ZscalerZS
$27.7B market capSells cloud-delivered security that sits between workers and the internet.
Zscaler in 36 checks
Zscaler at a glance: how it scores on value, growth, quality, health, shareholder returns and trend. The fuller the shape, the stronger the company. Behind each axis are six pass-or-fail checks from its filings, spelled out in the chapters below. Point at an axis to see them.
The business itself is the question here - 13 of 36 checks passed.
Value
What you pay today for what the business produces, measured against ZS's own history and its peers, never a universal rule.
Expensive against its own history and its sector (judged on sales - not yet profitable) - you're paying up for what you get.
Zscaler isn't profitable yet - so is the price high compared to its sales?
→At 8.3x sales, the market is paying 59% less than ZS's own 8-year median of 20.2x. Pessimism is priced in - the question is whether it is deserved. Today's multiple is the lowest in the charted history.
What has the market paid for ZS over the years?
◌ 2026 = at the latest close (2026-09-04), over the trailing twelve months; earlier years are annual averages
→At 8.3x sales, the market is paying 59% less than ZS's own 8-year median of 20.2x. Pessimism is priced in - the question is whether it is deserved.
What cash return does the business throw off per dollar of market value?
3.1%FCF yield today
◌ 2026 = at the latest close (2026-09-04), over the trailing twelve months; earlier years are annual averages
→At 3.1%, the business is throwing off more cash per dollar of market value than its own 8-year median of 1.9% - the cheaper end of its history.
What does “Value” actually mean?
Value asks what you pay for each dollar of earnings, sales or cash the business produces. A high multiple isn't automatically bad - fast growers earn theirs - but a price far above the company's own history means the market expects a lot to go right. We compare each multiple to the company's own past and to its sector, never to a universal rule.
How we scored it · 1 of 6 checks passed
| – | Cheaper than its own history (sales - not yet profitable) | under 3 years of history |
| ✕ | Cheaper than its peers (sales) | 8.26 vs 2.50 (peer median) |
| – | Cheap on enterprise value vs sales | enterprise value unavailable |
| ✓ | Free cash flow yield above 3% | 3.1% vs 3.0% |
| – | Cheap on enterprise value | EBITDA unavailable |
| ✕ | Price isn't outrunning growth | no positive three-year earnings growth behind the price |
Growth
What the company has actually reported - is it selling more, and is more of it becoming profit?
Growing, but with caveats - revenue +25.4% over the last year.
Revenue: is the business selling more than it used to?
→Revenue reached $3.4B in 2026, compounding +28% a year since 2023 though the pace has cooled.
Net income: how much of that revenue becomes profit?
→The company lost $63M in 2026, more than the $41M it lost the year before. The losses are widening - check the Health chapter for how long the cash lasts.
How fast is it growing, year by year?
+25%revenue growth, FY 2026
→Revenue grew +25% in 2026. Each point is one year's change against the year before.
What does “Growth” actually mean?
Growth here is what the company has actually reported to the SEC - not a forecast. We look at the last year, the three-year pace, whether growth is speeding up or slowing down, and whether it's been consistent rather than one lucky year. Hatched bars are fourth quarters we derived from annual filings (companies file a full-year 10-K rather than a Q4 report).
How we scored it · 3 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | Outgrew its sector last year | 25.4% vs 15.8% (sector 70th pct, n=404) |
| ✓ | Sustained growth beats its sector (3 years) | 27.5% vs 17.6% (sector 70th pct, n=373) |
| ✕ | Profits grew last year | loss-making: TTM net income $-63M |
| ✕ | Profit growth beats its peers | loss-making: TTM net income $-63M |
| ✕ | Growth is speeding up, not slowing | 1y 25.4% vs 3y 27.5% |
| ✓ | Grew per share, not just in total | 87.6% vs 0.0% |
Quality
Whether the growth makes real money - margins, returns on capital, and whether profits turn into cash.
Profitability is thin or negative - the growth isn't turning into money yet.
Margins: of every $1 of sales, how much survives each cost layer?
