IT
Gartner
Content / Subscription
★ Quality 34/100Price today
$135.22
what the market pays
Worth
$213.17
calculated cycle value
Price is 37% below its value
charlieapp.co
Unusually large discount. A gap this wide usually means the market is pricing in a risk (AI disruption, for example) that the model does not penalise. A contrarian opportunity: high upside, but high risk — not an obvious one.
A monopoly position
This company has a competitive advantage so strong that its rivals find it practically impossible to replicate.
Price vs Intrinsic Value
The line is the price month by month; the green band marks when it's undervalued (−20% off value). When the price drops in there, the discount is real, not opinion.
Where does the value come from?
Content and entertainment
$229.76
per share
How it's calculated
Gartner — high assistant lane (2026-06-07). Review note.
Net cash in the bank
cash minus financial debt, per share
Total calculated value
business + cash
How many times the cash flow
Content / Subscription · vs 6 peers
You pay 9.8x times this business's cash flow; its sector median is 18x.
51% below what Charlie thinks it's worth (14.8x) — that gap is your safety margin.
Why Undervalued?
Its free cash flow is $15.55/share × 14.8x multiplier minus $16.59 in negative net cash = $213.17 in intrinsic value. Today's price of $135.22 is 58% below that value — there's a real safety margin to enter.
The price is 37% below the calculated value. There's a real safety margin.
The model asks for a discount to absorb estimate errors. That cushion is here.
If the business disappoints a little, the price should hold near $170.54.
At what price would buying make sense?
Entry zones
🟢 Undervalued
≤$170.54
-20% off Value
🟡 Discounted
≤$202.51
-5% off Value
🟢 Today
$135.22
+58% Valor
Undervalued
Today's price offers a real discount to the calculated value. For the long run, this is the kind of entry that builds wealth.
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
— Warren Buffett
Model updated · July 2026
The business
Gartner is the second pair of eyes no CIO dares to cancel.
Gartner sells subscription research and advisory to tech, finance, and HR executives. The core is Research (~75% of revenue): recurring contracts that renew year after year. They round it out with conferences and consulting. Of $6.5B in sales, $4.5B is gross margin — the content is already written, so nearly every extra subscription falls straight to the bottom line.
The value sits in the analyst network and the database built up over decades: nobody replicates that by hiring talent for a year. A CIO who cancels Gartner goes blind while peers who keep it can see. Net dollar retention above 100% confirms clients pay more every year without blinking.
Revenue history
From $4.7B to $6.5B in 4 years. The business grows steadily.
Where each $100 of sales goes
Revenue $6.5B · FY2025
Of every $100 in sales, $89 goes to costs and operations; $11 is left as net profit (11% margin).
Catalysts and risks
Recovery in Contract Value growth after the post-COVID digestion; targeting a return to double digits.
Aggressive buybacks: the company steadily reduces share count with its $1.2B of FCF.
Corporate AI spending is driving demand for independent guidance — Gartner's natural turf.
$3.0B of debt against $1.7B of cash; manageable, but it limits room in a deep recession.
Tech budget cuts hit discretionary subscriptions first.
Generative AI could commoditize part of the basic analysis they charge top dollar for today.
Charlie's note
“A business that writes once and gets paid forever has my attention. At 14.78x normalized flow they aren't giving anything away, but quality is rarely on sale. Paying a fair price for something excellent beats buying cheap junk.”
Analysis · June 2026
So when would be a good price for Gartner?
Today it trades below what we calculate. If you want us to tell you when that changes —or when the value itself moves because the company reported— we will email you.
🔔 Email meFree · no card
Charlie informs, it doesn't advise. No information should be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell.