Forensic Analysis · General / Diversified · as of Nov 9, 2026
Warby Parker Inc. (WRBY)
A forensic read on Warby Parker 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
Distress
Financial health
-0.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
0.5%
ROE
13.0%
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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
Warby Parker Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -0.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-1.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -1.2% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -24.1%. After-tax operating profit was ($57M) in FY2023 and ($3M) in FY2025, with operating income at -10.7% of revenue in FY2023, -3.9% in FY2024 and -0.6% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +22% across FY2023–FY2025, from $236M to $288M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -24.1% the older base was already earning.
+3.2%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+3.2%/yr). The count is growing — 117.4M shares in FY2023, 125.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~3.2% 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 ~6%.
4% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 4% of revenue and 79% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.28 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 3.2% a year across FY2023–FY2025 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.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$871.9M
Revenue Growth YoY+13.0%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+14.1%
Net Margin0.2%
Free Cash Flow$43.7M
Return on Equity0.5%
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 Warby Parker Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?