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TOST, Toast Inc.
Toast, Inc., which we refer to as Toast, we, or the Company, is a cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform purpose-built for the entire restaurant community.
We provide a comprehensive platform of software-as-a-service, or SaaS, products and financial technology solutions, including integrated payment processing, restaurant-grade hardware, and a broad ecosystem of third-party partners.
We serve as the restaurant operating system, connecting front of house and back of house operations across service models including dine-in, takeout, delivery, catering, and retail.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Technology Service (82%), License (15%) and Product and Professional Services (3%).
- Situation
- Net current asset value. Current assets alone exceed every liability combined, and the surplus is most of the balance sheet: the shape Graham called a net-net.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run around −13% through the cycle on a 19% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 7.2% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. 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 −38%, above 15% in 1 of 5 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Technology Service is 82% of revenue, with License the other meaningful line at 15%.
- Technology Service82%$5.0B
- License15%$936M
- Product and Professional Services3%$180M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2019–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||
| $665M | $823M | $1.7B | $2.7B | $3.9B | $5.0B | $6.2B | $6.4B | RevenueRevenue |
| 9% | 17% | 18% | 19% | 22% | 24% | 26% | 26% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 12% | 14% | 11% | 11% | 9% | 6% | 6% | 5% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 10% | 13% | 10% | 10% | 9% | 7% | 6% | 6% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($213M) | ($220M) | ($228M) | ($384M) | ($287M) | $16M | $292M | $359M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −32.0% | −26.7% | −13.4% | −14.1% | −7.4% | 0.3% | 4.7% | 5.6% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($209M) | ($248M) | ($487M) | ($275M) | ($246M) | $19M | $342M | $412M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | — | — | — | 14% | 1% | 2% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||
| ($126M) | ($125M) | $2M | ($156M) | $135M | $360M | $661M | $714M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $7M | $27M | $21M | $24M | $32M | $46M | $64M | $55M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $42M | $10M | $328M | ($133M) | $72M | $42M | $13M | $11M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $9M | $28M | $12M | $16M | $42M | $54M | $53M | $60M | CapexCapex |
| 1.4% | 3.4% | 0.7% | 0.6% | 1.1% | 1.1% | 0.9% | 0.9% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($133M) | ($153M) | ($10M) | ($172M) | $103M | $306M | $608M | $654M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −20.0% | −18.6% | −0.6% | −6.3% | 2.7% | 6.2% | 9.9% | 10.1% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($135M) | ($153M) | ($10M) | ($172M) | $93M | $306M | $608M | $654M | Free cash flowFCF |
| −20.3% | −18.6% | −0.6% | −6.3% | 2.4% | 6.2% | 9.9% | 10.1% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $41M | $0 | $26M | $46M | $9M | $0 | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| — | — | — | $0 | $0 | $56M | $107M | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| — | — | -64% | -55% | -38% | 2% | 37% | 40% | ROICROIC |
| — | — | -45% | -25% | -21% | 1% | 16% | 21% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | −45% | −25% | −21% | 1% | 16% | 21% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||
| $150M | $582M | $809M | $547M | $605M | $903M | $1.4B | $1.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $33M | $55M | $77M | $69M | $115M | $127M | $138M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $19M | $42M | $110M | $118M | $118M | $114M | $136M | InventoryInvent. |
| — | $30M | $40M | $30M | $32M | $37M | $47M | $70M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $22M | $57M | $157M | $155M | $196M | $194M | $204M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $673M | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $2.0B | $2.7B | $2.6B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $136M | $352M | $496M | $663M | $811M | $969M | $1.1B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 4.9× | 4.2× | 2.8× | 2.4× | 2.4× | 2.8× | 2.4× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $36M | $36M | $74M | $107M | $113M | $113M | $113M | $113M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $776M | $1.7B | $1.8B | $2.0B | $2.4B | $3.1B | $3.1B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $172M | $0 | — | — | — | — | $0 | Total debtDebt |
| — | ($410M) | ($809M) | — | — | — | — | ($1.1B) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| — | -16.9× | -19.0× | — | — | — | — | 29.9× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| ($330M) | ($471M) | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.5B | $2.1B | $2.0B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 5.1% | 10.4% | 8.2% | 8.3% | 7.2% | 5.1% | 3.9% | 3.7% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | ||||||||
| 195M | 200M | 290M | 512M | 533M | 591M | 607M | 602M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $3.41 | $4.12 | $5.88 | $5.33 | $7.25 | $8.39 | $10.14 | $10.71 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-1.07 | $-1.24 | $-1.68 | $-0.54 | $-0.46 | $0.03 | $0.56 | $0.68 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-0.68 | $-0.77 | $-0.03 | $-0.34 | $0.19 | $0.52 | $1.00 | $1.09 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-0.69 | $-0.77 | $-0.03 | $-0.34 | $0.17 | $0.52 | $1.00 | $1.09 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.05 | $0.14 | $0.04 | $0.03 | $0.08 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.10 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $-1.69 | $-2.36 | $3.76 | $2.14 | $2.24 | $2.61 | $3.50 | $3.31 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×1.45 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
The diluted share count moved ×1.77 into 2022 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
| 6-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +19.9%/yr | +19.8%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +11.2%/yr | −9.0%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2019–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.
