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The finding that changes the name

The Tier-1 screen ranked Clear Secure on a +17.3pp valuation margin built from a share count of 87,760,831. The filed Q1-2026 balance sheet says 133,546,442.

The screen's number is an undimensioned, Class-A-only CommonStockSharesOutstanding fact from the FY2022 10-K — the only such observation in the company's entire XBRL history, because every filing since tags share counts by class, and SEC companyfacts drops dimensions. It was already 43% short at the date it was tagged, and it was then applied to a price four calendar years later.

Correcting it, plus $629.4m of marketable securities the screen's cash-only net-cash figure missed and a $252.5m tax receivable agreement liability it could not see:

8.0 of the screen's 17.3 percentage points were the stale share count alone.

What the business actually is

A price-led consumer subscription, not a volume-led one. FY2025 revenue grew 17%: the 10-K attributes ~6pp to member growth and ~11pp to price. The airport network already covers 79% of TSA checkpoint volume, and only 6% of that volume passes through a CLEAR lane (5% a year earlier) — one point a year. The headline "41 million Members, +31%" is a cumulative-since-inception registration count that includes trials and non-paying uses and cannot decline; the revenue-bearing figure is 8.2m Active CLEAR+ Members, +13%, on a base that was recast downward mid-2025 by an unquantified amount.

The reason it is not simply expensive

Total Bookings grew +40.8% year-on-year in Q1-2026 against +19.7% revenue — the fourth consecutive quarter of bookings running ahead. Because CLEAR bills annually in advance, revenue is a ~12-month-lagged release of deferred bookings, and the identity is arithmetically exact in the filings (revenue $253,003k + Δdeferred $38,693k = $291,696k against reported $291.7m). Q2-2026 is guided to +22.8%, the first guided acceleration in three years. That is a mechanical forward tailwind, not a narrative — which is why the Valuation Criteria returns PASS WITH ARGUMENT rather than FAIL on a +1.8pp cushion.

Key findings

• Share count 87.76m → 133.55m. Class A only, from FY2022, applied to a 2026 price. The exact XBRL fact is named in the Model Notes, along with a generalisable detection rule for the scanner.
• Net cash $170.7m → $802.9m gross / $550.5m after the TRA. Marketable securities have been $543–666m on this balance sheet every year since 2022. Zero drawn debt.
• TTM revenue $942.4m verified correct — the one input the screen got right.
• Growth is price, not members, and the footprint is 79% saturated.
• 64% of Q1-2026 free cash flow came from two liability builds (deferred revenue +$38.7m, accrued partnership liabilities +$80.2m). The ≥$465m FY2026 FCF guide embeds continued float expansion.
• FY2024 net income is not comparable — it contains a $158.6m tax benefit. Model off operating income.
• The buyback is real and hidden. Total economic shares fell 12.6% (152.8m → 133.5m) while the Class A count rose 14.5% as Class C/D exchanged in.
• The named permanent-loss cause is the TSA itself — universal Credential Authentication Technology, which the company's own risk factors say TSA intends to require.
• Options: the January-2027 strikes are dividend-adjusted (49.53, 54.53, 59.80) because of the annual February special dividend. February-2027 open interest is 0–25 contracts and is not a vehicle.

Disclosed limitations

• No revenue disaggregation exists by CLEAR+ / TSA PreCheck / CLEAR1. Single segment. None was estimated.
• CLEAR1's "approximately fivefold" bookings growth has no disclosed base.
• The Active CLEAR+ recast is unquantified; +13.0% is an upper bound of unknown tightness.
• No consensus estimates (Alpha Vantage quota) — Consensus Criteria INDETERMINATE, which blocks nothing.
• No transcript access; mention-frequency is filing-based and labelled as such.
• No FY2026 revenue guidance exists; the company guided Q2 revenue and full-year FCF only.
• The 23.4x exit multiple is inherited from the screen (peer_n: 333, unverifiable). The full 14x–30x sensitivity is published because the point estimate is not trusted.
• Peer Spread Criteria is INDETERMINATE — no listed pure-play comparator exists, and substituting a software peer set would be the growth-mismatch error the framework prohibits.