TASKNASDAQThe short version
TaskUs, Inc.
TaskUs provides outsourced customer support, content moderation, and AI data-labeling for large technology firms, earning a cash spread on offshore labor — a founder-led former growth stock the market now prices as an automation casualty.
From a 2021 debut it spiked above $80, faded to the high teens by late 2024, and has since round-tripped to about $6 — roughly 68% below its three-year high.
Mkt cap $564.7MNet debt $339.3MEV $904.0MP/E FY27E 4.0×ND/EBITDA FY27E 1.3×
$6.07
Share price
$1.18B
FY2025 revenue
~65,500
Employees
26%
Largest client
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Snapshot
TaskUs, Inc. in numbers
Price
$6.07as of 2026-07-31
Mkt cap
$564.7M
Net debt
$339.3M
EV
$904.0M
12m perf
−64.5%
3m ADV
$3.9M
| Year to Dec (USD) | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026E | 2027E | 2028E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 924.4M | 995.0M | 1.2B | 1.2B | 1.3B | 1.4B |
| EBITDA | – | – | – | 232.1M | 255.8M | 283.3M |
| EBIT | 95.0M | 92.4M | 140.6M | 140.6M | 157.1M | 186.5M |
| EBIT margin | 10.3% | 9.3% | 11.9% | 11.4% | 12.0% | 13.3% |
| EPS | 0.48 | 0.50 | 1.10 | 1.33 | 1.52 | 1.73 |
| EV/EBITDA | – | – | – | 3.9× | 3.5× | 3.2× |
| EV/EBIT | 9.5× | 9.8× | 6.4× | 6.4× | 5.8× | 4.8× |
| P/E | 12.6× | 12.1× | 5.5× | 4.6× | 4.0× | 3.5× |
| FCF yield | 20.0% | 17.7% | 13.1% | 19.5% | 21.1% | 25.1% |
| Gearing | 31.4% | 12.9% | 4.9% | – | – | – |
Consensus: S&P Capital IQ (CapIQ) · as of 2026-08-03Derived from run data; ratios use the latest price.
IThe business
Business model
TaskUs sells outsourced human judgment at offshore wages, wrapped in software
FY2025 service revenue mix ($M)
Digital CX$661.9M56%
Trust & Safety$307.4M26%
AI Services$214.2M18%
Digital CX 56%, Trust & Safety 26%, AI Services 18% of $1,183.5M revenue.
- Who pays. About 200 large technology clients pay TaskUs to run operational work — customer care, content moderation, and data-labeling for AI models — staffed by roughly 65,500 people across 13 countries.
- Three lines, one engine. All three sell the same thing: trained people running a client's process on TaskUs's cloud, billed in US dollars regardless of where the work is performed.
- Mix is rotating. Customer care is still the largest line but grows slowly; moderation and AI-training labor are taking share year by year.
Unit economics
The margin is a real cash-wage spread, not an accounting one
Profit and loss, % of revenue
| P&L line (% of revenue) | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of services | 60.6% | 62.2% |
| SG&A | 24.1% | 20.7% |
| Depreciation & amortization | 6.0% | 5.2% |
| Operating income | 9.3% | 11.9% |
FY2025 10-K, Consolidated Statements of Income.
- Cash in, cash out. Frontline wages in the Philippines and India are paid in cash while billing is in dollars, so the gap is a real spread — stock-based pay is just 2.5% of revenue and almost none of it sits in delivery cost.
- Where leverage lives. Delivery cost scales with revenue; the margin gain comes from SG&A, which fell from 24.1% to 20.7% of revenue and lifted operating margin to 11.9%.
- Read with care. Two of those points were one-off — $11.9M of failed-buyout costs carried and $15.4M of prior-year litigation shed — so the underlying leverage is real but smaller than the headline jump implies.
Growth and concentration
Faster than its peers, but leaning on a handful of clients
19%
FY2025 revenue growthvs ~7% peer median
26%
Largest client (Meta)up from 22% in FY2024
71%
Top-20 clientsshare of revenue
73
Multi-line clients+14% year over year
- Outgrowing the field. TaskUs grew revenue about 19% in FY2025 against a peer median near 7%, on a thinner ~11.9% operating margin — a small, fast grower among larger, slower incumbents.
