Datadog vs Visa: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
Datadog reported $3.4B of revenue in FY2025 and $107.7M of net income. Visa reported $40B of revenue in FY2025 and $20.1B of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
Datadog
Datadog grew revenue from $1.03 billion in 2021 to $3.43 billion in 2025. In 2025 it generated $1.05 billion of operating cash flow and $915 million of free cash flow, while GAAP net income was a much smaller $107.7 million because of heavy stock-based compensation and R&D spending. Growth accelerated in 2026: Q1 revenue was $1.006 billion (+32%) with $52.6 million of GAAP net income, and Q2 revenue was $1.12 billion (+36%) with $279 million of free cash flow. After Q2, management guided to full-year 2026 revenue of about $4.45-4.47 billion, roughly 30% growth. GAAP operating income stays near break-even, while non-GAAP operating margin runs in the low 20s.
Visa
Visa's fiscal year ends September 30. Fiscal 2025 net revenue was USD 40.0 billion, up 11% from USD 35.9 billion in fiscal 2024, and GAAP net income was USD 20.1 billion. Growth continued in fiscal 2026: in the third quarter (April to June 2026) net revenue rose 14% to USD 11.6 billion, quarterly payments volume passed USD 4 trillion for the first time, and Visa returned USD 6.2 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. Fiscal 2026 full-year results are due in late October 2026.
Revenue and profit by year
Datadog
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $3.4B | $107.7M | 3.1% | +27.7% | Source |
| FY2024 | $2.7B | $183.7M | 6.8% | +26.1% | Source |
| FY2023 | $2.1B | $48.6M | 2.3% | +27.1% | Source |
| FY2022 | $1.7B | -$50.2M | -3.0% | +62.8% | Source |
| FY2021 | $1B | -$20.9M | -2.0% | +70.5% | Source |
| FY2020 | $603.5M | -$24.5M | -4.1% | +66.3% | Source |
| FY2019 | $362.8M | -$16.7M | -4.6% | +83.2% | Source |
| FY2018 | $198.1M | -$10.8M | -5.4% | +96.6% | Source |
| FY2017 | $100.8M | -$2.6M | -2.6% | — | Source |
Visa
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $40B | $20.1B | 50.1% | +11.3% | Source |
| FY2024 | $35.9B | $19.7B | 55.0% | +10.0% | Source |
| FY2023 | $32.7B | $17.3B | 52.9% | +11.4% | Source |
| FY2022 | $29.3B | $15B | 51.0% | +21.6% | Source |
| FY2021 | $24.1B | $12.3B | 51.1% | +10.3% | Source |
| FY2020 | $21.8B | $10.9B | 49.7% | -4.9% | Source |
| FY2019 | $23B | $12.1B | 52.6% | +11.5% | Source |
| FY2018 | $20.6B | $10.3B | 50.0% | +12.3% | Source |
| FY2017 | $18.4B | $6.7B | 36.5% | +21.7% | Source |
| FY2016 | $15.1B | $6B | 39.7% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
Datadog
- Subscription RevenuePrimary
Recurring contracts priced around usage, monitored hosts, telemetry ingestion, events, seats, and purchased modules.
- Professional Services and OtherSmall
Implementation, training, and related services are minor compared with subscription revenue.
Visa
- Service revenue
- Data processing revenue
- International transaction revenue
- Value-added services
- Visa Direct
- Fraud and risk tools
Business model and strategy
Datadog
How it makes money
Datadog runs a B2B subscription model. Customers pay based on usage and the products they turn on: monitored hosts and containers, ingested and indexed log volume, traced requests, user sessions, security workloads, and similar units. Contracts are sold self-serve, through a direct sales team, and through cloud marketplaces such as AWS Marketplace. Revenue grows in two ways.
Growth strategy
Datadog's growth plan has three parts. First, sell more products to existing customers across observability, security, and developer workflows. Second, win larger enterprise and AI-native customers that run very large workloads.
Competitive advantage
Datadog's main edge is breadth on one shared data platform. Metrics, traces, logs, user sessions, security signals and cost data are stored and correlated together, so a slow page can be traced from the browser session to the service, the host and the log line without switching tools.
Visa
How it makes money
Visa earns fees from the banks and other clients that use its network, not interest from cardholders. Its reported revenue lines are service revenue (based on payments volume), data processing revenue (based on transactions authorized, cleared and settled over VisaNet), international transaction revenue (cross-border and currency conversion activity) and other revenue, including value-added services such as fraud and…
Growth strategy
Visa's growth strategy is to expand credentials, increase digital acceptance, grow cross-border and e-commerce volume, sell more value-added services, scale Visa Direct, support tap-to-pay and tokenized commerce, and embed Visa capabilities inside fintech and banking platforms.
Competitive advantage
Visa's moat is a three-sided network effect. Consumers use Visa because merchants accept it, merchants accept Visa because consumers carry it, and banks issue Visa credentials because both sides already participate. The company also has fraud data, global rules, brand trust, dispute standards, token infrastructure, and bank relationships built across decades. A competitor cannot simply copy the software;
Questions about Datadog vs Visa
Which company has higher revenue — Datadog, Inc. or Visa Inc.?
Datadog, Inc. reported $3.4B (FY2025), while Visa Inc. reported $40.0B (FY2025). By last reported revenue, Visa Inc. is the larger business, with Datadog, Inc. reporting a smaller revenue base.
What is the market cap of Datadog, Inc. vs Visa Inc.?
Datadog, Inc.'s market capitalisation stands at $96.3B, while Visa Inc.'s is $676.0B. Visa Inc. carries the higher market valuation, reflecting investors' expectations of its future earnings power relative to Datadog, Inc..
Which is more financially efficient — Datadog, Inc. or Visa Inc.?
Datadog, Inc. generates $423k / employee in revenue per employee, while Visa Inc. generates $1.17M / employee. Visa Inc. shows higher revenue efficiency per headcount, though this reflects business model differences — capital-light software companies routinely outperform labour-intensive manufacturers on this metric.
How do Datadog, Inc. and Visa Inc. make money?
Datadog, Inc. and Visa Inc. generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Datadog, Inc.: Datadog runs a B2B subscription model. Visa Inc.: Visa earns fees from the banks and other clients that use its network, not interest from cardholders.
Which company is valued higher relative to revenue — Datadog, Inc. or Visa Inc.?
On a price-to-sales (P/S) basis, Datadog, Inc. trades at 28.1x P/S and Visa Inc. at 16.9x P/S. Datadog, Inc. commands a higher revenue multiple, typically indicating that investors expect faster growth or higher future margins compared to Visa Inc.. A higher multiple is not inherently better — it may also signal that the stock is priced for perfection.
Is Datadog, Inc. bigger than Visa Inc.?
By last reported revenue, Visa Inc. ($40.0B (FY2025)) is the larger company compared to Datadog, Inc. ($3.4B (FY2025)). Revenue scale is one dimension of size — market capitalisation, employee count, and geographic reach are also relevant depending on the context.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Datadog vs Visa overview