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Back of Napkin

MongoDB, Inc. MDB

Three-pass checkedFresh as companies report

The bet you're really making is that companies keep building new software on MongoDB's database, and keep running more of it on Atlas, the version MongoDB hosts and charges for by how much you use. You're betting that as each app gets busier the bill climbs on its own, and that the wave of new AI apps needs exactly this kind of flexible database. Right now it is going well: the biggest quarter the company has ever had, sales up 30% from a year ago, and profit hit $41 million in the most recent quarter after turning positive for the first time one quarter earlier. You pay about 10 times a year's sales, near the low end of where the stock has traded since it listed in 2017, though measured against next year's hoped-for profit it is not cheap at all.

Key data

Price$368.74
52-week range$215.68 – $473.10
Price / sales, trailing / fwd FY2910.5x / 6.9x
Price / earnings, fwd FY29 (est.)38x

MDB · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$127$227$328$428$529 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jul '25Feb '26Sep '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

MongoDB sells a database that stores information as flexible documents rather than the rigid rows and columns of the old relational systems. Developers reach for it at the start of a project because the data can change shape as the app does, and once an application's data lives inside it, moving out means rewriting the app. That is the switching cost, and it is real. The money comes two ways: Enterprise Advanced, a license for companies that run the database on their own machines, and Atlas, the managed cloud version that MongoDB runs for you and meters by usage. Atlas is the majority of revenue and the whole story: it grows without a new signature every time a customer's traffic rises. The thing a customer actually holds is a bill that goes up quietly as their app gets busier.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05Closing thoughts
  6. 06Methodology

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