FactSet Sells Financial Data. Wall Street Firms Buy It.

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In September 1978, two financial data professionals named Howard Wille and Chuck Snyder walked out of their employer — a firm called Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan — after it was acquired by Shearson. They didn't like where the acquisition was heading. So they rented a small office, hired fewer than ten people, and started building a system that could deliver financial data directly to a client's computer.

Three years later, in 1981, Snyder figured out something that changed the trajectory of the company. He found a way to download data from FactSet's database directly into VisiCalc — the first electronic spreadsheet. For the first time, an analyst could pull company financials, price histories, and earnings estimates into a spreadsheet without retyping a single number. That single feature — data piped straight into the analyst's workspace — became the foundation of a company that has grown revenue every year for more than 45 consecutive years.

I called a friend who runs a portfolio analytics team at an asset manager last week. I asked him what would happen if his firm switched from FactSet to a competitor. He laughed. "Every model we run pulls from FactSet. Every screen my analysts use is configured in FactSet. Every data feed, every template, every earnings estimate — it all lives there. You're asking me to rebuild five years of infrastructure." He paused. "Nobody switches."

That is the toll booth.

Most people in finance know Bloomberg. The Bloomberg Terminal is the most recognized brand in financial data — the orange-and-black screen, the keyboard, the $25,000 annual price tag. FactSet is the other terminal. It competes not by being cheaper — though it often is — but by being more flexible, more configurable, and more deeply embedded in the analyst's daily workflow. Bloomberg is the broadcast. FactSet is the plumbing.

Wille and Snyder took the company public in 1996 on the New York Stock Exchange. Wille retired as CEO in May 2000. Today, FactSet is led by CEO F. Philip Snow and is a member of the S&P 500.

In fiscal 2025 — the year ended August 31 — FactSet reported $2.32 billion in revenue, up 5.4% from the year before. It was the company's 45th consecutive year of revenue growth. Organic annual subscription value — the recurring revenue base that drives the business — reached $2.37 billion, up 5.7%. Net income was $597 million. The operating margin was 32.2%. The company served 8,996 clients and 237,324 individual users across the global financial industry. And annual ASV retention — the percentage of subscription revenue that renews each year — was greater than 95%.

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That 95% retention rate is the whole story. FactSet's revenue is subscription-based. Clients pay annually for access to data, analytics, and workstations. When a client's contract comes up for renewal, 95% of the revenue renews — automatically, without a pitch. The remaining 5% is not usually a client switching to Bloomberg or a competitor. It's a hedge fund shutting down, a bank reducing headcount, or a team being reorganized. Voluntary defection is almost nonexistent. The switching cost is not the subscription price. It is the five years of models, templates, screens, and workflows that every analyst on the team has built inside the system.

The pricing power is quiet but persistent. In fiscal 2025, organic ASV growth was driven primarily by higher sales to existing clients — upselling additional data feeds, analytics products, and workstation seats into accounts that already use the platform. Price increases layered on top. FactSet raises subscription rates annually, embedded in the contract renewal. Clients absorb the increase because the cost of rebuilding elsewhere is orders of magnitude higher than the price hike. The clients paid. They always do.

The 10-K describes it in plain terms: FactSet's revenue is "primarily derived from subscriptions to products and services such as workstations, analytics, enterprise data, and research management." What that sentence doesn't capture is the stickiness. An investment bank that deploys FactSet across 500 desks has wired it into every analyst's morning routine — the first screen they open, the data they pull, the models they run. You don't switch 500 desks. You renew the contract.

The flywheel runs on the analyst's own work. Every model an analyst builds in FactSet pulls data from FactSet's feeds. Every screen is configured to FactSet's layout. Every template is saved on FactSet's platform. The more an analyst uses the system, the more embedded it becomes — and the harder it gets to leave. In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, organic ASV accelerated to 7.1% growth, up from 5.7% at the end of fiscal 2025. The user base crossed 237,000 professionals. Each new user adds another set of models, another set of screens, and another reason the firm can't unplug.

WHY THIS WORKS

In 1981, Chuck Snyder figured out how to download data from FactSet's database directly into VisiCalc — the first electronic spreadsheet. Before that, analysts retyped numbers from printed reports into their models by hand. That single innovation — piping data into the workspace — created the workflow that 237,000 professionals now depend on. Howard Wille and Chuck Snyder started with fewer than ten employees, no terminal brand, and no Bloomberg to compete with. Forty-eight years later, the company they built has never had a down year in revenue. Not one. The data keeps flowing. The models keep pulling. And the subscription renews every year — because nobody rebuilds what they've already built.