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YOU, Clear Secure Inc.
Software asset-light
Clear Secure Inc. is a secure identity company making experiences safer and easier - both digitally and physically.
CLEAR has been delivering secure, frictionless experiences in airports for over 15 years, achieving exceptional user delight and trust with CLEAR+, our consumer travel subscription service.
Our CLEAR Travel portfolio extends CLEAR's value proposition beyond the airport lane and supports our strategy to expand use cases, increase engagement and address new customer segments such as international travelers.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$901M
+16.9% YoY · 31% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $942M 5-yr avg $595M
Revenue $253M +19.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 24.5% yr-ago 17.7%
Net income $56M yr-ago $39M
Net margin 22.3% yr-ago 18.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has reached 21% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −8.2%) — 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 6.1% 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 run high across the record (median 52%, above 15% in 2 of 4 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 33% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.
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, 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 | ||||||||
| $192M | $231M | $254M | $437M | $614M | $770M | $901M | $942M | RevenueRevenue |
| 48% | 51% | 67% | 64% | 36% | 28% | 26% | 26% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 11% | 14% | 19% | 15% | 12% | 10% | 8% | 8% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($56M) | ($19M) | ($115M) | ($129M) | $20M | $123M | $186M | $211M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −29.2% | −8.2% | −45.3% | −29.5% | 3.3% | 16.0% | 20.7% | 22.4% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($54M) | ($9M) | ($36M) | ($66M) | $28M | $170M | $109M | $123M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | — | — | 3% | — | 26% | 28% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||
| $17M | ($12M) | $70M | $168M | $225M | $296M | $372M | $464M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $7M | $9M | $12M | $19M | $22M | $26M | $35M | $35M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $49M | ($16M) | $57M | $77M | $138M | $64M | $190M | $265M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $15M | $17M | $28M | $31M | $26M | $12M | $29M | $27M | CapexCapex |
| 7.6% | 7.2% | 11.1% | 7.2% | 4.2% | 1.6% | 3.3% | 2.9% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $9M | ($22M) | $57M | $150M | $199M | $284M | $343M | $437M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 4.8% | −9.4% | 22.6% | 34.2% | 32.5% | 36.8% | 38.1% | 46.4% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $2M | ($29M) | $42M | $137M | $199M | $284M | $343M | $437M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 1.0% | −12.5% | 16.4% | 31.3% | 32.5% | 36.8% | 38.1% | 46.4% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $0 | $0 | $76M | $0 | $4M | $0 | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| — | — | — | -40% | 11% | 94% | 150% | — | ROICROIC |
| — | — | -13% | -23% | 12% | 86% | 61% | 66% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | −13% | −23% | 12% | 86% | 61% | 66% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||
| $236M | $116M | $280M | $39M | $58M | $67M | $86M | $171M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $912K | $5M | $1M | $526K | $511K | $2M | $1M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $9M | $9M | $8M | $12M | $18M | $7M | $6M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | ($8M) | ($3M) | ($7M) | ($11M) | ($18M) | ($5M) | ($5M) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $172M | $653M | $742M | $770M | $662M | $765M | $865M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $146M | $265M | $397M | $552M | $643M | $760M | $860M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 1.2× | 2.5× | 1.9× | 1.4× | 1.0× | 1.0× | 1.0× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| — | $0 | $60M | $59M | $63M | $63M | $63M | $63M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $232M | $813M | $1.0B | $1.0B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| ($236M) | ($116M) | ($280M) | ($39M) | ($58M) | ($67M) | ($86M) | ($171M) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| — | ($487M) | $278M | $291M | $233M | $198M | $178M | $185M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 7.6% | 1.5% | 14.4% | 31.7% | 6.1% | 4.6% | 4.3% | 4.5% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
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.
$343Mowner earningsvs.$109Mnet incomelow FY2020
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.