- Concentrated at the top. The largest client is 26% of revenue and the top twenty are 71%; contracts are mostly non-exclusive, carry no minimum volume, and can be cancelled for convenience.
- What holds them. Not contract length but entanglement — 73 clients now buy more than one service line, up 14% year over year.
IIThe record
The record
Revenue more than tripled since 2019 — and the growth mix flipped
Service revenue by line ($M)
FY2021–FY2025; moderation and AI-training work displacing seat-based care.
- Named driver. FY2025's 19% growth was led by AI Services (+59%) and Trust & Safety (+24%); the core customer-care line grew just 8%.
- Not a straight line. Revenue fell 3.8% in FY2023 when digital clients cut their own outsourcing budgets, then reaccelerated — a fall-and-recovery story, not a steady compounder.
- From call-centre to AI supplier. Customer care was 61% of revenue a year ago and is 56% now, as the two automation-adjacent lines take its place.
Financials
Reported profit and owner cash pulled apart in FY2025
FY2019 → FY2025as reported · $
Revenue$1.2B+19%
Operating margin11.9%+2.6pp
Net income$102M+123%
EPS$1.10+120%
Free cash flow$74M−26%
Open the full statements →Seven-year statements; net income rising as free cash flow fell.
- The divergence. Net income jumped 123% to $102.3M and adjusted EBITDA reached $249.1M, yet free cash flow fell to $73.7M — a 6.2% FCF margin, down from 10.0%.
- Why. Operating cash held flat near $137M; capex nearly doubled to $63.5M on site expansion and receivables outran revenue, so EBITDA-to-FCF conversion dropped from 47.5% to 29.6%.
- Trough or reset. The filings don't split maintenance from growth capex, so whether this is a one-year investment dip or a structural step-down is the open cash-quality question.
Forward estimates
Growth slows to low single digits; earnings dip before they recover
Guidance and consensus
| Period | Revenue ($M) | Growth | Adj EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025A | 1,183.5 | 19.0% | $1.63 |
| FY2026E | 1,232.7 | 4.2% | $1.33 |
| FY2027E | 1,306.1 | 6.0% | $1.52 |
Consensus of 8 analysts; adjusted EPS is non-GAAP.
- The step-down. Management guides FY2026 revenue up ~3.5% to $1.21–$1.24B with adjusted EBITDA margin easing to ~19% from 21.1%; consensus sees adjusted EPS falling ~18% before a ~14% rebound in FY2027.
- Cash guided up. Even as margin compresses, adjusted free cash flow is guided higher to $105–$115M as the FY2025 capex peak rolls off — a high-teens forward yield on today's price.
- Street is neutral. The mean target is $9.50 against a ~$6 tape, but the range runs $6–$13 and hold is the most common rating.
IIIThe story now
What's happening now
A fallen star: the take-private failed and the stock re-rated to its lows
The controllers' $16.50 buyout was voted down in October 2025; the stock has since more than halved.
- Once loved, now hated. Down about 68% from its three-year high, TaskUs is exactly the sort of former growth name a value buyer looks at because the market has given up on it.
- The trigger. After a $16.50 take-private bid collapsed in October 2025, the story turned to automation at the largest client — and the multiple compressed to roughly five times free cash flow.
- The debate underneath. Three forces now define the moment: automation at the core, a debt-funded controller dividend, and where the price sits against intrinsic value.
Automation offset
Automation reached the largest client — and the line replacing it earns less
Service-line revenue growth, FY2025 (%)
Trust & Safety, 26% of revenue, is now guided to decline in 2026; AI Services must more than double to offset it.
- TaskUs's 11.9% operating margin is a real cash-arbitrage spread (SBC just 2.5% of revenue), but the arbitrage work is being automated at its largest client Meta (26% of revenue) and in its most-exposed line Trust & Safety (26%, guided to decline in 2026), while the onshore, lower-margin AI Services line that is replacing it helps cut guided FY2026 adjusted EBITDA margin to ~19% from 21.1%.
- The stakes. Trust & Safety is $307.4M of revenue guided to decline, while AI Services at $214.2M must more than double toward triple to hold the top line — and TaskUs helped build the very models now automating its moderators.
- The other side. The offset is working so far: AI Services grew 59% and Q1 FY2026 delivered a 19.1% adjusted EBITDA margin, above the ~19% full-year guide.
