Wayfair Inc. (W) Stock Analysis
Wayfair Inc.
▾ What's in the 68/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read W (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
The share count we read for W looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — W's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
How does W stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 4 same-industry companies most similar to W (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If W is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.4x / 0.8x / 0.9x |
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
1.8x / 2.7x / 4.2x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
9.6x / 12.5x / 33.5x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 4 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (5)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDW | CDW Corp | E-Commerce | $16.0B | 0.9x | 4.2x | 12.5x | 6.1% |
| CHWY | Chewy, Inc. | E-Commerce | $8.5B | 0.7x | 2.3x | 33.5x | 3.1% |
| CPNG | Coupang, Inc. | E-Commerce | $30.8B | 0.9x | 3.1x | 66.5x | 2.2% |
| NSIT | INSIGHT ENTERPRISES INC | E-Commerce | $3.2B | 0.4x | 1.8x | 9.6x | 7.1% |
| GROV | Grove Collaborative Holdings, Inc. | E-Commerce ·fallback | $10.5B | 60.2x | 112.1x | — | 0.1% |
Bankruptcy + quality screens
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Safe zone under the classic Altman thresholds — companies scoring here have historically gone bankrupt only rarely within ~2 years. A screening signal, not a guarantee.
The classic Z-score was calibrated on manufacturers. It is less reliable for asset-light or non-manufacturing businesses (broadcasters, media, software, services) and not applicable to banks, REITs, or insurers — for those the coefficients and the asset-turnover term distort the result. Read it as one screening input, not a verdict.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$313.0M in FY2025.Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $534.0M (was $317.0M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $534.0M vs net income -$313.0M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -9.1% vs -14.2% a year ago.
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✗ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 95.1% of assets vs 90.1% a year ago ($3,272.0M of $3,440.0M assets).Why this matters: Rising debt relative to assets means more risk and more cash going to interest instead of shareholders. Falling debt is a sign of strengthening.
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 0.94x vs 0.79x a year ago — improved, but still below 1.0: the ✓ grades the trend, the level remains a caution flag.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 4.1% (123.0M → 128.0M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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✓ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 30.2% vs 30.2% a year ago.
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 3.62x vs 3.43x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for W. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for W because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Wayfair Inc. due to its negative net income and declining revenue. Investors are likely betting on future revenue re-acceleration and margin expansion, as indicated by the market pricing the stock at 9.2x the model's intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →. The primary quantifiable risk is the current ratio of 0.94, signaling potential short-term liquidity challenges.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Quarterly revenue growth re-acceleration
- Improvement in net income profitability
- Increase in current ratio above 1.0
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue grew +5% to $12.46B.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $129.0M.
- Still unprofitable at -$313.0M — loss narrowing.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Roughly flat: Gross margin held to 30% (+0 pts).
Management & Leadership
Wayfair Inc. is co-founded by Niraj Shah, who serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chairman, a role he has held since the company's inception. Steve Conine is the other co-founder and Co-Chairman. The executive team focuses on driving growth in the online home goods market.
What They Make
Wayfair Inc. is an e-commerce company that sells furniture, home decor, and housewares online to consumers across various price points and styles.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Wayfair based on expectations of future revenue re-acceleration and continued gross margin expansion, which has increased from 28.4% to 30.2%. Despite negative net income, positive operating cash flow in 4 out of 5 years suggests underlying business activity, leading investors to anticipate eventual profitability and cash flow generation.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself through a combination of operating cash flow and long-term debt, which has been rising from $3052M to $3272M.
Free Cash Flow DCF
Standard FCF DCF: positive free cash flow in a sector suited for cash-flow-based valuation. FCF negative in 4/5 years.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | -2.4% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Best Estimate | 3.0% |
| Method | blend(70% revenue_cagr, 30% sector) |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been declining at -2.4%/yr over the last four years, from $13708M to $12457M.
Geography & Markets
Wayfair is headquartered in the US and operates across North America and Europe, serving customers in multiple countries. Specific geographic revenue mix percentages are not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)57.4NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (5 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (5)
- Stock-based compensation equals 72% of pre-SBC free cash flow; FCF used here is net of SBC (a real shareholder-dilution cost), so it is lower than the headline GAAP cash-flow figure.
- Terminal growth (3%) capped to 2.4% (80% of near-term growth 3%).
- Price is far above the model output - market may be pricing optionality, narrative catalysts, or margin expansion beyond what trailing cash flows support.
- Extreme valuation (P/IV withheld — see the note above); output dominated by data/units issue (often a multi-class share-count mismatch). Suppressed.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Wayfair Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 12.5B | -313.0M | $-2.44 |
| 2024 | 11.9B | -492.0M | $-4.01 |
| 2023 | 12.0B | -738.0M | $-6.47 |
| 2022 | 12.2B | -1.3B | $-12.54 |
| 2021 | 13.7B | -131.0M | $-1.26 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 534.0M | 70.0M | 335.0M | 129.0M |
| 2024 | 317.0M | 73.0M | 395.0M | -151.0M |
| 2023 | 349.0M | 148.0M | 605.0M | -404.0M |
| 2022 | -674.0M | 186.0M | 513.0M | -1.4B |
| 2021 | 410.0M | 101.0M | 344.0M | -35.0M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 534.0M − 70.0M − 335.0M (SBC & adj.) = 129.0M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 3.4B |
| Total Liabilities | 6.2B |
| Equity | -2.8B |
| Total Debt | 3.3B |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.