MediaAlpha Inc. (MAX)
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MediaAlpha runs the largest marketplace for insurance shoppers in the United States: if you compare car insurance online, you very likely pass through this system. In 2025, $1,113.6 million of revenue ran through the books, up 28.8 percent. What stayed was $167.5 million of gross profit — and, at the bottom, net income of $26.8 million that would not exist without an income tax benefit of $137.8 million: pre-tax, the company lost $111.1 million. Also on the balance sheet: a debt owed to its own pre-IPO owners, a $45 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, and a headline metric that simply stops being reported from the first quarter of 2026. Not investment advice — just the question of how much of a billion dollars in throughput the company actually owns.
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Basics
Performance
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
ThreatenedKI ist bei MediaAlpha keine Umsatzquelle, sondern ein im Geschäftsbericht konkret benanntes Risiko für den Zufluss: Das gesamte Geschäft beginnt mit Menschen, die über Suchmaschinen auf Vergleichsseiten gelangen — und genau diesen Kanal sieht die Firma durch KI in Suchmaschinen und durch KI-Plattformen bedroht.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
„Internet search engines may incorporate artificial intelligence into their platforms in ways that we cannot predict, and AI-based platforms may increasingly compete with such search engines. Such changes may adversely impact the volume and price of Consumer Referrals."
Internet-Suchmaschinen könnten künstliche Intelligenz auf eine Weise in ihre Plattformen einbauen, die wir nicht vorhersagen können, und KI-basierte Plattformen könnten zunehmend mit solchen Suchmaschinen konkurrieren. Solche Veränderungen könnten sich nachteilig auf Menge und Preis der Verbraucher-Vermittlungen auswirken.
„In addition, changes in the usage and functioning of search engines or decreases in consumer use of search engines, for example, as a result of the continued development of artificial intelligence technology, could negatively impact our owned and operated and our third-party publishers’ websites."
Darüber hinaus könnten Veränderungen bei der Nutzung und Funktionsweise von Suchmaschinen oder ein Rückgang der Suchmaschinennutzung durch Verbraucher — zum Beispiel als Folge der fortschreitenden Entwicklung der Technologie künstlicher Intelligenz — unsere eigenen Webseiten und die Webseiten unserer Publisher-Partner negativ beeinträchtigen.
„The data that we gather from interactions with consumers is evaluated and curated by proprietary predictive modeling tools and machine learning algorithms."
Die Daten, die wir aus Interaktionen mit Verbrauchern gewinnen, werden von firmeneigenen Prognosemodellen und Algorithmen des maschinellen Lernens ausgewertet und aufbereitet.
Filings Reviewed: 10-K 2026-02-23 · 10-Q 2026-04-29 · 10-Q 2025-10-29 · 10-Q 2025-08-06 · 10-Q 2025-04-30 · 10-K 2025-02-24
Rated on July 27, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 0.08 | – | 301 | 156.60 | 1.50 | 15 | 15 |
| 2025: Q1 | -0.04 | – | 264 | 108.70 | -0.70 | 24 | 24 |
| 2025: Q2 | -0.33 | -592.20 | 252 | 41.10 | -7.40 | 26 | 26 |
| 2025: Q3 | 0.26 | 52.50 | 307 | 18.30 | 4.90 | 24 | 24 |
| 2025: Q4 | 0.47 | 460.20 | 291 | -3.20 | 10.80 | -7 | -8 |
| 2026: Q1 | 0.21 | – | 310 | 17.30 | 3.70 | -2 | -2 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
A genuine marketplace with a documented network effect: $2.16 billion of volume ran across the platform in 2025, 99 percent of it from partners already in place in 2024, and 16 of the 20 largest U.S. auto insurers are Demand Partners. All of it moved by 147 full-time employees with capital expenditures of $0.3 million (annual report 10-K for 2025).
The reported 2025 net income of $26.8 million only appears below a pre-tax loss of $111.1 million — created by an income tax benefit of $137.8 million from releasing a valuation allowance on deferred tax assets. Income from operations fell from $42.7 million to $22.1 million despite revenue growth of 28.8 percent, weighed down by a $38.0 million FTC reserve and a $13.4 million write-off (10-K for 2025).
