PATH · 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.
WHAT IS DISCLOSED. Both verticals are lines printed in UiPath's filed condensed consolidated statements of operations, read from each quarter's own 8-K exhibit 99.1 across thirteen quarters. Nothing is apportioned and nothing is estimated. The platform vertical is the SUM of two adjacent printed lines, Licenses and Subscription services; the services vertical is the Professional services and other line as printed. The two sum to reported total revenue to the dollar in all thirteen quarters. The ARR base, net new ARR, dollar-based net retention, the customer counts and the remaining performance obligations are disclosed figures; $1,901,211 thousand of ARR at 30 April 2026 is printed to the thousand in the 10-Q. WHY ARR AND NOT REVENUE. Reported revenue grew 17% in the basis quarter while ARR grew 12%. The difference is recognition timing: term licences are recognised UP FRONT at delivery, so a heavier licence quarter prints faster revenue growth than the recurring base earned. UiPath's own ARR definition covers subscription licences and maintenance and support and excludes professional services and perpetual licences, which is exactly why the two recognition halves sit in one vertical and the services line sits outside it. A model built on the revenue line would extrapolate the timing. This one extrapolates the base and lets the seasonality carry the calendar. WHAT IS ASSUMED. Forward net new ARR of $53.0m a quarter is UiPath's own fiscal 2027 exit-ARR guide divided by three quarters; its 0.5% quarterly growth, the 87.0% conversion rate and its 88.0% target, the 29.5% and 36.0% platform margins, the -110% and -70% services margins, the 18% tax rate, the 10% discount rate and the 4.0x exit multiple are judgements, and each carries its reasoning beside it. THE MARGIN BOUNDARY, STATED PLAINLY. The 29.5% platform margin nets to 24.1% consolidated after the loss-making services line. That sits on the non-GAAP operating margin UiPath guides for fiscal 2027 and near its adjusted free-cash-flow margin - and about 17 points ABOVE its GAAP operating margin of 6.7% in the basis quarter. The whole gap is stock-based compensation, $290.7m in fiscal 2026 and 18.0% of revenue. This model treats it as non-cash, which is the standard treatment across this repo, and for UiPath it is defensible on evidence rather than convention: the company repurchased 20.4 million shares for $243.8m in the basis quarter alone against $53.3m of stock-based compensation in the same quarter, and the diluted share count consequently FELL 3.8% year over year, to 527.8 million from 548.5 million. The buyback is more than neutralising the dilution. The model holds the share count flat and does not charge the buyback against free cash flow, both of which are conservative. WHAT THE TAX RATE IS NOT. UiPath's GAAP effective rate was 5.6% in fiscal 2026 and 45.0% in the basis quarter, and neither is a forward cash rate: both are artefacts of the valuation-allowance release that cut the allowance from $406.3m to $150.5m and produced a $202.7m non-cash deferred benefit. That single item is also why fiscal 2026 GAAP net income was $282.3m against $57m of GAAP operating income. The 18% constant used here sits between the roughly 17% of pre-tax income UiPath actually paid in cash in the basis quarter and a statutory rate as the $325.5m of loss carryforwards run down. WHAT IS NOT MODELLED. Acquisitions - WorkFusion closed 5 February 2026 for approximately $190.0m and is inside the basis quarter's actuals and inside the ARR base, but no further deal is projected or funded. The $500.0m repurchase authorised in March 2026 is a financing use of cash and is not charged as capex. There is no capital programme: UiPath has no fab, plant, data-centre estate or joint venture, and capital spending was 0.64% of revenue in the basis quarter. WHEN THIS GOES STALE. UiPath reports its fiscal 2027 second quarter on 3 September 2026, three days after this model was written, and that is the quarter management guided DOWN sequentially. The basis quarter and the reproduction target will both be superseded by that print.
Management guided its own next quarter DOWN in the release that printed the beat: $395m to $400m against the $418.4m just delivered, a 5.5% sequential decline and +10.4% year over year against the +17% just reported. It raised the full year by $22m, which is the $20.9m first-quarter beat passed through plus $1.1m - it did not raise the remaining three quarters at all. Underneath, the recurring machine is not accelerating: net new ARR of $49m in the basis quarter compares with $45.0m in the same quarter of fiscal 2024 on an ARR base 52% larger, and annual net new ARR has gone $260m, $202m, $186m over three years. This case takes revenue 0.6% a quarter below the base, cuts margins two points and exits at 3.0x, which is what a decelerating on-premise-heavy licence line has historically been worth. It lands at $14.18, 21.9% below the tape - close to where twenty analysts polled by S&P Global sit, at an average target of $13.44 against an $18.15 close.
