Intuit is separating Mailchimp out and guiding it to zero growth

Intuit is moving Mailchimp out of its main business and into a segment of its own. The first standalone forecast it has ever published for the marketing tool is for no growth at all.

Mailchimp will bring in $1,256mn to $1,266mn in fiscal 2027, Intuit said on Tuesday. That range runs from minus 1% to zero.

The company set out the change in its fourth quarter results. From 1 August 2026 it began running Mailchimp as a separate operating segment. It becomes a separate reportable segment in fiscal 2027, and Intuit points readers to its investor fact sheet for the detail.

The rest of the company grew 14%

Intuit took $21.4bn in revenue over the year to 31 July, up 14%. GAAP operating income rose 20% to $5.9bn.

Chairman and chief executive Sasan Goodarzi led on the milestone. “We surpassed $20 billion in revenue for the full year with growth fueled by our Big Bets which collectively grew 34 percent and represented 30 percent of full-year revenue,” he said.

Guidance for the coming year is softer. Intuit expects $23,279mn to $23,512mn, which is growth of 9% to 10%.

One number in the tables ran the other way. Fourth quarter GAAP earnings per share came in at $1.34, against $1.35 a year earlier, and GAAP net income fell to $363mn from $381mn.

The subhead advertises revenue growth of 14% in the quarter. It does not mention the earnings line.

Every growth figure comes with a Mailchimp exception

Read the segment lines and a pattern appears. Intuit quotes almost every number twice, once as reported and once without Mailchimp.

Global Business Solutions revenue rose 16% to $12.9bn. Excluding Mailchimp it rose 18%. Online Ecosystem revenue rose 19% to $9.9bn, or 23% excluding Mailchimp.

The widest gap is in Online Services, which grew 16% as reported and 24% without Mailchimp. That is eight percentage points of growth sitting in one product.

Intuit publishes no standalone Mailchimp revenue for fiscal 2026 anywhere in the release. The only hard number it gives is the one in next year’s forecast.

A $293mn charge the release never explains

Intuit booked $293mn of restructuring costs in the fourth quarter. It booked $15mn across the whole of the previous year.

The entire charge landed in one quarter. The first three quarters of fiscal 2026 each recorded nothing.

No paragraph of the release announces it. The figure appears in the financial tables, and then in a risk factor that refers to “our restructuring plan (Plan)” and warns that the estimate is preliminary and subject to change.

Intuit gives no headcount, no geography, no savings target and no description of what the plan involves. Goodarzi’s quote says the company is “making deliberate choices to create a stronger foundation for durable long-term growth”.

That silence is now standard. Zillow, which calls itself AI-native, cut 500 jobs without saying whether AI was the reason. Salesforce cut 133 more and did not mention AI in the filings either. Employers across the sector are also quietly rehiring the people AI replaced.

The Big Bets number rests on nothing

Goodarzi’s 34% claim is the spine of the release. It is also unsupported.

Intuit never names its Big Bets. It never lists them, never itemises them, and never reconciles the 34% to any line in the accounts. No table carries the figure and no footnote explains it.

30% of $21.4bn implies roughly $6.4bn of revenue. Intuit does not state that either.

The detail may arrive at its investor day on 17 September. Until then the headline number in the results has no working shown behind it.

TurboTax sold fewer returns and charged more

TurboTax revenue rose 7% to $5.3bn. Unit volumes fell.

TurboTax handled 39 million US federal returns, down from 39.9 million. Desktop units dropped 7%.

The growth came from price and mix. TurboTax Live revenue rose 37% and now accounts for 53% of all TurboTax revenue, a majority for the first time.

Credit Karma was the strongest named business, up 20% to $2.6bn on personal loans, car insurance and credit cards.

The goalposts move on 1 August

Intuit is also changing how it reports. From 1 August it stops excluding share-based compensation from its non-GAAP figures.

That matters for anyone comparing years. Share-based pay came to $2,056mn in fiscal 2026, and next year’s guidance absorbs $2,020mn of it, worth $5.81 a share.

So non-GAAP earnings per share guidance of $22.88 to $23.12 sits below the $24.27 Intuit reported this year, while the release still describes it as growth of 23% to 24% against a restated base.

The move itself is unusually shareholder-friendly. Most companies keep the add-back.

Where this lands in Europe

Mailchimp is one of the tools European small businesses reach for first, alongside Klaviyo and HubSpot, which reversed an AI feature after a customer revolt in July. A supplier guiding its own product to zero growth is a signal to anyone who has built a mailing list on it.

The competitive picture explains part of it. Salesforce paid $3.6bn for Fin, the Intercom-born support-AI firm, and generative tools now write the emails Mailchimp was bought to help send.

Intuit’s own international line grew 10% on a constant currency basis, against 14% for the group. Europe is not where its growth is.

What to watch next

The first thing is the September investor day, where the Big Bets should acquire definitions and numbers.

The second is the restructuring plan. Intuit has told investors the charge is preliminary, which means a further figure is coming, and a further figure will be harder to publish without explaining it.

The third is the first clean Mailchimp quarter. From fiscal 2027 the product reports on its own, and a business Intuit bought to sit at the centre of small-business marketing will have nowhere to hide its growth rate.

Intuit spent $5.5bn buying back its own shares this year, up 96%, and raised its dividend 15%. That is a company returning cash rather than finding places to put it.