Controller alignment
The owners borrowed $500M to pay themselves a special dividend
$332.8M special dividend, by recipient ($M)
Blackstone$172M52%
Bryce Maddock (co-founder, CEO)$48.4M15%
Jaspar Weir (co-founder)$47.7M15%
Public minority$59.9M18%
Roughly 82% flowed pro-rata to Blackstone and the two co-founders.
- Key finding. TaskUs borrowed $500M to pay a $332.8M special dividend — about 4.5x its $73.7M FY2025 free cash flow — turning $29.7M of net cash into ~$339M of net debt, with roughly $270M (~82%) of the payout flowing pro-rata to Blackstone and the co-founders.
- Skin in the game. The two co-founders own about 29% of the company and run it, Blackstone holds ~52%, and insiders control 82% of the economics and 96.9% of the votes — a genuinely owner-operated business.
- The other side. The dividend was strictly pro-rata at $3.65 a share for every holder and leverage of ~1.5x adjusted EBITDA is serviceable — but the near-net-cash floor that anchored the low-bankruptcy case is gone.
IVThe price
Margin of safety
Priced at the bank's own downside case, with the upside a mirror away
Per-share valuation anchors ($)
Case A DCF (base)
$12.40–$20.20
Controllers' rejected bid
$16.50
Current mean target
$9.50
Case B DCF (conservative)
$5.10–$7.50
Evercore's May 2025 fairness ranges; today's $6.07 sits at the Case-B midpoint.
- Key finding. TaskUs at $6.07 trades at the midpoint of Evercore's conservative Case-B DCF ($5.10-$7.50) and about 37% of the $16.50 its own controllers offered to go private — a bid they revealed as a ceiling by walking with no fee rather than raising after a 92%-against minority veto.
- The value fork. At the Case-B midpoint, safety is thin against Case B and wide against anything better; a move back toward Case A (~$16) is roughly a double if the automation drag proves cyclical and free cash flow rebuilds to $105–$115M.
- The other side. The rejected $16.50 is a ceiling buyers set, not a floor — struck on the pre-automation trajectory, and the same controllers walked rather than raise it.
What you pay
Cheap on the equity, less cheap once you inherit the debt
EV / adjusted EBITDA (x)
TaskUs on FY2025 adjusted EBITDA vs Evercore's May-2025 benchmarks.
- Two multiples, one company. The equity trades near 5.5x trailing earnings and a 13% free-cash-flow yield; on enterprise value — after the dividend turned net cash into ~$339M of net debt — it is about 3.6x adjusted EBITDA.
- Still below the field. That is under the 5–6x Evercore applied to customer-experience peers and the 6.8–7.6x precedent BPO deals cleared, though those are 2025 marks and the whole peer group has de-rated.
- Which one matters. A buyer inherits the debt, so the enterprise multiple is the honest one; the equity looks cheaper than the business does.
The read
Doubles toward the base case, or fairly valued at the downside
$6.07
Share price
$9.50
Mean price target57% above the tape
~19%
FY2026 FCF yieldon guided $105–$115M
2031
First debt maturityinterest ~$31M vs ~$137M op. cash
- What has to be true. The stock is priced at the conservative Case-B DCF; it is cheap only if the business tracks nearer Case A — automation proving cyclical and free cash flow rebuilding — and roughly fair if Case B is the destination.
- Downside is bounded. No maturities until 2031 and ~$31M of interest against well over $100M of operating cash flow keep forced-distress risk low — the near-zero-bankruptcy test this business has to pass.
- What settles it. Not a valuation debate but two or three quarters of data: whether free cash flow lands in the $105–$115M band and whether Trust & Safety stabilizes.
What to watch
Priced at its own downside case: cheap if the automation drag is cyclical, fairly valued if it is the new baseline.
- 01Adjusted free cash flow lands outside the guided $105–$115M band for FY2026.
- 02Trust & Safety keeps sliding rather than stabilizing as automation spreads beyond the largest client.
- 03A fresh take-private bid — above $16.50 confirms hidden value, at or below confirms the ceiling.
- 04A second debt-funded dividend, or leverage pushed past ~1.5x adjusted EBITDA, tilts the read from returning cash to extracting it.
This distills a guided study of TaskUs built chapter by chapter — what it is, what it has done, what is happening now, and what the market asks you to pay.
Compiled from the full report · 2026-08-03 · For information, not investment advice.