→Operating margin widened 11 points to -4% since 2023. The bottom line is still negative: costs below the operating line eat what is left.
Earnings quality: do the reported profits turn into real cash?
→The company generated $1.1B of operating cash in 2026. With no profit to compare against, cash generation is the number that matters here.
What does it earn on the money it uses?
→ROE of -2% on shareholders' capital (ROCE isn't meaningful for this business model).
Where does each dollar of revenue actually go?
→Of $3.4B in sales, nothing reaches the bottom line - the journey from revenue to profit ends $63M underwater.
How much of every sales dollar ends up as free cash?
→25 cents of every sales dollar became free cash in 2026, up 3 points since 2023.
What does staying competitive cost, per dollar of sales?
→The biggest claim on each sales dollar is research and development, at 27% of revenue (stock compensation 25%, capital spending 8%). That share has risen since 2023, so the cost of competing is climbing.
Does ZS earn more on its capital than that capital costs?
→ZS's return on capital is negative at -2.7% in 2026. The capital in the business is not yet earning anything back.
What does “Quality” actually mean?
Quality asks whether the growth makes real money. Margins show how much of each sale survives costs; return on equity shows what shareholders earn on their capital; and the profit-to-cash comparison catches companies whose accounting profits never turn into actual cash.
How we scored it · 2 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | Better gross margins than peers | 76.8% vs 74.4% (sector 70th pct, n=245) |
| ✕ | Runs leaner than peers (operating margin) | -4.0% vs 11.0% (sector 70th pct, n=398) |
| ✕ | Actually profitable | TTM net income $-63M |
| ✕ | Earns well on shareholders' money | -2.4% vs 13.3% (sector 70th pct, n=346) |
| ✕ | Earns a real return on the capital it employs | -2.7% vs 10.0% |
| ✓ | Generates cash despite the loss | TTM operating cash flow $1.1B on a net loss of $63M |
Health
The balance sheet stress test: could ZS survive a bad year?
Financially sound overall, with one or two things worth watching.
Could it handle its debt if things went wrong?
→Debt isn't clearly tagged in ZS's filings, so treat the balance sheet with extra care rather than assuming zero.
Is the company's own capital growing or shrinking?
→The company's own capital grew from $959M in 2023 to $2.6B (+171%). The business is building book value rather than consuming it.
What does “Health” actually mean?
Health asks one question: can the business survive a bad year? We check whether near-term bills are covered, whether debt is modest and shrinking, whether earnings comfortably pay the interest, and - for loss-makers - how many years of cash are left at the current burn rate.
How we scored it · 4 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | Comfortable near-term liquidity | 1.70 vs 1.50 |
| ✕ | Less levered than its peers | 0.67 vs 0.38 (sector 30th pct, n=373) |
| ✓ | Debt trending the right way | liabilities are 67.0% of assets vs 77.7% five years ago |
| ✕ | Earnings cover the interest | -11.30 vs 5.00 |
| ✓ | Converts sales to cash better than its sector | 33.7% vs 23.1% (sector 70th pct, n=410) |
| ✓ | Self-funding | TTM free cash flow $852M |
Shareholder returns
How much cash actually flows back to owners - dividends, buybacks, whether the share count truly falls, and whether what is handed back is affordable.
ZS returns nothing to owners yet, and the share count keeps rising - every dollar stays in the business.
How much goes back to shareholders - and how much leaks out as stock compensation?
→Stock compensation ($822M) flows out with nothing returned - the dilution is winning.
How fast is your ownership being diluted - or concentrated?
→3.8% more shares last year - your stake was diluted by that much.
ZS has issued or retired shares - did shareholders end up better off?
Both lines start at 100 in 2019, so the gap between them is what each share gained or lost. Share counts are split-adjusted.
→ZS issued +30% more shares from 2019 to 2026, but revenue per share still rose +754%. The dilution bought more growth than it cost existing holders.
Why compare buybacks with stock compensation?
A company can trumpet billions in buybacks while quietly issuing nearly as much stock to employees. What matters to you is the net effect: is the share count actually falling? If not, the 'return' is mostly recycling.
