MDB · Forward model · Bull case
The Bull case, 20 quarters out
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.
MongoDB reports a single operating segment but publishes, in every 10-Q and 10-K, an exact three-line ASC 606 revenue disaggregation: Atlas-related, MongoDB Enterprise Advanced and other, and Services. That is the split modelled here, and it is the only one used - nothing is split by geography, by product inside Atlas, or by AI workload, because none of those is disclosed. The three verticals foot to reported consolidated revenue with a difference of exactly zero in all 25 quarters from fiscal 2021 Q1 to fiscal 2027 Q1, against data/companies/mdb/series.json. Fiscal labelling matters more here than for most names: MongoDB's year ends 31 January, so '2027 Q1' is the February-April 2026 quarter and seasonal index 0 is that February-April quarter. The whole model is built on a NON-GAAP basis, because that is the basis on which MongoDB guides operating income and earnings per share, and each figure is labelled. Stock-based compensation of $137.8 million in the basis quarter - 20.0% of revenue - is excluded throughout, and GAAP operating income was negative at -$24.8 million against non-GAAP +$123.2 million for the same quarter. That is the single largest caveat on every margin and multiple in this model: MongoDB's own fiscal 2027 guidance adds back $634.6 million of stock-based compensation to bridge GAAP to non-GAAP operating income, more than the $571-591 million of non-GAAP operating income it is guiding to. The exit is taken on revenue rather than EBITDA for exactly this reason. Two things in the model are assumed rather than reported and must not be read as disclosure. First, the Atlas and Enterprise Advanced gross margins of 73.5% and 89.0%: MongoDB publishes no cost of revenue split between them, only a blended non-GAAP subscription margin of 77.06%, which this pair reproduces to within 0.02 points along with the disclosed 74.49% company non-GAAP gross margin. Second, corporate overhead at 54.73% of revenue, which is what the full-year guide implies (74.49% gross margin less the 19.76% non-GAAP operating margin at the guide midpoints) rather than the 56.58% the basis quarter actually ran at - the guide already assumes operating leverage inside the year, and because the engine's overhead rate is flat with no glide, the further leverage MongoDB describes is carried by the vertical margin ladders instead. What was deliberately rejected: Atlas customer counts as a driver. MongoDB publishes total customers, Atlas customers and customers over $100,000 of ARR, but the first two are floors rounded to the nearest hundred ('66,400+'), not a series, and the evidence says they are the wrong quantity anyway - Atlas accounts grew 19.0% year over year while Atlas revenue grew 29.4%. There is no disclosed subscriber-times-price history for Atlas and none was invented; consumption revenue is driven by workloads running, and the only honest driver is a deseasonalised trend growth rate. Remaining performance obligations were likewise not used as a revenue driver, because the 10-Q states recognition is 'inherently variable at the customers' discretion'. No sell-side consensus was used anywhere: Nasdaq's reported EPS for the basis quarter is neither MongoDB's GAAP $0.05 nor its non-GAAP $1.32, so its estimates cannot be paired with either basis. Seasonality was tested on all three verticals by ratio to a centred four-quarter moving average over 25 quarters, and accepted on Atlas alone: 0.9728 / 1.0013 / 1.0023 / 1.0237, a 5.1-point signal against a worst within-quarter spread of 2.9 points, with a mechanical explanation (a 89-day February-April quarter against 92 days elsewhere, plus a 1.6% November-January workload lift). Enterprise Advanced and Services were left aseasonal because their apparent shapes - 5.4 and 6.6 points - are swamped by within-quarter spreads of 17.6 and 15.5 points. The model's central claim is arithmetic rather than editorial. Base settings reproduce the guided fiscal 2027 Q2 revenue at $733.8 million, inside the company's $729-734 million range, but carry the full year to $2,994 million - 1.2% above the top of the $2.92-2.96 billion guide. No defensible trend rate reproduces that guide, because it embeds a second half decelerating to 13.4-16.4% year-over-year growth three months after the company printed 25.2% and raised the year.
The Atlas trend holds where it has actually been running rather than where the guide implies. Deseasonalised Atlas growth was 7.30% in the basis quarter against a trailing four-quarter mean of 6.67%, so the trend accelerated into the print. Expansion inside the installed base strengthened on the company's own metric - net ARR expansion rate of 121% at 30 April 2026, against approximately 119% a year earlier - and remaining performance obligations grew 88% year over year to $1,458.6 million, more than three times the rate of revenue, which is larger multi-year commitments landing rather than a pricing effect. A point of extra quarterly growth, three points of margin and a 9.0x exit is Snowflake's carried exit multiple applied to the cheaper name.