Latest: $572M (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024Q1 | $290M |
| 2024Q2 | $287M |
| 2024Q3 | $326M |
| 2024Q4 | $405M |
| 2025Q1 | $335M |
| 2025Q2 | $316M |
| 2025Q3 | $355M |
| 2025Q4 | $424M |
| 2026Q1 | $357M |
| 2026Q2 | $362M |
| 2026Q3 | $411M |
| 2026Q4 | $481M |
| 2027Q1 | $418M |
| 2027Q2E | $397M |
| 2027Q3E | $442M |
| 2027Q4E | $533M |
| 2028Q1E | $442M |
| 2028Q2E | $430M |
| 2028Q3E | $478M |
| 2028Q4E | $575M |
| 2029Q1E | $476M |
| 2029Q2E | $463M |
| 2029Q3E | $513M |
| 2029Q4E | $616M |
| 2030Q1E | $509M |
| 2030Q2E | $494M |
| 2030Q3E | $547M |
| 2030Q4E | $656M |
| 2031Q1E | $541M |
| 2031Q2E | $524M |
| 2031Q3E | $580M |
| 2031Q4E | $695M |
| 2032Q1E | $572M |
What drives each segment
Platform (licences and subscription services)
Capacity × utilisation × price96.1% of revenue and effectively all of the value. UiPath sells multi-year subscription contracts and splits the revenue two ways under ASC 606: the term-licence element is recognised UP FRONT at delivery, the maintenance, support and cloud element ratably. One disclosed number measures the recurring value of both and of nothing else. UiPath defines annualised renewal run-rate as "annualized invoiced amounts per solution SKU from subscription licenses and maintenance and support obligations" and states that it "does not include invoiced amounts associated with perpetual licenses or professional services", so ARR is exactly the earning base for these two lines. It was $1,901.2m at 30 April 2026, up 12%, and the company guides it to $2,058-2,063m by 31 January 2027. Recognised revenue has converted 84.7% to 90.6% of exit ARR, annualised and deseasonalised, in each of the last eight quarters. That is the mechanism the model projects: an ARR base that grows by a disclosed number of net new dollars, converting at a measured rate.
Latest: $553M (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024Q1 | $280M |
| 2024Q2 | $279M |
| 2024Q3 | $316M |
| 2024Q4 | $396M |
| 2025Q1 | $325M |
| 2025Q2 | $307M |
| 2025Q3 | $344M |
| 2025Q4 | $413M |
| 2026Q1 | $346M |
| 2026Q2 | $351M |
| 2026Q3 | $398M |
| 2026Q4 | $467M |
| 2027Q1 | $402M |
| 2027Q2E | $381M |
| 2027Q3E | $425M |
| 2027Q4E | $516M |
| 2028Q1E | $425M |
| 2028Q2E | $413M |
| 2028Q3E | $461M |
| 2028Q4E | $558M |
| 2029Q1E | $458M |
| 2029Q2E | $445M |
| 2029Q3E | $495M |
| 2029Q4E | $598M |
| 2030Q1E | $491M |
| 2030Q2E | $475M |
| 2030Q3E | $528M |
| 2030Q4E | $638M |
| 2031Q1E | $522M |
| 2031Q2E | $505M |
| 2031Q3E | $561M |
| 2031Q4E | $676M |
| 2032Q1E | $553M |
Assumptions & reasoning
- This vertical is the SUM of two lines printed side by side in UiPath's filed condensed consolidated statements of operations: Licenses and Subscription services. Nothing is apportioned and nothing is estimated. In the basis quarter that is $149,309 thousand plus $252,903 thousand = $402,212 thousand, and the same addition reconciles all thirteen quarters to reported total revenue to the dollar once the services line is added.
- The two lines are NOT modelled separately, and the reason is not that the split is undisclosed - it is disclosed - but that they are the two recognition halves of the SAME contracts. A single ARR figure covers both with no published apportionment, so giving each an independent growth rate would forecast one contract twice and discard the only metric UiPath guides.
- Seasonality is a recognition calendar, not a demand cycle. UiPath's fiscal year ends 31 January, term licences are recognised up front, and contracts closed against the year-end quota land in that quarter. Measured by ratio to a centred four-quarter moving average, the Licenses line alone runs 0.898 / 0.752 / 0.956 / 1.394 across the April, July, October and January quarters - a 64-point swing - while the ratably recognised Subscription services line runs 0.982 / 1.007 / 1.010 / 1.001, a 2.8-point swing that is inside its own measurement spread. The combined factors used here are 0.9445 / 0.9001 / 0.9850 / 1.1704: a 27.1-point signal against a worst window-to-window spread of 3.7 points. Raw licence revenue confirms it three years running with no exception - January quarters of $220.0m, $197.6m and $215.9m against July quarters of $119.3m, $112.3m and $112.2m.
