Start here if you're new
what it is
Mister Car Wash runs 527 car wash sites and sells monthly plans that keep drivers coming back.
how it gets paid
Last year Mister Car Wash made $1.1B in revenue. Unlimited Wash Club was the main engine at $495M, or 45% of sales.
why it's growing
Revenue grew about 5–6% vs. prior year in recent periods. Membership count and comparable sales are the cleanest demand signals — not a one-off triple-digit spike.
what just happened
MCW posted about $263M in quarterly revenue (Q3 2025) and roughly $0.08 diluted EPS; nine-month revenue was about $791M with about $0.25 diluted EPS.
At a glance
B balance sheet — gets the job done, barely
20.0x trailing p/e — priced about right
5.7% return on capital — nothing to write home about
$0.21 fy2024 eps est
$995M fy2024 rev est
xvary composite: 46/100 — below average
What they do
Mister Car Wash runs 527 car wash sites and sells monthly plans that keep drivers coming back.
You are not buying a one-off wash. You are buying 2.2 million Unlimited Wash Club members who pay every month. With 527 locations across 21 states, leaving means swapping convenience for a cheaper trip to the corner hose.
How they make money
$1.1B
annual revenue · their business grew +5.7% last year
Unlimited Wash Club
$495M
+5.0%
Express exterior washes
$385M
+4.0%
Interior cleaning services
$132M
+7.0%
Ancillary add-ons
$88M
0.0%
The products that matter
monthly membership plan
Unlimited Wash Club
~2.3M members
membership grew 7% from last year, and that's the recurring-revenue layer holding this model together.
recurring
conveyorized exterior cleaning
Car Wash Services
$1.05B · 95.5% of revenue
it's the core service sold across 500+ locations, and nearly all of the company's revenue still flows through this one lane.
core engine
add-ons and ancillary sales
Other Revenue
$50M · 4.5% of revenue
the entire non-core bucket is $50M. Nice for ticket size, but too small to change the investment case on its own.
small support act
Key numbers
$1.1B
annual revenue
That is the top line — roughly in line to slightly above the ~$995M FY2024 revenue estimate, with low single-digit growth in recent periods.
2.2M
members
These monthly payers make demand steadier than one-off washes.
$1.7B
debt
Debt is about $600M bigger than annual revenue, so lenders have a lot of claim on the cash.
15.8%
op margin
Operating margin means profit after running the business. Recent prints sit closer to mid-teens — not high-20s — which matters next to a heavy debt load.
Financial health
B
strength
- balance sheet grade B — adequate — nothing special
- risk rank 4 — safer than 20% of stocks
- price stability 25 / 100
- long-term debt $1.7B (43% of capital)
B — functional but not a standout on the balance sheet.
Total return vs. market
Return history isn't available for MCW right now.
source: institutional data · return history unavailable
What just happened
beat estimates
MCW posted about $263M in quarterly revenue (Q3 2025) and about $0.08 diluted EPS; nine-month revenue was about $791M with about $0.25 diluted EPS.
Quarterly net revenue was up about 6% vs. prior year. Gross margin, the share left after direct costs, was about 32.5%.
$263M
quarter revenue
$0.08
quarter eps
32.49%
gross margin
the number that mattered
The ~$263M quarter matters because it is the right scale versus a ~$1.1B annual run rate — nine-month YTD near $791M is what actually brackets the year.
source: company earnings report, 2026
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What could go wrong
the top risk is $1.7B of long-term debt on a roughly $1B revenue base.
high
balance-sheet leverage
Long-term debt is $1.7B, equal to 43% of capital and about 1.5x annual revenue.
That limits flexibility. More cash has to go to lenders before it can go to expansion, buybacks, or mistakes.
med
consumer slowdown
This is still a discretionary service business. If consumers trim small recurring expenses, subscription growth can slow fast.
That would pressure a 15.8% operating margin and a 9.8% net profit margin that do not have endless room to absorb shocks.
med
single-engine revenue mix
Car Wash Services account for 95.5% of revenue in the segment data, while Other Revenue is just 4.5%.
If traffic, weather, or membership churn hit the main business, there is not much diversification to soften the blow.
med
legal overhang
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check announced an investigation on Feb 27, 2026.
Even if it goes nowhere, it adds noise and cost at a time when the company already needs the market to trust the story.
A debt load equal to about 1.5x annual revenue means even a modest slowdown in members, visits, or margin can hit both earnings and refinancing flexibility.
source: institutional data · regulatory filings · risk analysis
Pay attention to
earnings
Q1 2026 earnings report
Expected on or around April 29, 2026. You want to see whether membership growth still holds near the current 7% pace.
margin
operating margin discipline
15.8% was the latest operating margin. If that starts slipping while debt stays high, the equity story gets much less forgiving.
legal
investigation developments
Monitor whether the Feb 27, 2026 investigation fades out or turns into a more formal legal process.
sentiment
whether the market keeps discounting the model
The Feb 19, 2026 downgrade was a reminder that recurring revenue alone has not won over public investors yet.
Analyst rankings
risk profile
below average
risk rank 4 — more volatile than most — brace for bigger swings.
chart momentum
average
momentum rank 3 — the stock is moving with the broader market, no unusual signal.
source: institutional data
Institutional activity
institutional ownership data for MCW is being compiled.
source: institutional data
Price targets
3-5 year target range
n/a
n/a
$6
current price
n/a
target midpoint · n/a from current
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