After a challenging quarter, the market is rebounding, with 9 of 14 tracked companies now posting positive 3-month returns. While growth continues, it has slowed modestly, suggesting a more measured expansion.
Figure 1: Stock Price Performance
(select payments equities; stock price % change to September 5, 2025)
- Balanced market reaction to recent results: 7 of the 14 companies selected have delivered a positive return over the last three months.
- Mixed long-term stock performance: only 5 of 13 have outperformed the S&P 500 over 3 years (ServiceTitan has been public for less than a year).
- Transaction revenue growth continues to outpace SW rev: transaction revenues in the group grew 17% on average last quarter while SW and other revenue lines grew 7% on average. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of this trend.
- Continued improvement in margins: gross profit grew 17% on average last quarter compared to 12% average total revenue growth.
Figure 2: Valuation Metrics
(select payments equities; as of September 5, 2025)
Restaurant and Retail
- Shift4: payment volume grew 25% YoY to $50B. Closed Global Blue acquisition in July, marking step forward in luxury retail and international expansion. Announced pending Smartpay acquisition.
- Toast: payment volume rose 23% YoY to $49.9B. Launched in Australia, continuing global expansion (already in UK, Ireland, and Canada).
- Lightspeed: payments penetration reached 41% (vs. 36% YoY). Investment in direct sales is showing signs of success, with outbound bookings more than doubling YoY
- Block: delivered the highest quarter of new payment volume since Q3 2021. Re-accelerated gross profit growth to 14% (vs. 9% in Q1 ’25).
E-commerce
- Shopify: demonstrating strong momentum in Europe, where payment volume grew 42% YoY (constant currency). 11th consecutive quarter of positive free cash flow.
- WIX: Wix Payments volume grew 11% YoY to $3.6B. Closed BASE44 acquisition in June, marking entrance into application development market.
- BigCommerce: announced parent company rebranding to Commerce.com. Average revenue per enterprise account grew 9% YoY.
- GoDaddy: customers spending over $500 annually grew to 9% of base, driving 10% YoY ARPU growth to $230.
B2B
- AvidXchange: total payment volume grew 4% YoY to $21.5B. Gross profit growth accelerated to 7% (vs. 3% last quarter).
- BILL: total payment volume reached $86B, up 13% YoY across 33M transactions. Launched new advanced ACH and Procurement products.
- Intuit: introducing AI agents for customers across business lines. Total online payment volume grew 18% YoY, consistent with prior quarters.
Other Verticals
- Tyler Technologies: 18th consecutive quarter of 20%+ SaaS growth. Acquired Emergency Networking, a cloud-based SaaS provider for fire departments and EMS agencies.
- ServiceTitan: gross transaction volume grew 19% YoY to $22.9B while usage revenue as a % of GTV remained stable at 0.25%.
- Blackbaud: organic revenue grew 7% YoY. Free cash flow margin expanded 690 basis points to 18.3%.
Please do not hesitate to contact Peter Taylor at Peter@FlagshipAP.com or Tim Gallagher at Tim@FlagshipAP.com with comments and questions