Latest: $1.59B (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2021Q1 | $130M |
| 2021Q2 | $138M |
| 2021Q3 | $151M |
| 2021Q4 | $171M |
| 2022Q1 | $182M |
| 2022Q2 | $199M |
| 2022Q3 | $227M |
| 2022Q4 | $266M |
| 2023Q1 | $285M |
| 2023Q2 | $304M |
| 2023Q3 | $334M |
| 2023Q4 | $361M |
| 2024Q1 | $368M |
| 2024Q2 | $424M |
| 2024Q3 | $433M |
| 2024Q4 | $458M |
| 2025Q1 | $451M |
| 2025Q2 | $478M |
| 2025Q3 | $529M |
| 2025Q4 | $548M |
| 2026Q1 | $549M |
| 2026Q2 | $591M |
| 2026Q3 | $628M |
| 2026Q4 | $695M |
| 2027Q1 | $688M |
| 2027Q2E | $741M |
| 2027Q3E | $781M |
| 2027Q4E | $834M |
| 2028Q1E | $841M |
| 2028Q2E | $901M |
| 2028Q3E | $943M |
| 2028Q4E | $1.00B |
| 2029Q1E | $1.01B |
| 2029Q2E | $1.07B |
| 2029Q3E | $1.12B |
| 2029Q4E | $1.18B |
| 2030Q1E | $1.18B |
| 2030Q2E | $1.26B |
| 2030Q3E | $1.31B |
| 2030Q4E | $1.38B |
| 2031Q1E | $1.38B |
| 2031Q2E | $1.46B |
| 2031Q3E | $1.52B |
| 2031Q4E | $1.60B |
| 2032Q1E | $1.59B |
What drives each segment
Atlas-related
Growth pathAtlas is MongoDB's managed cloud database, billed by consumption of compute, storage and data transfer rather than by seat. It is 74.5% of total revenue in the basis quarter and supplies essentially all of the growth: revenue expands because existing workloads grow and new workloads land inside existing accounts, which is what the disclosed 121% net ARR expansion rate measures. MongoDB publishes no capacity, no units and no price for Atlas, and the customer counts it does publish are floors that grew 19.0% year over year against Atlas revenue at 29.4% - so a deseasonalised trend growth rate paired with a derived seasonal shape is the only honest driver.
Latest: $1.27B (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2021Q1 | $54M |
| 2021Q2 | $61M |
| 2021Q3 | $71M |
| 2021Q4 | $84M |
| 2022Q1 | $94M |
| 2022Q2 | $112M |
| 2022Q3 | $131M |
| 2022Q4 | $156M |
| 2023Q1 | $170M |
| 2023Q2 | $193M |
| 2023Q3 | $211M |
| 2023Q4 | $234M |
| 2024Q1 | $238M |
| 2024Q2 | $267M |
| 2024Q3 | $287M |
| 2024Q4 | $313M |
| 2025Q1 | $314M |
| 2025Q2 | $340M |
| 2025Q3 | $363M |
| 2025Q4 | $389M |
| 2026Q1 | $396M |
| 2026Q2 | $439M |
| 2026Q3 | $470M |
| 2026Q4 | $503M |
| 2027Q1 | $512M |
| 2027Q2E | $559M |
| 2027Q3E | $592M |
| 2027Q4E | $639M |
| 2028Q1E | $640M |
| 2028Q2E | $692M |
| 2028Q3E | $728M |
| 2028Q4E | $780M |
| 2029Q1E | $776M |
| 2029Q2E | $835M |
| 2029Q3E | $874M |
| 2029Q4E | $932M |
| 2030Q1E | $924M |
| 2030Q2E | $991M |
| 2030Q3E | $1.03B |
| 2030Q4E | $1.10B |
| 2031Q1E | $1.09B |
| 2031Q2E | $1.16B |
| 2031Q3E | $1.21B |
| 2031Q4E | $1.28B |
| 2032Q1E | $1.27B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Every quarter is the Atlas-related line of the ASC 606 revenue disaggregation table, an exact dollar disclosure in each 10-Q and 10-K. Four fourth quarters - fiscal 2021 through 2024 - are marked estimated because a January quarter is never filed on its own and they are the fiscal year less the filed nine months. The fiscal 2025 Q4 and 2026 Q4 figures are NOT marked estimated: the fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 release prints $389,042 and $502,604 thousand directly, so they are disclosed rather than derived.