How we scored it · 0 of 6 checks passed
| ✕ | Share count isn't climbing | shares up 10.5% over 3 years |
| ✕ | Buybacks outpace the stock issued to staff | no buybacks against $822M of stock compensation |
| ✕ | Hands cash back to owners | no dividends and no buybacks in the last twelve months |
| ✕ | Meaningful yield to owners (dividends and buybacks) | 0.00 returned, 0.0% of market value |
| ✕ | Buybacks are sustained, not one-off | 0.00 bought back in the last twelve months, 0.00 the year before; no dividend |
| ✕ | Buybacks growing | 0.00 vs 0.00 the year before; no dividend |
Trend analysis
What the market is doing about all of the above. This is price behaviour, not a fact about the business - read it as the market's current opinion, scored on six checks like every other chapter. The market is the S&P 500, measured by the SPY ETF with dividends included, over 3 months (63 trading sessions) and 12 months (252).
Mixed signals from the market - some trends up, some rolling over.
How is ZS's trend actually behaving right now?
Chart by TradingView
→ZS is in a clear uptrend. The price is above the band where recent trading settled, and that band is still rising underneath it, so the floor keeps moving up. The last two weeks are running ahead of the last month and the price is above where it stood a month ago, so the shorter-term readings back the trend up. The band drawn for the coming weeks turns upward partway through, so the support beneath the price should firm up from there.
How the trend above is worked out
The trend read comes from the daily Ichimoku picture, a standard trend indicator, translated out of its jargon. It builds a band from the midpoints of the last 9, 26 and 52 sessions' highs and lows - in effect, the range where recent trading has settled - and draws that band 26 sessions into the future. Price above the band is an uptrend, below it a downtrend, inside it no trend. Because the band is drawn forward, the support for the next few weeks is already fixed and a change of its direction can be seen coming. We also compare the last two weeks against the last month, and today's price against where it stood a month ago. None of this says anything about the business; it describes the price only, and it is not advice. Where a check says 'the S&P 500', the comparison is with the SPY ETF including dividends, on the same adjusted basis as the stock's own price: short means 3 months, 63 trading sessions; long means 12 months, 252.
How we scored it · 3 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | Trading above its cloud | 1.00 vs 0.50 |
| ✕ | Long-term trend structure is healthy | 160.96 vs 172.45 |
| ✓ | Rising over 3 months | 29.8% vs 0.0% |
| ✓ | Beating the S&P 500 over 3 months | 29.8% vs 4.7% |
| ✕ | Beating the S&P 500 over 12 months | -36.7% vs 20.0% |
| ✕ | Not in a deep hole | -49.5% from its 52-week high |
Insider activity
What the people running the company do with their own shares - reported to the SEC within two days, classified so pay-plumbing doesn't masquerade as conviction.
Are the people running it buying or selling with their own money?
→No open-market buying, and $17M of selling across 8 months. Selling alone is a weak signal - much of it is pre-scheduled - but the absence of buying tells you no insider saw the price as a bargain.
Who did what, exactly?
| Date | Insider | Role | Type | Shares | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-25 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 291 | $50,207 |
| 2026-08-25 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 92 | $15,965 |
| 2026-08-25 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 48 | $8,378 |
| 2026-08-25 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 66 | $11,601 |
| 2026-08-25 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 6 | $1,059 |
| 2026-07-27 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 72 | $10,422 |
| 2026-07-27 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 75 | $10,928 |
| 2026-07-27 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 96 | $14,088 |
| 2026-07-27 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 118 | $17,433 |
| 2026-07-27 | Kevin Rubin | Chief Financial Officer | SELL | 142 | $21,131 |
Why do the transaction types matter so much?
Most insider filings are not trades: stock grants, option exercises and tax withholding are how executives get paid, and gifts are estate planning. The signal lives in open-market transactions - a buy means an insider chose to spend their own cash on the stock. Sells are murkier: many are pre-scheduled 10b5-1 plans set months in advance. That's why the chart counts only open-market activity, and the table labels every row.