Airbnb
Combined average of Moat (AI Resilience), Growth, and Valuation scores.
Moat Score
Largest two-sided alternative-accommodation network globally, with brand + supply density that no traditional OTA or hotel chain can replicate — moat is real; growth is re-accelerating via take-rate, expansion markets, and category extension, with regulation still the overhang.
Airbnb's moat is supply density and brand recognition in alternative accommodations — a marketplace with genuine network effects and category leadership:
- Supply Network Density: Millions of active listings across 220+ countries give Airbnb supply breadth no competitor can match. Booking, Vrbo, and regional rivals carry partial subsets — the density advantage compounds as travellers find what they want only on Airbnb in many markets. Events amplify it: ~100K first-time World Cup host-city listings and ~30% supply growth around Milano Cortina show the flywheel still works.
- Brand and Search Default: Airbnb is the verb for alternative accommodation. ~90% of traffic is direct or organic vs Booking's 40%+ paid. App nights grew 22% YoY in Q1 and now are 63% of nights booked — the marketing advantage compounds unit economics as CAC stays structurally lower than paid-traffic OTAs.
- Experiences, Services, and Hotels: Experiences and Services are expanding after the May 2025 relaunch; Q1 pilots show a demand flywheel — nearly a quarter of new guests who book an experience go on to book a stay or service, and ~1 in 3 experience bookers book a stay within 90 days. Boutique/independent hotels are scaling into supply-constrained cities, with ~55% of hotel bookers returning for a home — category extension without rebuilding demand.
Moat Verdict
Airbnb's network + brand + data moats are durable in the AI era — generative trip planning is more likely to surface Airbnb supply than disintermediate it. The growth question is regulatory and category-extension execution, not technological obsolescence.
79.5 resilient · 65.0 vulnerable · 80/20 = 76.6 · = 77
Open a moat to read its note.
Trip planning and search filters create modest learning friction; substitutable on technical migration.
Search ranking, dynamic pricing, and host trust scoring are real differentiated systems; AI coauthors ~60% of engineering code but does not commoditise the ranking/trust stack.
N/A.
Marketplace engineering talent is broadly available; Airbnb's moat does not rest on talent scarcity. A pillar that never applied is not applicable rather than weakened. Previously weakened.
Stays + Experiences + Services (+ hotels pilot) bundle is real but early; Q1 flywheel data supports the optionality without yet proving a deep multi-product lock-in.
Trip-level booking, search-intent and host-quality data feeds ranking, pricing and trust, but Booking Holdings and Expedia hold the same class of data at comparable scale, and Airbnb does not license or pool it beyond its own marketplace. Real and useful, not a dataset rivals cannot replicate. Re-rated from strong to intact in the proof-point pass.
Regulation is a headwind, not a moat — urban short-term-rental rules are a structural overhang.
Classic two-sided marketplace at category-leading scale: more than 8 million active listings from over 5 million hosts draw the guests, and the guests draw new hosts. Supply that density in alternative accommodation is what no rival (Vrbo, Booking's alternative-accommodation arm) has matched.
Stored payment, traveller verification, Reserve Now Pay Later (~20% of GBV), and host onboarding create meaningful repeat-friction; not as deep as enterprise SaaS embedment.
Airbnb is the de-facto system of record for traveller alternative-accommodation identity and history for 150M+ users.
Scale here is the two-sided network itself, already rated under networkEffects; crediting it again as a cost lead would double-count the same evidence.
Airbnb is the category noun for short-term rentals: roughly 90% of its traffic arrives direct or through unpaid channels (per its 10-K), so it does not rent demand back from Google the way OTAs must. That is a default-choice brand, not bought reach.
Combined average of Moat (AI Resilience), Growth, and Valuation scores.
Moat Score
Largest two-sided alternative-accommodation network globally, with brand + supply density that no traditional OTA or hotel chain can replicate — moat is real; growth is re-accelerating via take-rate, expansion markets, and category extension, with regulation still the overhang.
Growth Score
Q1 2026 (reported May 7): revenue $2.68B (+18% YoY / +15% ex-FX), GBV $29.2B (+19% / +13% ex-FX), nights and seats booked 156.2M (+9%; ~10% ex–Middle East cancellations), adj EBITDA $519M (+24%) at 19% margin. FY26 revenue growth raised to low-to-mid teens; adj EBITDA margin guided to at least 35%. Q2 guide $3.54–3.60B revenue (+14–16%, ~3% FX). Growth is nights + ADR + take-rate (fee simplification, insurance) + early Experiences/Services, with tougher H2 comps from Reserve Now, Pay Later anniversaries.
Valuation Score
At ~$152 ABNB trades at ~30× FY26 EPS (~$5.00 consensus) and ~26× FY27 (~$5.80) — a premium to the 2024–25 compressed trough, reflecting the guide raise to low-to-mid teens growth and durable ≥35% adj EBITDA margins. Price sits below the $185 base case; capital return remains active ($1.1B buyback in Q1; TTM FCF ~$4.5B).
The Supply-Density Marketplace Moat
Airbnb's moat is supply density and brand recognition in alternative accommodations — a marketplace with genuine network effects and category leadership:
- Supply Network Density: Millions of active listings across 220+ countries give Airbnb supply breadth no competitor can match. Booking, Vrbo, and regional rivals carry partial subsets — the density advantage compounds as travellers find what they want only on Airbnb in many markets. Events amplify it: ~100K first-time World Cup host-city listings and ~30% supply growth around Milano Cortina show the flywheel still works.
