Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Sep 25, 2026
Cloudflare, Inc. (NET)
A forensic read on Cloudflare, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
14.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-555.6
P / E (ttm)
-7.0%
ROE
$125.5B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
29.8%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Cloudflare, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 14.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-6.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -6.0% in the latest fiscal year, against -7.0% in FY2023, having run between -7.0% and -5.2% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($147M) in FY2023 and ($164M) in FY2025, with operating income at -14.3% of revenue in FY2023, -9.3% in FY2024 and -9.6% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +30% across FY2023–FY2025, from $2.1B to $2.7B, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -7.0% the older base was already earning.
+2.2%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +4% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+2.2%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.2% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~4%.
21% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 21% of revenue and 157% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $1.30 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 2.2% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
stopped
FY2023→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.17B
Revenue Growth YoY+29.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+29.3%
Net Margin-4.7%
Free Cash Flow$287.5M
Return on Equity-7.0%
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Cloudflare, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?