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US payroll and human capital management (HCM) provider processing pay, benefits and HR for businesses of all sizes.
US payroll and human capital management (HCM) provider processing pay, benefits and HR for businesses of all sizes.
Charges clients per employee per pay period for payroll and HR tools, so revenue follows the number of people on clients' payrolls, and earns interest on client funds it holds between collecting payroll money and paying employees and taxes. Its PEO service becomes the employer on paper for smaller clients.
Moat: wide (switching costs, scale, distribution). Payroll is mission-critical and painful to switch, and ADP's scale funds compliance/tax expertise smaller rivals lack.
Headquarters: Roseland, New Jersey, US · Founded: 1949 · Employees: 67,000
Size Automatic Data Processing (ADP) is a United States Industrials company (Packaged Software) with a market value of $120B, the 107th largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $303.35 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares gained 43.5%, against +9.6% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — highest of 21 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 6.5% over the last twelve months (peer median +8.1%); the operating margin is 26.6% (peer median 19.5%).
Valuation It trades at 24.0× forward earnings against a peer median of 22.8× (9th most expensive of 21).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 7% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is +8%, so the hurdle is -1 pp: the price already allows for a slowdown.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 55.2 points above its cost of capital (8.6% WACC).
Credit Automatic Data Processing has 5 bonds outstanding ($5.00B), rated AA- by the agencies and trading like AA- at a weighted spread of 51 bp.
Short interest Short interest is 2.6% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 27 Jan 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2026 | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $22.3B | $21.9B | $20.6B | $19.2B | $18.0B |
| Revenue growth | — | +7% | +7% | +7% | — |
| Gross profit | $11.3B | $11.1B | $10.4B | $9.59B | $8.81B |
| EBITDA | $6.52B | $6.38B | $5.99B | $5.50B | $5.06B |
| Net income | $4.53B | $4.41B | $4.08B | $3.75B | $3.41B |
| Free cash flow | $5.25B | $5.24B | $4.77B | $3.95B | $4.00B |
| Capital expenditure | $694M | $665M | $547M | $563M | $572M |
| Total debt | $5.59B | $5.51B | $9.21B | $3.80B | $3.54B |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic Data Processing ADP | $120B | +44% | +6% | 27% | 24.0× | 6.6% |
| Paychex PAYX | $41.7B | +26% | +14% | 44% | 19.3× | 3.2% |
| Paycom Software PAYC | $10.5B | +73% | +9% | 30% | 15.9× | 3.3% |
| Workday WDAY | $46.5B | +51% | +14% | 13% | 16.0× | 19.7% |
| Insperity NSP | $1.90B | +53% | +2% | 0% | 19.9× | 19.5% |
Peer set: Sector in the same market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | ADP | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +12.1% | +3.3% | 5th highest of 21 |
| 6-month return | +43.5% | +9.6% | highest of 21 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -2.5% | -10.1% | highest of 21 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +6.5% | +8.1% | 8th lowest of 21 |
| Operating margin | 26.6% | 19.5% | 4th highest of 21 |
| Forward P/E | 24.0× | 22.8× | 9th most expensive of 21 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 6.6% | 13.9% | 5th least demanding of 20 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | +7.9% | +6.7% | 10th highest of 20 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | -1.3 pp | +4.7 pp | 6th least demanding of 20 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +55.2 pp | +5.3 pp | highest of 21 |
| EV / EBITDA | 18.7× | 18.4× | 9th most expensive of 20 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 0.3× | 1.8× | least indebted of 21 |
| Bond spread | 51 bp | 66 bp | 3rd tightest of 21 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic Data Processing ADP | United States | $120B | +44% | +6% | 27% | 24.0× | 6.6% | +7.9% |
| Parker Hannifin PH | United States | $116B | +4% | +8% | 22% | 24.4× | 19.0% | +8.4% |
| Lockheed Martin LMT | United States | $131B | +12% | +8% | 12% | 17.6× | -6.9% | +2.8% |
| Eaton ETN | United States | $133B | -15% | +20% | 19% | 21.4× | 19.1% | +9.0% |
| Boeing BA | United States | $137B | -27% | +18% | 0% | 179,875.5× | n/a | n/a |
| Uber UBER | United States | $140B | -9% | +14% | 13% | 16.8× | 13.9% | +36.1% |
| General Dynamics GD | United States | $95.7B | +3% | +10% | 10% | 19.4× | -2.5% | +6.7% |
| 3M MMM | United States | $95.7B | +30% | +2% | 21% | 19.2× | 11.3% | -5.0% |
| Waste Management WM | United States | $93.9B | +10% | +5% | 19% | 27.4× | 5.8% | +10.6% |
| United Parcel Service UPS | United States | $92.1B | +9% | 0% | 9% | 13.6× | 3.9% | +1.0% |
| Emerson Electric EMR | United States | $90.6B | +15% | +5% | 21% | 22.3× | 19.9% | +0.8% |
| CSX CSX | United States | $90.5B | +10% | +6% | 36% | 21.5× | 13.6% | +5.9% |
| Cintas CTAS | United States | $88.3B | +34% | +10% | 24% | 38.9× | 18.2% | +9.6% |
| Trane Technologies TT | United States | $87.9B | -14% | +10% | 18% | 23.4× | 14.7% | +11.4% |
| Union Pacific UNP | United States | $172B | +10% | +7% | 40% | 20.7× | 8.8% | +4.6% |
| Howmet Aerospace HWM | United States | $81.8B | -24% | +22% | 28% | 32.6× | 24.1% | +9.4% |
| Johnson Controls JCI | United States | $81.8B | -3% | +9% | 16% | 21.3× | 17.8% | +1.6% |
| Quanta Services PWR | United States | $81.5B | -27% | +37% | 7% | 26.4× | 24.3% | +20.5% |
| Illinois Tool Works ITW | United States | $79.8B | +11% | +5% | 27% | 23.4× | 9.7% | +5.0% |
| Deere & DE | United States | $181B | +17% | +8% | 20% | 32.0× | 16.2% | +5.1% |
| Republic Services RSG | United States | $75.2B | +24% | +4% | 20% | 31.9× | 6.6% | +10.3% |
Automatic Data Processing has 5 bonds outstanding with $5.00B face value. The agencies rate it AA-; its bonds trade like AA-. Weighted yield 5.14%, a spread of 51 bp over government bonds.