- The gap between reported revenue growth of 17% and ARR growth of 12% in the basis quarter is that recognition timing, not incremental recurring value. Licences grew 16.4% year over year while the recurring base grew 12.3%. A model built on the revenue line alone would extrapolate the timing; this one extrapolates the base.
- Risk the model does not carry: if the licence share of this vertical falls - which a shift toward cloud and ratable recognition would cause - reported revenue growth drops below ARR growth for several quarters with the business unchanged, and these seasonal factors over-forecast every January quarter. The licence share has run 34% to 46% over the disclosed history and was 37.1% in the basis quarter.
Professional services and other
Growth path3.9% of revenue and a deliberate loss leader. UiPath booked $16.2m of professional services and other revenue in the basis quarter against $31.3m of cost of revenue on the same line - a gross margin of negative 93% before a dollar of operating expense. The line grew 46.5% year over year as delivery was staffed for the agentic product set and for the Peak AI and WorkFusion acquisitions. It sits explicitly outside the ARR definition, so it has no operational driver: no hours, no bill rate and no delivery headcount are disclosed at any frequency. A decaying growth rate is the only shape the disclosure supports, and its negative margin is the reason the platform line must carry 29.5% for the consolidated figure to land on the 24% operating margin UiPath guides.
Latest: $19M (2032Q1E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024Q1 | $9M |
| 2024Q2 | $8M |
| 2024Q3 | $10M |
| 2024Q4 | $9M |
| 2025Q1 | $10M |
| 2025Q2 | $9M |
| 2025Q3 | $11M |
| 2025Q4 | $11M |
| 2026Q1 | $11M |
| 2026Q2 | $11M |
| 2026Q3 | $13M |
| 2026Q4 | $14M |
| 2027Q1 | $16M |
| 2027Q2E | $16M |
| 2027Q3E | $17M |
| 2027Q4E | $17M |
| 2028Q1E | $17M |
| 2028Q2E | $17M |
| 2028Q3E | $17M |
| 2028Q4E | $17M |
| 2029Q1E | $18M |
| 2029Q2E | $18M |
| 2029Q3E | $18M |
| 2029Q4E | $18M |
| 2030Q1E | $18M |
| 2030Q2E | $18M |
| 2030Q3E | $18M |
| 2030Q4E | $19M |
| 2031Q1E | $19M |
| 2031Q2E | $19M |
| 2031Q3E | $19M |
| 2031Q4E | $19M |
| 2032Q1E | $19M |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Read straight off the Professional services and other line of the filed condensed consolidated statements of operations in each quarter's own 8-K exhibit 99.1. Nothing here is apportioned or estimated.
- ASEASONAL by measurement, which is a finding rather than a gap. Ratio to a centred four-quarter moving average gives 1.0016 / 0.9393 / 1.0626 / 0.9965, a 12.3-point signal - but the October factor's own window-to-window spread is 8.7 points, 71% of the signal, and there is no recognition or delivery calendar to explain a shape. On a line that is 3.9% of revenue, encoding that would move consolidated revenue by less than half a point while asserting something the data does not support.
- The negative EBITDA margin is not an artefact. Cost of professional services and other exceeded the revenue of that line in every quarter of the thirteen-quarter history: negative 93% in the basis quarter, negative 117% across fiscal 2026, negative 74% across fiscal 2025 and negative 100% across fiscal 2024.
- Upside the model does not carry: if UiPath pushed delivery to partners the way Okta has, this line would shrink and the consolidated margin would improve faster than modelled. Nothing in the filings says it intends to.
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.
UiPath guides its own next quarter down
Base 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 Base column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
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.
Retention turned and the large-account mix shifted
Dines 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 Dines column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
The founder's case, in his own filed words
- May 28, 2026 One year into general availability, our agentic products are moving from pilot to production, with customers standardizing on UiPath as the orchestration and automation execution layer for their enterprise AI transformation.
- May 28, 2026 UiPath announced UiPath for Coding Agents, a platform-wide integration enabling every coding agent to become enterprise deployable, an industry first.
