ACI Worldwide (ACIW) AI Stock Analysis

• Market Cap: $4.03B
• Dividend Yield: N/A
• Average Volume (3M): 766.78K
• Price to Earnings (P/E): 16.8
• Beta (1Y): 1.02
• Revenue Growth: 7.01%
• EPS Growth: 17.48%
• Country: US
• Employees: 3,103
• Sector: Technology
• Sector Strength: 88
• Industry: Software - Infrastructure
• EPS (TTM): 0.62
• Shares Outstanding: 103,088,005
• 10 Day Avg. Volume: 738,462
• 30 Day Avg. Volume: 766,785
• PEG Ratio: 1.69
• Price to Book (P/B): 3.27
• Price to Sales (P/S): 2.82
• P/FCF Ratio: 16.04
• Enterprise Value/Market Cap: 1.24
• Enterprise Value/Revenue: 2.84
• Enterprise Value/Gross Profit: 5.79
• Enterprise Value/Ebitda: 14.44
• 1Y Price Target: $64.00
• Price Target Upside: 60.80% Upside
• Rating Consensus: Strong Buy
• Number of Analyst Covering: 5
• EPS Forecast (FY): 2.55
• Revenue Forecast (FY): $1.86B

• Rating: 71 Outperform
• Price Target: $46.00 ▲(15.58% Upside)
• Action: Reiterated Date: 02/26/26
• Date: Action: Reiterated 02/26/26

The score is driven primarily by solid fundamentals (profitability and improving leverage) and a constructive earnings outlook with continued capital returns. These positives are tempered by weaker technical trend signals and questions around free-cash-flow consistency and booking timing.

Positive Factors

Recurring Revenue Strength

A $1.21B recurring base (up 11%) signals a durable SaaS/managed-services mix that increases revenue predictability and reduces reliance on one-time deals. That recurring stream supports steadier margins, easier forecasting, and higher lifetime customer value across multiple years.

High Margins and Operating Leverage

Sustained gross and EBIT margins reflect scalable software economics and operating leverage; as SaaS penetration grows, these structural margins fund R&D and go-to-market while enabling durable profitability even if top-line growth moderates.

Improving Balance Sheet Leverage

Meaningful de-leveraging and strong ROE enhance financial flexibility for buybacks, disciplined M&A and investment. Lower relative leverage reduces refinancing and interest-rate vulnerability, supporting medium-term capital allocation priorities.

Negative Factors

Volatile Free Cash Flow

FCF volatility—despite FCF roughly near net income—introduces uncertainty into capital return plans and M&A. Working-capital timing can materially swing cash generation, constraining predictable deployment of cash to buybacks or strategic investments over the next several quarters.

Decline in New License & Services Bookings

A 12% drop in bookings signals potential softness or timing issues in larger license/services deals. Given these contracts drive future implementation revenue, sustained weakness could slow forward revenue growth and limit cross-sell opportunities over multiple quarters.

Long Sales & Implementation Cycles

Multi-quarter sales and implementations increase execution and timing risk, delaying revenue recognition and cash conversion. This structural phasing makes near-term quarter-to-quarter performance lumpy and can dampen margin expansion while deployments occur.

ACI Worldwide Business Overview & Revenue Model

Company Description

ACI Worldwide, Inc., a software company, develops, markets, installs, and supports a range of software products and solutions for facilitating digital payments to banks, merchants, and billers worldwide. The company offers ACI Acquiring, a merchant management system to deliver digital innovation, improve fraud prevention, and reduce interchange fees; ACI Issuing, a digital payments issuing solution; and ACI Enterprise Payments Platform that provides payment processing and orchestration capabilities for digital payments. It also provides ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments, a platform for processing real-time payments; and ACI High Value Real-Time Payments, a payments engine that offers multi-bank, multi-currency, 24x7 payment processing, and SWIFT messaging. In addition, the company offers ACI Omni Commerce, a scalable, omni-channel payment processing platform; ACI Secure eCommerce solution; ACI Fraud Management, a real-time approach to fraud management; ACI Digital Business Banking, a cloud-based digital banking platform; and ACI Speedpay, an integrated suite of digital billing, payment, disbursement, and communication services. The company offers electronic bill presentment and payment services to consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utility, government, and mortgage sectors; implementation services, including product installations and configurations, and custom software modifications; and business and technical consultancy, on-site support, product education, and testing services, as well as distributes or acts as a sales agent for software developed by third parties. It markets its products under the ACI Worldwide brand. The company was formerly known as Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. and changed its name to ACI Worldwide, Inc. in July 2007. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in Coral Gables, Florida.

How the Company Makes Money

ACI Worldwide generates revenue primarily through the sale of its software solutions and services, which include licensing fees, transaction-based fees, and maintenance and support services. Key revenue streams include software licenses for payment processing platforms, subscription fees for cloud-based services, and transactional fees based on the volume of payments processed through its systems. Significant partnerships with major banks and payment processors enhance its earnings by expanding its market reach and integrating its technology into various payment ecosystems. Additionally, ACI benefits from ongoing demand for digital payment solutions, which has been accelerated by the growth of e-commerce and the shift towards cashless transactions.

ACI Worldwide Financial Statement Overview

Summary

Strong profitability and operating leverage (high gross margin, solid EBIT/net margins) plus improving leverage and healthy ROE support the score. Offsetting factors are modest longer-term growth and a sharp recent decline/volatility in free cash flow.

Income Statement

TTM (Trailing-Twelve-Months) results show solid profitability with a ~50% gross margin and ~15% net margin, alongside strong operating leverage (EBIT margin ~22%). Revenue growth is positive, but the pace has been modest over time (TTM growth ~1.7% after a stronger 2024), suggesting the story is more margin/efficiency-driven than growth-driven.

