← Docusign, Inc.

DOCU · Forward model · Bear case

The Bear case, 20 quarters out

Model as of

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Docusign operates one operating and one reportable segment, so there is no segment profitability anywhere in its filings and no product-level revenue. Two revenue disaggregations are disclosed quarterly and both foot to reported revenue exactly: subscription against professional services and other, and U.S. against international. This model takes the first, because it separates a 97.7% ratable line with a real operational driver from a 2.3% one-off line with a different one; the geographic split was rejected because Docusign publishes no customer count, price, margin or capex by geography, so both of its lines would collapse to a bare growth rate. Every one of the twenty-six historical values in this spec is a figure filed with the SEC: nothing is estimated, nothing is apportioned, and the two verticals sum to reported total revenue in all thirteen quarters. Three things this model deliberately does not do. It does not split out Intelligent Agreement Management, because IAM is disclosed only as a percentage of ARR at three dates and as 'over $350 million in ARR' for fiscal 2026 - turning that into a quarterly revenue history would be manufacturing a segment. It does not use a quarterly ARR series, because Docusign states plainly that it reports ARR annually at fiscal year end. And it does not model the buyback: the engine holds the share count fixed, so the $2.4 billion of remaining authorisation - close to a fifth of the market capitalisation, and about 2.8 years of repurchases at the fiscal 2026 pace of $869 million - is absent from the per-share result, which is conservative for that reason. The EBITDA margin is a calibrated cash margin rather than a reported one, for the reason set out in the subscription line's notes; anyone reading 52.6% as an operating margin will misread this model.

DOCU forward model
Horizon
Fair value per share $61.65 −8% against $67.15
Terminal-year revenue $4.35B last four projected quarters
Enterprise value $10.75B $4.80B explicit + $5.95B terminal

Currency gives back what it gave, IAM keeps improving the mix without lifting the rate, and the multiple compresses toward a no-growth software business. Docusign's own guidance footnote says about 1.3 points of the guided fiscal 2027 growth is foreign exchange; strip it and the guided year is 7.7%, not 9%. The sell side is already here: twenty-one analysts average Hold against a $57.52 twelve-month target, about a tenth below the market price. This case takes 0.4 points a quarter off both lines, three points off the cash margin, and exits at 2.2x revenue.

DOCU REVENUE MODEL

Latest: $1.09B (2032Q1E)

Period Value
2024Q1 $661M
2024Q2 $688M
2024Q3 $700M
2024Q4 $712M
2025Q1 $710M
2025Q2 $736M
2025Q3 $755M
2025Q4 $776M
2026Q1 $764M
2026Q2 $801M
2026Q3 $818M
2026Q4 $837M
2027Q1 $830M
2027Q2E $863M
2027Q3E $879M
2027Q4E $897M
2028Q1E $884M
2028Q2E $917M
2028Q3E $933M
2028Q4E $951M
2029Q1E $935M
2029Q2E $969M
2029Q3E $985M
2029Q4E $1.00B
2030Q1E $986M
2030Q2E $1.02B
2030Q3E $1.04B
2030Q4E $1.05B
2031Q1E $1.04B
2031Q2E $1.07B
2031Q3E $1.09B
2031Q4E $1.11B
2032Q1E $1.09B
Scenarios

Where each case comes from

Bear case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bear column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Thygesen case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Thygesen column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Valuation

From cash flow to fair value

The published model, discounted at 10.0% a year with an exit multiple of 2.2x on revenue. The horizon and sliders above do not change this walk.

Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters$4.80B
Terminal-year revenue$4.35B
Terminal-year EBITDA$1.90B
Exit multiple, on revenue2.2x
Terminal value$9.58B
Discounted at 10.0% a year, terminal value becomes$5.95B
Share of enterprise value from the terminal55%
Enterprise value$10.75B
Net cash$1.02B
Equity value$11.77B
Shares0.19B
Fair value per share$61.65
Against the deployed price of $67.15, as of −8%

10% on a profitable software business with $1.0 billion of net cash, no borrowings and no financing need. The exit multiple is the largest single lever here and it is anchored on Docusign's own compression rather than on an asserted peer set: no comparable multiple was independently verified in the research pass. The shares trade at 3.41x trailing twelve-month revenue and 3.20x the guided fiscal 2027 midpoint today; 3.0x on a line that has faded to 6-7% growth by 2031 is mild compression, and the bear and bull cases move it to 2.2x and 3.8x. That matters: 61.9% of base-case enterprise value sits in the terminal, rising to 66.9% in the bull case, so each 0.1x of exit multiple is worth about $1.50 a share. The tax rate is management's own projected non-GAAP rate of 21%, which is well above the 11.0% effective and roughly 9.7% cash rate Docusign actually paid in fiscal 2026 against $805.1 million of remaining deferred tax assets - the vertical EBITDA margin is calibrated against actual free cash flow at that 21% rate, so the two halves are consistent.

Read the other way round: at $67.15 the market is paying 2.6x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.

Quarter by quarter

The projected path

The published model's 20 quarters. The horizon and sliders above do not change this table.

Quarter SubscriptionProfessional services and other Revenue YoY EBITDA Capex FCF R40 PV of FCF
2027 Q2E $844M$19M $863M +8% $365M $30M $264M +38 $258M
2027 Q3E $860M$19M $879M +7% $373M $31M $270M +38 $257M
2027 Q4E $878M$19M $897M +7% $381M $31M $276M +38 $257M
2028 Q1E $865M$19M $884M +6% $377M $31M $273M +37 $248M
2028 Q2E $898M$19M $917M +6% $392M $32M $284M +37 $252M
2028 Q3E $914M$19M $933M +6% $400M $33M $290M +37 $251M
2028 Q4E $932M$19M $951M +6% $408M $33M $296M +37 $251M
2029 Q1E $916M$19M $935M +6% $402M $33M $292M +37 $241M
2029 Q2E $951M$19M $969M +6% $418M $34M $303M +37 $245M
2029 Q3E $966M$19M $985M +6% $426M $34M $309M +37 $243M
2029 Q4E $984M$19M $1.00B +5% $434M $35M $315M +37 $243M
2030 Q1E $967M$19M $986M +5% $427M $34M $310M +37 $233M
2030 Q2E $1.00B$19M $1.02B +5% $443M $36M $322M +37 $236M
2030 Q3E $1.02B$19M $1.04B +5% $451M $36M $327M +37 $235M
2030 Q4E $1.04B$18M $1.05B +5% $459M $37M $334M +37 $233M
2031 Q1E $1.02B$18M $1.04B +5% $452M $36M $328M +37 $224M
2031 Q2E $1.05B$18M $1.07B +5% $468M $38M $340M +37 $227M
2031 Q3E $1.07B$18M $1.09B +5% $476M $38M $346M +37 $225M
2031 Q4E $1.09B$18M $1.11B +5% $484M $39M $352M +37 $224M
2032 Q1E $1.07B$18M $1.09B +5% $476M $38M $346M +37 $215M

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Track record

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.

DateFair value thenNote
2026-08-31 $79.28 First model. Built on the fiscal 2027 Q1 basis quarter, three days before Docusign reports fiscal 2027 Q2 on 3 September 2026, so the guided quarter this model reproduces becomes a testable actual almost immediately.