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Cricut makes computer-controlled cutting machines and the software and materials that go with them, so people can cut, draw, and press designs onto paper, vinyl, fabric, and other materials at home.
Cricut sells machines that let people make things. You pick a design on your computer or phone, the machine takes instructions, and a small blade or pen cuts, draws, or scores the shape onto paper, vinyl, or fabric. It is a hobbyist's power tool: the kind of thing someone buys to make custom T-shirts, greeting cards, decals, or labels at home instead of buying them.
The business has two engines. The first is hardware — the cutting machines themselves, sold mostly to casual crafters and small side-hustlers, through retail partners and its own website. The second is the recurring stuff that surrounds the machine: a subscription to its design software, plus the blades, mats, vinyl, and other materials that wear out and get used up. That second part matters, because a machine is bought once, while a subscription and a steady stream of supplies bring money in month after month. Cricut's edge is its ecosystem. The software, the design library, the community of users sharing projects, and the accessories all fit together, which makes switching to a rival machine a hassle. Rivals exist — Silhouette is the best-known alternative — but Cricut has built the biggest brand and the most polished app experience, and it leans on that to keep customers inside its world. The catch is that this is a discretionary-spending business: when budgets tighten, craft supplies are an easy thing to skip.
Cricut began in 1969 as Provo Craft & Novelty, a small Utah company. Over the following decades it quietly grew into a creativity platform, long before anyone would recognize the name on the box.
In March 2018, Provo Craft renamed itself Cricut, Inc., adopting the name of its cutting machines. The machine had become the brand, and the brand was becoming the company.
Cricut brought in Ashish Arora in 2019 to professionalize how it reached customers and sold subscriptions. The idea was to stop being just a hardware company and start earning recurring money from software and services—a shift that would matter enormously.
Then 2020 arrived. Stuck at home, people bought cutting machines in droves: revenue and operating profit nearly doubled and more than tripled. By the end of the year, revenue had reached $959 million heading into its public offering.
Cricut went public in March 2021 at $20 a share, selling 13.25 million shares and valuing the company between $4.4 billion and $4.9 billion. Within four months the stock had doubled past $40—the pandemic boom, packaged and sold to the public.
The boom could not last. As pandemic crafting demand faded, revenue fell 32% to $886.3 million, and the stock dropped more than half in 2022, drifting between $5 and $10. Cricut had to prove it was more than a lockdown fad.
To get back to growth, Cricut appointed Heidi Zak—co-founder and CEO of ThirdLove—as chief executive. She joined the board in September 2024 with a clear mandate: refocus on the core customer and rebuild momentum.
The strategy started showing results. In fiscal 2025, overall revenue was $708.8 million, but platform revenue reached $327.4 million from 3.1 million paid subscribers, with average revenue per user rising to $55.77. The subscription business, not the machines, had become the growth engine.
By the second quarter of 2026, platform revenue rose 5% to $85 million even as total revenue fell 9%—and active users stabilized for the first time in a second quarter since 2022. New Joy 2 and Explore 5 bundles drove double-digit machine sell-out growth under a platform-first strategy, alongside AI-powered Creative Labs features and an expanded premium subscription.
The company went public in 2021 and is headquartered in South Jordan, Utah. A few years ago it stumbled by trying to limit how many free designs users could upload to its software, a move that sparked a backlash and a quick retreat — a reminder of how much its fortunes depend on keeping its hobbyist community happy. Today it is a modestly sized, profitable business that turns a good chunk of its cash into buying back its own shares, a sign that management sees the stock as cheap relative to the cash it generates.
Saved answer · last researched 3 Nov 2026