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Intuit makes software that helps people and small businesses do their taxes, bookkeeping, and marketing.
Intuit sells software that handles money chores most people would rather avoid. Its two big businesses are consumer tax filing and small-business accounting. On the tax side, its TurboTax product helps ordinary people file their yearly returns, and it makes money mostly when customers pay a fee to file, or upgrade to extra help. On the business side, QuickBooks is bookkeeping software that lets a plumber or a bakery track income, expenses, invoices, and payroll without hiring an accountant. The company also has a smaller but growing marketing arm, Mailchimp, which helps small businesses send emails and run campaigns. Consumer tax is the biggest slice of revenue, roughly half, with the small-business and self-employed group making up most of the rest.
Think of it as the plumbing behind everyday money decisions—taxes, invoices, payroll—where people want something simple and trustworthy rather than cheap. That trust is the moat. Customers stick with QuickBooks because moving their financial history elsewhere is painful, and they return to TurboTax each spring out of habit and fear of getting taxes wrong. Intuit is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and sells mostly in the United States, though it is pushing into Canada, the UK, and Australia. Recent growth has come from bundling more services, like payments and lending, on top of its software, plus AI features that do more of the work for users.
Intuit was started in the 1980s by Scott Cook, who got the idea after watching his wife struggle with the family checkbook. That turned into Quicken, then QuickBooks, then the purchase of TurboTax, and later the $12 billion deal for Mailchimp in 2021. It generates a lot of spare cash, which it spends on buying other companies, reinvesting in the products, and repurchasing its own shares—returning billions to investors over time. The main risks are competition from free tax options, changing tax rules, and the constant need to keep small businesses from switching to cheaper tools.
Saved answer · last researched 13 Oct 2026