As of March 31, 2026, total assets of $367.7 million stood against total liabilities of $396.8 million; the quarterly report labels the line, verbatim, "Total stockholders' deficit", at minus $29.1 million. 52.1 percent of the asset side consists of deferred tax assets ($143.7 million) and goodwill ($47.7 million); cash was $26.1 million against $163.5 million of borrowings.
Operating cash flow rose three years running to $65.6 million (2025; 2024: $45.9; 2023: $20.2). On March 25, 2026, financing was restructured: a $150.0 million term loan maturing March 25, 2031, a $60.0 million revolving facility, and an interest rate of 5.97 percent as of March 31, 2026 — no near-term maturity wall (10-Q as of March 31, 2026).
90.1 percent of 2025 revenue came from property and casualty insurance, in practice auto — a market whose advertising budgets once already cost the company 40 percent of its revenue between 2021 and 2023. Add two customers at 49 percent of revenue and two suppliers at 25 percent of purchases after 11 percent a year earlier; many contracts are terminable on 30 or 60 days' notice (10-K for 2025, Item 1A and notes).
Under the 2020 Tax Receivables Agreement, 85 percent of future tax savings go to the pre-IPO owners; the liability rose by $124.1 million to $131.1 million in 2025. On the relief side: on June 25, 2026, MediaAlpha repurchased the Insignia interest for $31.0 million — 55 percent below its own $68.7 million carrying estimate — and puts the remaining liability at roughly $55.0 million as of June 30, 2026 (8-K of June 29, 2026).
MediaAlpha is a working marketplace with a genuine network effect, extreme operating leverage and $65.6 million of operating cash flow in 2025 — produced by 147 employees. But the chain does not end where the big number sits: $1,113.6 million of revenue left $167.5 million of gross profit, of which $22.1 million was income from operations, after which the increase in the debt owed to its own pre-IPO owners produced a pre-tax loss of $111.1 million. The reported profit of $26.8 million arrived one line later, from a $137.8 million income tax benefit. Add 90.1 percent of revenue from one cyclical vertical, 49 percent from two customers, a $45.0 million FTC settlement, and a headline metric that stops being reported in 2026. Not investment advice.
- MediaAlpha reached our research list through a review of the most-discussed U.S. stocks in the large Reddit investing forums, as of July 27, 2026. That is an attention signal, not a quality judgment — the analysis itself rests exclusively on the mandatory filings with the U.S. securities regulator, the SEC.
- Currency of the data: the most recent periodic report is the quarterly report 10-Q as of March 31, 2026 (filed April 29, 2026). It was followed by four 8-K filings (April 29, quarterly results; May 6, annual meeting results; May 18, a board appointment; June 29, 2026, the TRA buyback), a Schedule 13D/A (May 1, 2026) and ongoing insider filings (Form 4/Form 144, most recently July 22, 2026). The TRA buyback of June 25, 2026 is incorporated; the share count comes from the Form 144 notice of July 16, 2026 (54,062,155 Class A shares) and the most recent documented price from the Form 4 of July 22, 2026.
- Not to be confused: the ticker MAX belongs to MediaAlpha, Inc. — not MaxLinear (MXL) and not Max Financial Services. "Contribution" and "adjusted EBITDA" are company-defined measures outside U.S. GAAP and are not identical to audited figures. Valuation statements are evergreen: the only price anchors used are those documented in mandatory filings ($12.95 as of December 31, 2025 per the 10-K; $13.71 to $14.33 for insider sales of July 20 to 22, 2026 per Form 4), never daily quotes.
About the Company
MediaAlpha, Inc. , through its subsidiaries, operates an insurance customer acquisition platform in the United States.
| Employees | 147 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, CA |
| Website | mediaalpha.com |
| IPO Date | 28. Oct 2020 |
| Next Earnings | 5. Aug 2026 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| Steven M. Yi J.D. | Co-Founder, CEO, President & Director | 1970 |
| Eugene Nonko | Co-Founder, Chief Architect & Director | 1981 |
| Patrick R. Thompson | CFO & Treasurer | 1980 |
| Amy Yeh | Chief Technology Officer | 1979 |
| Jeffrey B. Coyne Esq., J.D. | General Counsel & Secretary | 1967 |
| Keith Cramer | Chief Revenue Officer & Head of PC | 1981 |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 27, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.