Complex Cloud Migrations Will Deter Consistent Revenue But Spur Adaptation

Key Takeaways

• Heavy dependence on cloud migrations, aggressive R&D spending, and evolving regulatory demands may pressure margins and create uncertainty in revenue growth.
  
• Intensifying competition, SaaS consolidation, and emerging low-code platforms threaten market relevance and could slow customer acquisition and retention.
  
• Heavy dependence on cloud migrations and aggressive spending amid rising competition threatens revenue growth, margin stability, cash flow predictability, and long-term profitability.

Catalysts

Through its subsidiaries, designs, develops, licenses, and maintains various software products worldwide.

• While the accelerating adoption of cloud platforms has supported recurring revenue growth and economies of scale, Atlassian's continuous reliance on complex data center to cloud migrations-particularly among its largest customers-remains a vulnerability; any delays, hybrid approaches, or operational hiccups in these migrations could lower the expected multi-year contribution to cloud revenue and create unpredictability in revenue visibility.
  
• Although there is strong evidence that broader adoption of AI and automation features is increasing usage and engagement, the company's heavy investment in R&D, coupled with a strategy of driving usage before robust monetization, may pressure operating margins and lead to a lag between user growth and meaningful revenue or earnings accretion.
  
• While the rise of distributed teams and remote work is structurally expanding Atlassian's opportunity with business users and non-technical teams, intensifying global regulatory requirements around data privacy, security, and localization could elevate compliance costs and generate operational risk-potentially restricting margin expansion in core markets.
  
• Even as the rapid increase in software creation outside traditional developer roles boosts Atlassian's addressable market, the proliferation of AI-driven low-code/no-code platforms may erode reliance on classical workflow management tools, introducing the risk that Atlassian's core product suites lose relative relevance and slow new customer acquisition over the long term.
  
• Despite Atlassian's momentum in signing large-scale enterprise contracts and investing in cross-selling across a growing product suite, the ongoing wave of SaaS consolidation and stronger competition from legacy incumbents and well-capitalized startups threatens pricing power, risking future top-line growth and increasing the potential for customer attrition in enterprise accounts.

Atlassian Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• This narrative explores a more pessimistic perspective on Atlassian compared to the consensus, based on a Fair Value that aligns with the bearish cohort of analysts.
• The bearish analysts are assuming Atlassian's revenue will grow by 18.1% annually over the next 3 years.
• The bearish analysts assume that profit margins will increase from -4.9% today to 2.5% in 3 years time.
• The bearish analysts expect earnings to reach $212.1 million (and earnings per share of $-0.12) by about September 2028, up from $-256.7 million today. The analysts are largely in agreement about this estimate.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the price target of the more bearish analyst cohort, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 311.8x on those 2028 earnings, up from -178.2x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Software industry at 36.2x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 0.73% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 7.98%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Atlassian Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• The company's heavy reliance on cloud migration as a growth driver exposes it to the risk that large, complex enterprise customers may delay or stagger their migrations, which could lead to lower-than-expected cloud revenue and slower total revenue growth over the next several years.
  
• Intensifying competition from major incumbents and well-funded startups in the collaboration, DevOps, and AI productivity space may erode Atlassian's pricing power and result in customer churn, which would put downward pressure on both future revenues and net margins.
  
• Continued significant investment in research and development, sales hiring, and go-to-market initiatives without a guarantee of corresponding revenue uplift could compress operating margins and depress long-term profitability if revenue growth fails to meet internal expectations.
  
• The shift toward annual billing terms from upfront multiyear payments and the natural backloading of enterprise deals may create near-term headwinds for free cash flow generation, which could weaken the company's ability to fund growth initiatives and dampen earnings momentum.
  
• Prolonged complexity and variability in migrating the largest data center customers to the cloud, combined with ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties and changes in global enterprise software buying, could result in inconsistent growth rates, impacting predictability and sustainability of revenue and earnings trajectory.

Valuation

• The assumed bearish price target for Atlassian is $196.0, which represents the lowest price target estimate amongst analysts. This valuation is based on what can be assumed as the expectations of Atlassian's future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors from analysts on the more bearish end of the spectrum.
• However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $480.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $196.0.
• In order for you to agree with the bearish analysts, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $8.6 billion, earnings will come to $212.1 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 311.8x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.0%.
• Given the current share price of $174.32, the bearish analyst price target of $196.0 is 11.1% higher.
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.