M
42% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $94M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $105M and cash and short-term investments rose $36M.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $94M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−81.3%
The diluted count fell from 187M to 35M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.

Stock-based compensation$7M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 3% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Sezzle Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2020–2025.

None of the 5 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Commercial Services & Supplies

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
XMTRXometry Inc.	$687M	38%	-20.2%	-10%	-18%
FLYWFlywire	$623M	—	-6.6%	-9%	8%
IMXIInternational Money Express Inc.	$608M	—	14.5%	40%	6%
LQDTLiquidity Services Inc.	$477M	—	6.4%	37%	12%
PHRPhreesia Inc.	$468M	—	-17.3%	-36%	-7%
SEZLSezzle Inc.	$236M	—	-5.4%	-141%	14%
ASPSAltisource Portfolio Solutions S.A.	$171M	26%	2.4%	5%	-3%
CASSCass Information Systems Inc	$108M	—	35.6%	—	29%
Group median	—	—	-1.5%	-9%	7%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Sezzle Inc. has delivered.

Sezzle Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Sezzle Inc. earns about $33M on its 14.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 88.7% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($33M) Net of stock comp (−$7M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($246M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2024+60%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $245M on 34M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-04; net debt $24M. The if-converted diluted count is 35M, 4% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($979K) runs well above depreciation ($2M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $246M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh SEZL against another business →

The owners of SEZL: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Sezzle Inc. (SEZL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SEZL, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← SES its page in the Manual SF →

Industry order: ← SCI the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter SPPL →