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 $342M of profit into $608M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $342M | $19M | ($246M) | ($275M) | ($487M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$64M | +$46M | +$32M | +$24M | +$21M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$242M | +$253M | +$277M | +$228M | +$140M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$13M | +$42M | +$72M | −$133M | +$328M |
| Cash from operations | $661M | $360M | $135M | ($156M) | $2M |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$53M | −$54M | −$32M | −$16M | −$12M |
| Owner earnings | $608M | $306M | $103M | ($172M) | ($10M) |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | — | −$10M | — | — |
| Free cash flow | $608M | $306M | $93M | ($172M) | ($10M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 10% | 6% | 3% | -6% | -1% |
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 $242M), owner earnings is nearer $366M.
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? 24.3×ComfortableOperating income $292M ÷ interest expense $12M
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.
- Net cash, debt-freeCash $1.4B − debt $0
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.4B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- TightDSO 8 + DIO 9 − DPO 4 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle5-yr median, range -64%–37%; 37% latest = NOPAT $289M ÷ invested capital $771MIndustry peers: median 7%
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 37% 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.
- Solid, recently turned positivelatest $608M = operating cash $661M − maintenance capex $53M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (7-yr median -1%)Industry peers: median 11%
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 10% of revenue this year, a -1% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $242M of SBC) leaves $366M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $661M ÷ net income $342M
In the filing’s words The filing leans on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings, but the GAAP profit is itself cash-backed — the adjustments are not papering over a cash shortfall here.
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?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks $107M ÷ Owner Earnings $608M
What this means
Of $608M Owner Earnings, $107M (18%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $107M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($242M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 0.83×MaintainingCapex $53M ÷ depreciation $64M
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 · 3 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $6.2B
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 2.75×
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 PassDebt ≤ working capital · $0 vs $1.7B 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 MissA profit every year (7-yr record) · 5 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted 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 $0.07/share (latest year $0.58), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.62/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, 2019–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 2 of 7
What this means
Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Operating margin −24% → −1% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −24% early to −1% lately, median −13% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Worst year 2019 · −32.0% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Elevated contestabilityThe 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.
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“If they adopt the use of AI more quickly or more successfully than us, our ability to compete effectively may be impaired, which may adversely affect our results of operations.”
AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.
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, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$1.1B
- Receivables$138M
- Inventory$136M
- Other current assets$1.2B
- Accounts payable$70M
- Other current liabilities$994M
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2019–2025
Over the record, the business generated $751M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$214M · 28%
- Buybacks$163M · 22%
- Retained (debt / cash)$374M · 50%
- Returned to owners$163M
30% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $163M as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $948M.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $163M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count209.0%
The diluted count rose from 195M to 602M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
- 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
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | — | $2.5M | $97.4M | ($10M) |
| 2022 | — | $8.2M | −$14.1M | ($172M) |
| 2023 | Mr. Comparato | $8.6M | $10.9M | $103M |
| 2024 | — | $11.3M | $23.9M | $306M |
| 2025 | Mr. Narang | $10.7M | $10.7M | $608M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.
- Insider ownership2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$242M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 4% of revenue, equal to 83% 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 Toast 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 2019–2025.
1 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?209.0%
Diluted shares grew 209.0% over 2019–2025, even as the company spent $163M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- 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 Revenue recognition 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, IT Services & Consulting
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DXCDXC Technology Company Common Stock | $12.6B | — | 8.0% | 12% | 8% |
| WDAYWorkday Inc. | $9.6B | 99% | -4.7% | -4% | 22% |
| TTWOTake-Two Interactive | $6.7B | 50% | 6.3% | 18% | 14% |
| PSNParsons Corporation | $6.4B | 22% | 5.0% | 6% | 7% |
| SSNCSS&C Technologies | $6.3B | 47% | 21.8% | 7% | 25% |
| TOSTToast Inc. | $6.2B | 19% | -13.4% | -38% | -1% |
| SNAPSnap Inc. | $5.9B | 55% | -32.4% | -24% | -4% |
| EPAMEPAM Systems | $5.5B | 34% | 11.9% | 31% | 11% |
| Group median | — | 47% | 5.7% | 7% | 10% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Toast Inc. has delivered.
—
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
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.
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 $654M on 587M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $1.1B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($60M) runs well above depreciation ($55M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $661M, 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.
Manual order: ← TOP its page in the Manual TPB →
Industry order: ← TCX the IT Services & Consulting chapter TRVG →