Software companies are pouring record money into R&D, and AI has turned that spend into a running meter. Financial statements show what was spent, not what it earned, so investors and boards can't tell winners from cash burners.
That blind spot is where the next decade's software wealth gets made or lost. Whoever sees R&D return first backs the compounders and avoids the burners.
We grade 250 public software companies on one scale, the R&D Return Score (AAA–D), built only from SEC filings.
Every covered software company is evaluated through one standardized framework: quarterly financial statements and 5-year DCF models, published research pieces, and a single R&D Return rating formula.
Clean, scannable quarterly fundamentals, 6 core operating KPIs, explicit 5-year unlevered cash flow schedules, and WACC sensitivity matrices.
Published software equity research pieces, catalyst notes, and valuation teardowns with quantified operating value levers across the coverage universe.
One unified rating formula combining Buy / Watch / Pass verdicts, 1-year lagged R&D Return grades (AAA–D), and Rule of 40 efficiency.
The new Financial Engine puts filed SEC statements, a 5-year DCF, a reverse-DCF growth solver and the R&D Return benchmark for 250 public software companies on one screen. Here is how to use it, and what Full Access adds.
BILL moves $371.3B of small-business payments a year, but after stock pay its owner cash depends on interest earned on customer funds. With Starboard and Elliott on the register, the case rests on a turnaround or a sale rather than the operating model.
Zoom's core grows about 5% and faces tougher meeting rivals, yet it throws off real owner cash. On a strict basis that ignores more than $10B of securities and strategic stakes, including Anthropic preferred shares, the stock sits near its floor value.
The bear case says superintelligence tools will hollow out monday.com's small-business seats. The filings show that erosion is real at the low end, while enterprise accounts keep compounding, and the stock now prices in an aggressive version of the second story.