- The vertical carries the model's only seasonal factors: 0.9728 / 1.0013 / 1.0023 / 1.0237, indexed by MongoDB's own fiscal quarters, derived as the ratio of each quarter's Atlas revenue to a centred four-quarter moving average over 25 quarters and normalised to mean 1.0. The 5.1-point signal is nearly double the worst window-to-window spread inside any one quarter (2.9 points), and the sign is consistent where it matters: fiscal Q1 came in below its moving average in all five observations, from 0.957 to 0.985, and fiscal Q4 above it in all five, from 1.007 to 1.030.
- The shape is mechanical rather than fitted. Atlas is metered by time and MongoDB's fiscal Q1 is February-April: 89 days against 92 in the other three. Pure day count predicts 0.9781 / 1.0073 / 1.0073 / 1.0073, and dividing it out leaves residuals of 0.9946 / 0.9940 / 0.9950 / 1.0163, so the short quarter explains almost the whole Q1 discount and what remains is a single 1.6% November-January lift.
- Because seasonality is present the engine deseasonalises the basis quarter before the driver runs, so the 5.0% sequential-growth input is a DESEASONALISED TREND rate, not the raw sequential change. Raw sequential Atlas growth in the basis quarter was only 1.9%; deseasonalised it was 7.30%, against a trailing four-quarter mean of 6.67% and an eight-quarter mean of 6.33%.
- Atlas revenue includes Atlas Search and Vector Search. MongoDB breaks out no AI or vector-workload revenue at any granularity, so no such figure appears anywhere in this model.
- The 73.5% Atlas gross margin is ASSUMED, not disclosed. MongoDB publishes no cost of revenue split between Atlas and Enterprise Advanced; only the blended non-GAAP subscription margin of 77.06% is derivable. The 73.5% / 89.0% pair reproduces that blend, and the disclosed 74.49% company non-GAAP gross margin, to within 0.02 points each - it is the largest single assumption in this model.
MongoDB Enterprise Advanced and other
Growth pathThe self-managed product: a commercial licence plus support for customers running MongoDB on their own infrastructure, together with a small amount of other subscription revenue. Licence revenue is recognised substantially upfront at contract start, so the line is lumpy - it fell 9.9% sequentially in the basis quarter after rising 23.0% in the one before - and its share of subscription revenue has fallen from about 28% in fiscal 2023 to 23.07% now as Atlas compounds faster. MongoDB discloses no licence count, no seat count and no renewal base for it, so only a base growth rate is defensible.
Latest: $284M (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2021Q1 | $71M |
| 2021Q2 | $71M |
| 2021Q3 | $73M |
| 2021Q4 | $79M |
| 2022Q1 | $81M |
| 2022Q2 | $80M |
| 2022Q3 | $87M |
| 2022Q4 | $102M |
| 2023Q1 | $105M |
| 2023Q2 | $98M |
| 2023Q3 | $109M |
| 2023Q4 | $115M |
| 2024Q1 | $117M |
| 2024Q2 | $142M |
| 2024Q3 | $131M |
| 2024Q4 | $131M |
| 2025Q1 | $123M |
| 2025Q2 | $124M |
| 2025Q3 | $150M |
| 2025Q4 | $142M |
| 2026Q1 | $136M |
| 2026Q2 | $133M |
| 2026Q3 | $139M |
| 2026Q4 | $170M |
| 2027Q1 | $154M |
| 2027Q2E | $159M |
| 2027Q3E | $165M |
| 2027Q4E | $171M |
| 2028Q1E | $176M |
| 2028Q2E | $182M |
| 2028Q3E | $188M |
| 2028Q4E | $194M |
| 2029Q1E | $200M |
| 2029Q2E | $206M |
| 2029Q3E | $213M |
| 2029Q4E | $219M |
| 2030Q1E | $226M |
| 2030Q2E | $233M |
| 2030Q3E | $239M |
| 2030Q4E | $246M |
| 2031Q1E | $254M |
| 2031Q2E | $261M |
| 2031Q3E | $268M |
| 2031Q4E | $276M |
| 2032Q1E | $284M |
Assumptions & reasoning
- This is the exact dollar 'MongoDB Enterprise Advanced and other' line from the disaggregation table, NOT the release's supplemental 'MongoDB Enterprise Advanced: % of Subscription Revenue' of 21%. The two are different measures: the disaggregated line is 23.07% of subscription revenue because it also carries roughly $13.8 million of non-EA other subscription revenue, and deriving the vertical from the 21% would understate it by about that much.
- Tested for seasonality on the same centred four-quarter moving-average method as Atlas and left ASEASONAL. The apparent 5.4-point fourth-quarter lift is swamped by window-to-window spread of up to 17.6 points inside a single fiscal quarter, with individual fiscal Q2 observations running from 0.931 to 1.107. That is upfront licence recognition landing in different quarters year to year, not a season, and leaving the line flat is the finding rather than a gap.
