NerdWallet NASDAQ: NRDS reported first-quarter revenue of $222 million, up 6% year-over-year, as growth in banking and personal loans helped offset softness in credit cards and continued pressure in its small and medium-sized business (SMB) vertical. Management also highlighted new record first-quarter profitability on a non-GAAP basis and discussed a more conservative stance on the low end of full-year profit guidance due to auto insurance partner monetization and increased investment plans.
Q1 revenue: banking and personal loans strength offsets credit cards and SMB declines
Co-founder and CEO Tim Chen said the company saw “continued year-over-year growth in banking, driven by robust demand for savings accounts,” and noted that personal loans revenue was “significantly higher” versus the prior-year quarter. Those gains were “partially offset by a year-over-year decline in credit cards,” he said.
In the SMB vertical, Chen said NerdWallet experienced year-over-year declines “driven by organic search headwinds.”
CFO John Lee (introduced by the operator during the financial review) outlined a reporting change that took effect this quarter: beginning in Q1 2026, NerdWallet is presenting revenue in two categories, Consumer and SMB, with prior-period amounts restated.
- Consumer revenue: $198 million, up 10% year-over-year, driven by banking and personal loans and partially offset by consumer credit cards, “primarily due to organic search headwinds,” Lee said.
- SMB revenue: $25 million, down 15% year-over-year, driven primarily by organic search revenue declines in SMB products, partially offset by revenue growth in loan originations, according to Lee.
Profitability: record Q1 non-GAAP operating income and adjusted EBITDA
Chen said first-quarter non-GAAP operating income (NGOI) reached $34 million and adjusted EBITDA was $45 million, both “new Q1 records,” driven by “strong operating leverage on our fixed cost base and lower other marketing spend.”
Lee added that GAAP operating income was $27 million, compared with $1 million in the prior-year quarter. NGOI was $34 million at a 15% margin, up from $9 million at a 4% margin in Q1 2025, and above the company’s prior guidance range of $28 million to $32 million.
According to Lee, the year-over-year improvement was “primarily driven by lower other marketing expenses on lower brand spend, partially offset by higher performance marketing spend.” He specifically cited the absence of a Super Bowl ad this year as “the primary cause of the decline in our other marketing spend year-over-year,” while noting that brand spend can fluctuate based on campaign timing and market conditions.
Auto insurance: partner monetization pressure and stepped-up integrations
Looking ahead, Chen said NerdWallet is “affirming the high end” of its full-year NGOI guidance, while taking “a more conservative view on the lower end” due to two factors that are adding uncertainty to near-term results.
The first is auto insurance. Chen said monetization from one of NerdWallet’s large partners began running below expectations, affecting Q1 and expected to have a larger impact in Q2. While describing the business as potentially volatile quarter-to-quarter, Chen said the company is encouraged by “the strong macro outlook for auto insurance customer acquisition spend.”
To respond, Chen said NerdWallet is deepening technology integrations with several auto insurance carriers, expanding its offering with “agent-centric carrier partners through phone-based referrals,” and investing to build out its branded agency, NerdWallet Insurance Experts. He said the company believes these moves will create “a more diversified and resilient base” for future growth.
During Q&A, Chen provided additional context, saying “one of our large carriers pulled back in March,” and that NerdWallet currently has “a lot of concentration towards a few carriers” and channels. He said the company is investing both in adding carriers and “starting to sell directly to agents,” which he described as a new business that expands offerings beyond calls and leads into additional channels.
Asked about the duration of the insurance build-out, Chen said it is “definitely” a multi-quarter effort, involving standing up systems to route calls to both independent and captive agents, and requiring operational and business development work. “I’d expect more of a slower ramp there,” he said, while calling it an incremental investment.
Vertical integration: investment window and return hurdles
The second source of uncertainty cited by Chen was a decision to be “more aggressive in placing our long-term bets.” He argued NerdWallet’s brand and distribution advantages are becoming more important as “less powerful brands struggle to reach consumers efficiently,” while AI reduces the cost of offering financial products. “This is creating a unique investment window for NerdWallet,” he said.