From cash flow to fair value
| Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters | $1.65B |
| Terminal-year revenue | $2.37B |
| Terminal-year EBITDA | $658M |
| Exit multiple, on revenue | 3.0x |
| Terminal value | $7.11B |
| Discounted at 10.0% a year, terminal value becomes | $4.42B |
| Enterprise value | $6.07B |
| Net cash | $1.42B |
| Equity value | $7.48B |
| Shares | 0.53B |
| Fair value per share | $14.18 |
| Against the deployed price of $18.67, as of | -24% |
A 10% discount rate is peer-consistent for a profitable software business with $1.42bn of net cash, no debt of any kind and no financing need - the same rate this repo uses for OKTA, DDOG and CRWD. The exit multiple is where the argument is. At $18.15 UiPath's enterprise value is $8.16bn, which is 4.59x the guided fiscal 2027 revenue midpoint and 4.29x current ARR. The base takes 4.0x terminal revenue, 13% of compression over five years on a line whose growth roughly halves: the model's terminal year grows 8.3% at a 29.8% EBITDA margin and a 23.6% free-cash-flow margin, which is 16.9x terminal free cash flow. Repo comparables sit either side - Salesforce at 4.5x on roughly 10% growth, Okta at 6.0x on a 29% free-cash-flow margin, Datadog at 8.0x on mid-teens growth, none of which UiPath reaches. Terminal value is $6.58bn of the $8.49bn enterprise value in the base case, 77.6% of it, so the exit multiple is by a wide margin the single largest input in this model and anything said about UiPath being cheap or expensive is a statement about that number. Holding every other input fixed, fair value runs $14.08 at 2.5x, $15.64 at 3.0x, $17.20 at 3.5x, $18.76 at 4.0x, $20.32 at 4.5x, $21.88 at 5.0x and $23.44 at 5.5x - roughly $3.12 a share per turn. The average sell-side twelve-month target of $13.44 corresponds to about 2.3x on these inputs; the tape at $18.15 corresponds to about 3.8x.
Read the other way round: at $18.67 the market is paying 4.6x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.
The projected path
| Quarter | Platform (licences and subscription services) | Professional services and other | Revenue | YoY | EBITDA | Capex | FCF | R40 | PV of FCF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 Q2E | $381M | $16M | $397M | +10% | $88M | $3M | $69M | +27 | $68M |
| 2027 Q3E | $425M | $17M | $442M | +8% | $102M | $4M | $81M | +26 | $77M |
| 2027 Q4E | $516M | $17M | $533M | +11% | $129M | $4M | $102M | +30 | $95M |
| 2028 Q1E | $425M | $17M | $442M | +6% | $104M | $4M | $83M | +24 | $75M |
| 2028 Q2E | $413M | $17M | $430M | +8% | $102M | $4M | $81M | +27 | $72M |
| 2028 Q3E | $461M | $17M | $478M | +8% | $117M | $4M | $93M | +28 | $80M |
| 2028 Q4E | $558M | $17M | $575M | +8% | $147M | $5M | $117M | +28 | $99M |
| 2029 Q1E | $458M | $18M | $476M | +8% | $119M | $4M | $94M | +27 | $78M |
| 2029 Q2E | $445M | $18M | $463M | +7% | $116M | $4M | $92M | +27 | $74M |
| 2029 Q3E | $495M | $18M | $513M | +7% | $132M | $5M | $105M | +28 | $82M |
| 2029 Q4E | $598M | $18M | $616M | +7% | $165M | $6M | $130M | +28 | $100M |
| 2030 Q1E | $491M | $18M | $509M | +7% | $133M | $5M | $105M | +28 | $79M |
| 2030 Q2E | $475M | $18M | $494M | +7% | $129M | $5M | $102M | +27 | $75M |
| 2030 Q3E | $528M | $18M | $547M | +7% | $147M | $5M | $116M | +28 | $83M |
| 2030 Q4E | $638M | $19M | $656M | +6% | $181M | $6M | $144M | +28 | $100M |
| 2031 Q1E | $522M | $19M | $541M | +6% | $146M | $5M | $116M | +28 | $79M |
| 2031 Q2E | $505M | $19M | $524M | +6% | $142M | $5M | $112M | +28 | $75M |
| 2031 Q3E | $561M | $19M | $580M | +6% | $160M | $6M | $127M | +28 | $83M |
| 2031 Q4E | $676M | $19M | $695M | +6% | $197M | $7M | $156M | +28 | $99M |
| 2032 Q1E | $553M | $19M | $572M | +6% | $159M | $5M | $126M | +28 | $78M |
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 | Fair value then | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | $18.76 | First publication. Basis 2027 Q1, the three months ended 30 April 2026. Built on the disclosed ARR base and its measured conversion into recognised revenue rather than on the reported revenue line, because reported revenue grew 17% while ARR grew 12% and the difference is upfront licence recognition. |