- The 89.0% gross margin is ASSUMED. It is the other half of the Atlas/EA split that reproduces the disclosed 77.06% blended non-GAAP subscription margin; MongoDB never publishes a product-level cost of revenue for either line.
Services
Growth pathProfessional services and training sold alongside the platform: 3.1% of revenue in the basis quarter and the one line MongoDB runs at a gross loss, at -5.0% on a non-GAAP basis and -23.5% on GAAP. It exists to get customers deployed rather than to earn, and MongoDB publishes no headcount, utilisation or day rate for it, so a base growth rate tied loosely to platform deployments is the only honest driver.
Latest: $44M (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2021Q1 | $5M |
| 2021Q2 | $6M |
| 2021Q3 | $7M |
| 2021Q4 | $7M |
| 2022Q1 | $7M |
| 2022Q2 | $7M |
| 2022Q3 | $9M |
| 2022Q4 | $8M |
| 2023Q1 | $11M |
| 2023Q2 | $12M |
| 2023Q3 | $13M |
| 2023Q4 | $13M |
| 2024Q1 | $14M |
| 2024Q2 | $14M |
| 2024Q3 | $15M |
| 2024Q4 | $13M |
| 2025Q1 | $14M |
| 2025Q2 | $14M |
| 2025Q3 | $17M |
| 2025Q4 | $17M |
| 2026Q1 | $18M |
| 2026Q2 | $19M |
| 2026Q3 | $19M |
| 2026Q4 | $22M |
| 2027Q1 | $21M |
| 2027Q2E | $22M |
| 2027Q3E | $23M |
| 2027Q4E | $24M |
| 2028Q1E | $25M |
| 2028Q2E | $26M |
| 2028Q3E | $27M |
| 2028Q4E | $28M |
| 2029Q1E | $29M |
| 2029Q2E | $31M |
| 2029Q3E | $32M |
| 2029Q4E | $33M |
| 2030Q1E | $34M |
| 2030Q2E | $35M |
| 2030Q3E | $36M |
| 2030Q4E | $37M |
| 2031Q1E | $38M |
| 2031Q2E | $40M |
| 2031Q3E | $41M |
| 2031Q4E | $42M |
| 2032Q1E | $44M |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Services gross margin is one of the few product-level economics MongoDB actually discloses, because services revenue and services cost of revenue are separate income-statement lines: revenue of $21,478 thousand against non-GAAP services cost of revenue of $22,558 thousand (GAAP $26,534 less $3,976 of stock-based compensation) gives -5.03%.
- Tested for seasonality and left ASEASONAL: a 6.6-point apparent signal against window-to-window spread of up to 15.5 points inside one fiscal quarter. On a line this small and this lumpy the shape is noise.
- The line is projected to breakeven rather than to profit. MongoDB has never run services for margin and nothing in the filings suggests it intends to start; a loss-making line growing faster than the company average is a small drag on the blend.
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.
The guide the bear case takes at face value
- May 28, 2026 Revenues are expected to be in the range of: $2.92 billion to $2.96 billion
- May 28, 2026 Revenues are expected to be in the range of: $729 million to $734 million
- May 29, 2026 the amount and timing of revenue recognition are generally dependent upon customers’ future consumption, which is inherently variable at the customers’ discretion
Bull 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 Bull column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
The disclosed expansion metrics
Desai 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 Desai column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
From cash flow to fair value
| Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters | $3.35B |
| Terminal-year revenue | $6.18B |
| Terminal-year EBITDA | $1.53B |
| Exit multiple, on revenue | 9.0x |
| Terminal value | $55.62B |
| Discounted at 10.0% a year, terminal value becomes | $34.54B |
| Enterprise value | $37.88B |
| Net cash | $2.40B |
| Equity value | $40.29B |
| Shares | 0.08B |
| Fair value per share | $500.87 |
| Against the current price of $446.62 | +12% |
10% on a business with $2.40 billion of net cash, no borrowings at all and non-GAAP profitability - the same rate this repo carries on Datadog, the closest consumption-priced comparable. The exit is taken on revenue rather than on EBITDA deliberately: every margin in this model is non-GAAP and excludes stock-based compensation of $137.8 million in the basis quarter, 20.0% of revenue, so a terminal EBITDA multiple here would not be comparable to a cash EBITDA multiple. 6.5x forward revenue is a de-rate from today's 11.4x for a line the model has fading to about 9% annual growth by fiscal 2032; it is the single largest lever in the valuation, and on the same basis Datadog is carried at an 8.0x exit off 17.4x today and Snowflake at 9.0x off 17.6x.
