Hi Multis
Adyen published its Q3 2026 business update this morning (here in Europe), and the stock fell about 13% when I’m writing this. That means the stock is down 45% over the last year.
Very disappointing. Let’s look at what happened. Before we dive in, I have to say that management will talk in about an hour after this article is published, so that could still move the stock. But to me, most of the story is already clear.
If this article's language is somewhat less polished than usually, it's because I wanted to get it out fast.
The Numbers
Net revenue: €738.1M, +23% YoY, +22% in constant currency
Talon(.)One and Orb contributed about 2 percentage points to that growth
Processed volume: €451.1B, +30%
Digital: €387.4M, +14% in constant currency, volume +28%
Unified Commerce: €250.5M, +27% in constant currency, volume +22%
Platforms: €100.2M, +44% in constant currency, volume +55%
FTEs: 5,596, including 399 from Talon(.)One and Orb
Those are actually strong numbers. Let’s look at a few things in more detail.
Organic growth was about 20%, very reliable again. Full-year guidance remained at 21% to 23%.
Volume grew 30%, very strong. But it also means that the take rate dropped again: from about 0.173% a year ago to 0.164% now. Talon(.)One only brings in subscriptions and no payments, so if you strip that out, it would have been 0.161%.
The reason is the same as always: tiered pricing. The more the volume existing customers bring, the lower the take rate. I emphasized in my recent article that this is just inherent to the business, but some continue to see this as a negative. But it’s just the consequence of big merchants bringing more and more volume to Adyen. In that sense, it’s a positive, not a negative.
Co-CEO Ingo Uytdehaage gave an interesting data point in the pre-recorded prepared remarks: 10% of Adyen’s volume now comes from the hyperscalers and cloud companies. That’s a lot of volume with very few customers. I’m very happy to hear that. We know that OpenAI is an Adyen customer, just like Microsoft, Google, and Meta. The fact that they have 10% of volume is confirming what I have said for a long time already: AI or no AI, Adyen picks up the biggest customers, while Stripe is better for startups.
Platforms keeps performing outstandingly. 46 platforms now process more than €1 billion a year, up from 37 last quarter and 31 a year ago. Active business customers grew 48% to 312,000.
Unified Commerce is also strong. 499 big customers now use Adyen both in their stores and online. Big means at least €10M on both sides and more than €50M in total. That’s up from 486 in Q2.
The Reason for the Drop
With these results, it’s hard to see why the stock dropped. And, as often, the reason isn't in the results but in what management sees for the future.
Strong numbers, and still the stock dropped 13%. The reason is not in the results. It’s in one decision management announced this morning, and I’m not happy with how it was handled.
Below: what management did, the calculation that shows how big the impact really is, what the drop means for Adyen’s valuation, my updated Valuation Score and my verdict.
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