In response to a question from KeyBanc Capital Markets’ Miles Jakubiak (on behalf of Justin Patterson) about why NerdWallet is accelerating vertical integration investments, Chen said the cost of launching financial products is “decreasing rapidly,” while “the cost of distribution is going up,” concluding that “distribution is king.” He added that the company is seeing interest from entrepreneurs who value NerdWallet’s distribution, and said it is evaluating corporate development opportunities as well as building offerings internally.
In response to Morgan Stanley’s Michael Infante on how NerdWallet assesses returns on these investments, Chen said the company aims to “exceed our cost of capital” and described that hurdle as “pretty high.” He said NerdWallet’s large top-of-funnel reach allows for commercial testing with partners to evaluate outcomes, and that internal builds can be done with “pretty small teams” due to new tools and infrastructure, affecting the cost side of internal rate of return (IRR) calculations.
Cash flow, capital allocation, and guidance
Lee said NerdWallet ended the quarter with $56 million of cash and cash equivalents, down from $98 million at year-end 2025. During the quarter, the company generated $40 million of adjusted free cash flow, which Lee said was offset by $17 million of cash consideration for the College Finance acquisition that closed in February and $66 million of share repurchases. Lee noted the acquisition’s contributions were “not material” to first-quarter revenue or operating income.
Lee also said trailing twelve-month adjusted free cash flow was $131 million, up 125% year-over-year, and that the diluted weighted average share count declined 9% year-over-year due to repurchases. As of March 31, NerdWallet had $90 million remaining under its share repurchase authorization, he said.
For the second quarter, Lee guided to revenue of $186 million to $202 million, with NGOI of $6 million to $14 million. He noted that Q2 is typically NerdWallet’s seasonally softest quarter and said guidance reflects seasonality and “our deliberate increase in vertical integration investments to drive long-term growth.”
For the full year, NerdWallet guided to NGOI of $85 million to $110 million. Lee said the company is reaffirming the upper end of the range and expects revenue to grow year-over-year in each remaining quarter of 2026, supported by performance marketing-led growth and products including banking and personal loans, with full-year revenue growth expected in the “mid to high single digits” year-over-year. He added that NGOI is expected to be supported by corporate G&A discipline.
However, management reduced the low end of the NGOI range to reflect “planned investments to accelerate our vertical integration strategy” and uncertainty tied to monetization with a large auto insurance partner. In Q&A, management indicated that the low end assumes NerdWallet is not able to offset insurance weakness for the entire year and continues investing, while the high end assumes the company can offset insurance weakness in the second half and identifies fewer investment opportunities.
In closing remarks, Chen said the company made “meaningful progress” against its strategic pillars and reiterated NerdWallet’s focus on becoming “the first-place consumers turn to shop for financial products.”
About NerdWallet NASDAQ: NRDS
NerdWallet NASDAQ: NRDS is a personal finance company that offers independent guidance and comparison tools to help consumers make informed financial decisions. Through its website and mobile application, NerdWallet provides a wide range of content, including articles, calculators and reviews covering credit cards, mortgages, personal loans, banking products, investing, insurance and taxes. The platform aggregates partner offers to enable side-by-side comparisons, while editorially maintaining objectivity to support users in identifying the products that best suit their individual needs.
Founded in 2009 by Tim Chen and Jacob Gibson, NerdWallet is headquartered in San Francisco and serves consumers primarily in the United States, with additional localized offerings in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Further Reading
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.
Before you consider NerdWallet, you'll want to hear this.
MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and NerdWallet wasn't on the list.
While NerdWallet currently has a Hold rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
View The Five Stocks Here
Nuclear energy is entering a new growth cycle as rising power demand, expanding data centers, and renewed policy support bring the sector back into focus. After strong gains in recent years, the most impactful phase of nuclear investment may still be ahead.
This report highlights seven nuclear energy stocks positioned across the value chain—combining near-term revenue with long-term upside as next-generation technologies scale. Click the link below to unlock the full list.
Get This Free Report