- Brand and Search Default: Airbnb is the verb for alternative accommodation. ~90% of traffic is direct or organic vs Booking's 40%+ paid. App nights grew 22% YoY in Q1 and now are 63% of nights booked — the marketing advantage compounds unit economics as CAC stays structurally lower than paid-traffic OTAs.
- Experiences, Services, and Hotels: Experiences and Services are expanding after the May 2025 relaunch; Q1 pilots show a demand flywheel — nearly a quarter of new guests who book an experience go on to book a stay or service, and ~1 in 3 experience bookers book a stay within 90 days. Boutique/independent hotels are scaling into supply-constrained cities, with ~55% of hotel bookers returning for a home — category extension without rebuilding demand.
Moat Verdict
Airbnb's network + brand + data moats are durable in the AI era — generative trip planning is more likely to surface Airbnb supply than disintermediate it. The growth question is regulatory and category-extension execution, not technological obsolescence.
79.5 resilient · 65.0 vulnerable · 80/20 = 76.6 · = 77
Open a moat to read its note.
Trip planning and search filters create modest learning friction; substitutable on technical migration.
Search ranking, dynamic pricing, and host trust scoring are real differentiated systems; AI coauthors ~60% of engineering code but does not commoditise the ranking/trust stack.
N/A.
Marketplace engineering talent is broadly available; Airbnb's moat does not rest on talent scarcity. A pillar that never applied is not applicable rather than weakened. Previously weakened.
Stays + Experiences + Services (+ hotels pilot) bundle is real but early; Q1 flywheel data supports the optionality without yet proving a deep multi-product lock-in.
Trip-level booking, search-intent and host-quality data feeds ranking, pricing and trust, but Booking Holdings and Expedia hold the same class of data at comparable scale, and Airbnb does not license or pool it beyond its own marketplace. Real and useful, not a dataset rivals cannot replicate. Re-rated from strong to intact in the proof-point pass.
Regulation is a headwind, not a moat — urban short-term-rental rules are a structural overhang.
Classic two-sided marketplace at category-leading scale: more than 8 million active listings from over 5 million hosts draw the guests, and the guests draw new hosts. Supply that density in alternative accommodation is what no rival (Vrbo, Booking's alternative-accommodation arm) has matched.
Stored payment, traveller verification, Reserve Now Pay Later (~20% of GBV), and host onboarding create meaningful repeat-friction; not as deep as enterprise SaaS embedment.
Airbnb is the de-facto system of record for traveller alternative-accommodation identity and history for 150M+ users.
Scale here is the two-sided network itself, already rated under networkEffects; crediting it again as a cost lead would double-count the same evidence.
Airbnb is the category noun for short-term rentals: roughly 90% of its traffic arrives direct or through unpaid channels (per its 10-K), so it does not rent demand back from Google the way OTAs must. That is a default-choice brand, not bought reach.
Growth Analysis
Growth Drivers
Key Risk
If urban short-term-rental regulation tightens further across major US/EU cities in 2026-27 (NYC, Barcelona, Berlin precedents extending), supply growth in highest-ADR markets reverses and ADR + bookings growth compresses simultaneously — even as hotels and events partially offset.
Score Derivation
77.1 base + 2.7 trajectory − 5 risk = 75
Base 77 (11–15% CAGR, midpoint 13%) + 2.7 trajectory (Experiences/Services and emerging markets accelerating; nights stable at +9%) + 0 margin (FY26 adj EBITDA ≥35%, reinvestment prioritized) − 5 moderate regulation risk = 75
Price Scenarios (12–24 Months)
Valuation Multiples
| Forward P/E (FY26) | ~30× |
| Forward P/E (FY27) | ~26× |
| Price / Sales (FY26) | ~6.5× |
| PEG Ratio | ~2.0× |
| FCF Yield | ~5% |
Valuation has re-rated with the growth re-acceleration; upside is still Experiences/Services contribution, emerging-market nights, and take-rate durability rather than multiple expansion alone.
Approximate figures as of August 2026.
Where We Are vs Targets
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Urban regulation tightens, nights growth slows below 5%, Experiences/Services stay immaterial, take-rate lift fades, multiple compresses to ~18× on mature-marketplace status.
- Major US/EU cities tighten short-term-rental rules, reducing high-ADR supply
- Nights booked growth slows below 5% YoY through 2027
- Experiences/Services and hotel pilots fail to move the revenue needle by FY27
FY26–27 revenue compounds in the low-to-mid teens, adj EBITDA margin holds ≥35%, Experiences and hotels scale modestly, multiple stays ~28–30× on FY27 EPS with ongoing buybacks.
- Nights booked +8–10% with ADR mid-single digits; take rate up modestly on fees + insurance
- Experiences/Services + hotels reach mid-single-digit revenue contribution by FY27
- Buybacks return a majority of FCF; share count −3–4% per year
Experiences/Services become a meaningful growth pillar, emerging markets stay high-teens, FY28 EPS approaches $8+, multiple holds ~30× as the category-extension thesis lands.
- Experiences/Services revenue scales to high-single digits of total by FY28
- Emerging-market origin nights (LatAm, India, Japan) sustain 20%+ growth
- AI trip planning and app-led demand (already 63% of nights) deepen brand default and CAC advantage