Balance Sheet

Leverage has improved meaningfully, with debt-to-equity down to ~0.62 in TTM (Trailing-Twelve-Months) from ~1.00 in 2020, and equity building over time—supportive of balance-sheet stability. Returns on equity are strong (TTM ~18%), but total debt remains sizable in absolute terms, leaving some sensitivity to refinancing costs and downturns despite the improving trend.

Cash Flow

Cash generation is generally healthy: TTM (Trailing-Twelve-Months) free cash flow is close to net income (about 0.92x), indicating earnings quality is decent. However, TTM free cash flow fell sharply versus the prior year (negative growth), and cash flow has been somewhat volatile across years—raising questions about consistency even though absolute free cash flow remains solid.

Breakdown	Dec 2025	Dec 2024	Dec 2023	Dec 2022	Dec 2021
Income Statement
Total Revenue	1.76B	1.59B	1.45B	1.42B	1.37B
Gross Profit	862.13M	802.50M	733.37M	725.83M	731.73M
EBITDA	345.72M	443.55M	360.11M	398.19M	364.03M
Net Income	226.66M	203.12M	121.51M	142.18M	127.79M
Balance Sheet
Total Assets	3.10B	3.03B	3.44B	3.21B	3.16B
Cash, Cash Equivalents and Short-Term Investments	196.46M	216.39M	164.24M	124.98M	122.06M
Total Debt	840.22M	956.43M	1.08B	1.14B	1.12B
Total Liabilities	1.59B	1.60B	2.12B	2.02B	1.91B
Stockholders Equity	1.52B	1.42B	1.32B	1.19B	1.24B
Cash Flow
Free Cash Flow	309.92M	343.35M	130.74M	103.49M	175.10M
Operating Cash Flow	322.83M	358.75M	168.52M	143.38M	220.47M
Investing Cash Flow	7.22M	-45.05M	-37.78M	60.25M	-45.37M
Financing Cash Flow	-336.65M	-288.20M	-111.55M	-171.06M	-256.88M

ACI Worldwide Technical Analysis

• Technical Analysis Sentiment: Negative
• Last Price: 39.80
• 50DMA: Negative
• 100DMA: Negative
• 200DMA: Negative
• MACD: Negative
• RSI: Neutral
• STOCH: Neutral

Evaluating momentum and price trends is crucial in stock analysis to make informed investment decisions. For ACIW, the sentiment is Negative. The current price of 39.8 is below the 20-day moving average (MA) of 40.92, below the 50-day MA of 44.10, and below the 200-day MA of 46.71, indicating a bearish trend. The MACD of -1.14 indicates Negative momentum. The RSI at 42.72 is Neutral, neither overbought nor oversold. The STOCH value of 54.35 is Neutral, not indicating any strong overbought or oversold conditions. Overall, these indicators collectively point to a Negative sentiment for ACIW.

ACI Worldwide Peers Comparison

Name	Overall Rating	Market Cap	P/E Ratio	ROE	Dividend Yield	Revenue Growth	EPS Growth
ACIW	71 Outperform	$4.03B	16.78	18.58%	―	7.01%	17.48%
ODD	69 Neutral	$1.67B	8.20	32.63%	―	25.80%	10.73%
EEFT	68 Neutral	$2.90B	10.21	24.39%	―	7.25%	-1.12%
WEX	66 Neutral	$5.15B	17.64	22.33%	―	-1.15%	-2.52%
EVTC	64 Neutral	$1.61B	11.17	25.05%	0.68%	9.67%	75.67%
Sector *	61 Neutral	$37.18B	12.37	-10.20%	1.83%	8.50%	-7.62%
STNE	51 Neutral	$4.64B	-32.93	-7.53%	―	-25.51%	-139.31%

ACI Worldwide Corporate Events

ACI Worldwide posts strong 2025 results and outlook

On February 23, 2026, ACI Worldwide announced board changes as part of a planned succession, with long-serving directors Janet Estep and Charles Peters resigning, while affirming that their departures did not stem from any disputes with the company. The board appointed governance and risk expert Kimberly deBeers as an independent director and committee member, continuing an ongoing refresh that also added Didier Lamouche and Todd Ford in late 2025 to deepen oversight and strategic expertise.

On February 26, 2026, ACI reported strong results for 2025, with total revenue rising 10% to $1.76 billion, recurring revenue up 11% to $1.21 billion, and net income increasing 12% to $227 million, supported by growth in both its Payment Software and Biller segments. The company generated $323 million in operating cash flow, repurchased $203 million of stock while reducing net leverage to 1.2x, and issued 2026 guidance for 7% to 9% revenue growth and higher adjusted EBITDA, signaling confidence in its recurring revenue base, cloud-native platforms and capacity for continued shareholder returns and selective M&A.

The most recent analyst rating on (ACIW) stock is a Hold with a $43.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on ACI Worldwide stock, see the ACIW Stock Forecast page.

ACI Worldwide consolidates technology leadership after CTO departure

On January 13, 2026, ACI Worldwide, Inc. announced that Chief Technology Officer Abe Kuruvilla will leave the company, with his employment ending on January 15, 2026, and he will receive severance and medical continuation benefits under the company’s existing severance policy. The company simultaneously transferred Kuruvilla’s responsibilities to Chief Innovation and Technology Officer JP Krishnamoorthy, signaling a leadership consolidation in its technology organization that may affect how it manages innovation and operational technology going forward.

The most recent analyst rating on (ACIW) stock is a Buy with a $70.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on ACI Worldwide stock, see the ACIW Stock Forecast page.