FY2019FY2025
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 $109M of profit into $343M 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 | $109M | $170M | $28M | ($66M) | ($36M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$35M | +$26M | +$22M | +$19M | +$12M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$39M | +$35M | +$37M | +$138M | +$37M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$190M | +$64M | +$138M | +$77M | +$57M |
| Cash from operations | $372M | $296M | $225M | $168M | $70M |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$29M | −$12M | −$26M | −$19M | −$12M |
| Owner earnings | $343M | $284M | $199M | $150M | $57M |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | — | — | −$13M | −$16M |
| Free cash flow | $343M | $284M | $199M | $137M | $42M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 38% | 37% | 33% | 34% | 23% |
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 $39M), owner earnings is nearer $304M.
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
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- No meaningful interest burdenLittle or no interest expense reported
What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
- Net cash, debt-freeCash $86M − debt $0
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $86M, 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median -18%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- High through the cycle7-yr median margin, range -9%–38%; latest $343M = operating cash $372M − maintenance capex $29MIndustry 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 38% of revenue this year, a 33% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $39M of SBC) leaves $304M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $372M ÷ net income $109M
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?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.85×MaintainingCapex $29M ÷ depreciation $35M
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 · 0 of 4 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 MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $901M
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.01×
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.
- Earnings stability MissA profit every year (7-yr record) · 4 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 $1.17/share (latest year $1.24), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.03/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 3 of 7
What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Operating margin −28% → 13% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −28% early to 13% lately, median −8% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Worst year 2021 · −45.3% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count +0.0%/yr
What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
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.
In its own filing Not named
Despite the structural exposure, the latest 10-K does not name AI as a competitive risk, which is itself worth a question.
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.
Current assets$865M
- Cash & short-term investments$171M
- Receivables$1M
- Other current assets$693M
Current liabilities$860M
- Accounts payable$6M
- Other current liabilities$854M
Current ratio1.01×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.01×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$5Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+19.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.1× → 1.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$120Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($344M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$111M$111M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$555Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2019–2025
Over the record, the business generated $1.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$158M · 14%
- Retained (debt / cash)$978M · 86%
- Net change in share count0.0%
The diluted count barely moved (88M to 88M): buybacks roughly offset 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.
- Return on what it retained184%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($142M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $260M, so each retained $1 added about 1.84 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.
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 | Caryn Seidman Becker | $40.3M | $59.7M | $57M |
| 2022 | Caryn Seidman Becker | $671k | −$8.0M | $150M |
| 2023 | Caryn Seidman Becker | $1.2M | −$11.4M | $199M |
| 2024 | Caryn Seidman Becker | $6.2M | −$394k | $284M |
| 2025 | Caryn Seidman Becker | $11.6M | $17.9M | $343M |
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.
- Insider ownership15.6%
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$39M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 4% of revenue, equal to 21% 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 Clear Secure 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 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.
- Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 7 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 7 years, $14M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.
And these came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did the share count rise anyway?
- Did reported profit become cash?
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, Income taxes, Acquisitions 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, Software
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TTANServiceTitan Inc. | $961M | 63% | -29.8% | -12% | -3% |
| GTLBGitLab Inc. | $955M | 88% | -49.8% | -28% | -19% |
| APPFAppFolio | $951M | 61% | 2.8% | 5% | 11% |
| YOUClear Secure Inc. | $901M | — | -8.2% | 52% | 33% |
| WKWorkiva | $885M | 75% | -15.1% | -18% | 9% |
| RPDRapid7 | $860M | 70% | -17.1% | -18% | 6% |
| CXMSprinklr Inc. | $857M | 70% | -6.6% | -3% | 5% |
| FRSHFreshworks Inc. | $839M | 81% | -22.5% | -23% | 11% |
| Group median | — | — | -16.1% | -15% | 8% |
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 Clear Secure Inc. has delivered.
Clear Secure 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.
$
Through the cycle, Clear Secure Inc. earns about $293M on its 32.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 38.1% 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
—
The assumptions
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.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+32%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2021+70%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2021+56%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $437M on 88M diluted shares; net cash $171M. 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Clear Secure Inc. (YOU), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/YOU, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← YORW its page in the Manual YUM →
Industry order: ← YMM the Software chapter YXT →