Read the other way round: at $446.62 the market is paying 7.9x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.
The projected path
| Quarter | Atlas-related | MongoDB Enterprise Advanced and other | Services | Revenue | YoY | EBITDA | Capex | FCF | R40 | PV of FCF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 Q2E | $559M | $159M | $22M | $741M | +25% | $170M | $3M | $134M | +43 | $131M |
| 2027 Q3E | $592M | $165M | $23M | $781M | +24% | $181M | $3M | $142M | +42 | $136M |
| 2027 Q4E | $639M | $171M | $24M | $834M | +20% | $194M | $3M | $153M | +38 | $142M |
| 2028 Q1E | $640M | $176M | $25M | $841M | +22% | $197M | $3M | $156M | +41 | $141M |
| 2028 Q2E | $692M | $182M | $26M | $901M | +22% | $213M | $3M | $167M | +40 | $149M |
| 2028 Q3E | $728M | $188M | $27M | $943M | +21% | $224M | $4M | $176M | +40 | $153M |
| 2028 Q4E | $780M | $194M | $28M | $1.00B | +20% | $239M | $4M | $188M | +39 | $159M |
| 2029 Q1E | $776M | $200M | $29M | $1.01B | +20% | $241M | $4M | $190M | +38 | $157M |
| 2029 Q2E | $835M | $206M | $31M | $1.07B | +19% | $258M | $4M | $203M | +38 | $164M |
| 2029 Q3E | $874M | $213M | $32M | $1.12B | +19% | $271M | $5M | $213M | +38 | $168M |
| 2029 Q4E | $932M | $219M | $33M | $1.18B | +18% | $287M | $5M | $226M | +37 | $174M |
| 2030 Q1E | $924M | $226M | $34M | $1.18B | +18% | $288M | $5M | $227M | +37 | $170M |
| 2030 Q2E | $991M | $233M | $35M | $1.26B | +17% | $308M | $5M | $242M | +37 | $178M |
| 2030 Q3E | $1.03B | $239M | $36M | $1.31B | +17% | $321M | $6M | $252M | +36 | $181M |
| 2030 Q4E | $1.10B | $246M | $37M | $1.38B | +17% | $340M | $6M | $267M | +36 | $187M |
| 2031 Q1E | $1.09B | $254M | $38M | $1.38B | +16% | $340M | $6M | $267M | +36 | $182M |
| 2031 Q2E | $1.16B | $261M | $40M | $1.46B | +16% | $362M | $6M | $284M | +36 | $190M |
| 2031 Q3E | $1.21B | $268M | $41M | $1.52B | +16% | $376M | $7M | $296M | +36 | $193M |
| 2031 Q4E | $1.28B | $276M | $42M | $1.60B | +16% | $397M | $7M | $312M | +35 | $199M |
| 2032 Q1E | $1.27B | $284M | $44M | $1.59B | +16% | $396M | $7M | $311M | +35 | $193M |
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.
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.
| Date | Changed | Fair value then | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-29 | all | $307.41 | First publication, built on fiscal 2027 Q1 - the quarter ended 30 April 2026, reported 28 May 2026 - which is the most recent quarter MongoDB has reported. Three verticals from the disclosed ASC 606 disaggregation, footing to reported revenue exactly in all 25 quarters; Atlas on a deseasonalised 5.0% trend with derived seasonal factors, Enterprise Advanced and Services on base growth rates and no seasonality; non-GAAP throughout; 6.5x exit on revenue. |
| 2026-08-29 | basis, verticals.actuals, atlas.seasonality, atlas.driver.growthQoQ | $307.41 | TIMING: the basis quarter is superseded three days after this model was built. MongoDB reports fiscal 2027 Q2, the quarter ended 31 July 2026, after the US close on 1 September 2026. Fiscal 2027 Q1 was the only basis available, which is the ordinary condition of a model built between prints and is NOT a reason to treat this model as unreliable - but it needs saying, because the two figures most exposed are the fiscal 2027 Q2 revenue guide of $729-734 million, which becomes an actual, and the full-year $2.92-2.96 billion guide, which management may raise again as it did in May. Rebuild required from the fiscal 2027 Q2 8-K Exhibit 99.1 once r40-earnings-data captures it: roll the basis to 2027 Q2, extend all three vertical series from the new disaggregation table, re-derive the Atlas seasonal factors on 26 quarters, recheck the deseasonalised Atlas trend against the 5.0% assumed here, and replace the Q2 guidance row with the reported outturn. |