Are You Overpaying For Cintas Stock Versus Its Rivals?
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Cintas (CTAS) and Ecolab are worth roughly the same on the stock market. Cintas carries a market capitalization of $89.9 billion alongside Ecolab’s $86.5 billion, and the two companies posted nearly identical sales growth over their latest four fiscal quarters. Cintas stock, though, trades at 43.6 times earnings. That valuation leads a five-company group that also holds Aramark, UniFirst and ABM Industries. So what does the extra price buy you that Ecolab’s does not?
Cintas Earns More On Each Sales Dollar Than Ecolab
The extra price buys margin instead of growth. Cintas kept 23.6% of its sales as operating profit, compared with 18.1% at Ecolab, and those stand as the two widest margins in the group. Ecolab stock trades at 41.5 times earnings, slightly below Cintas, while the two companies posted nearly identical sales growth: 9.5% for Cintas against 9.3% for Ecolab. The two businesses differ, though. Cintas falls under diversified support services and Ecolab under specialty chemicals, so part of the margin gap may come from what each company sells rather than how well each runs.
| CTAS | ARMK | UNF | ABM | ECL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four Fiscal Quarters | ended 2026-08-31 (Q2 FY2026 to Q1 FY2027) | ended 2026-07-03 (Q4 FY2025 to Q3 FY2026) | ended 2026-08-29 (Q1 FY2026 to Q4 FY2026) | ended 2026-07-31 (Q4 FY2025 to Q3 FY2026) | ended 2026-09-30 (Q4 FY2025 to Q3 FY2026) |
| Market Value (USD billion) | 89.9 | 14.3 | 4.67 | 3.18 | 86.5 |
| P/E | 43.6 | 37.3 | 42.7 | 19.1 | 41.5 |
| Revenue Growth | 9.5% | 11% | 3.7% | 6% | 9.3% |
| Operating Margin | 23.6% | 4.4% | 5.4% | 3.8% | 18.1% |
| Total Return, Incl. Dividends, 2025-10-30 to 2026-11-02 | 23.4% | 41.4% | 66.3% | 29.5% | 21.3% |
Aramark stands as the only peer with faster sales growth, expanding at 11.0%, and its stock costs less at 37.3 times earnings. Aramark, however, kept only 4.4% of its sales as operating profit. UniFirst, ABM Industries and Ecolab all cost less than Cintas and grew at a slower pace. Cintas also has a pending deal for UniFirst, which management expects to close in the back half of calendar 2026. On the market, Cintas stock has trailed most of the group. The shares returned 23.4% from October 30, 2025 to November 2, 2026, placing fourth among the five and finishing ahead of only Ecolab.
Most Of Cintas’s Sales Come From Its Uniform Rental Segment
The Uniform Rental and Facility Services segment generated $8.62 billion of Cintas’s $11.3 billion in fiscal 2026 revenue. First Aid and Safety Services operates on a much smaller scale, bringing in $1.39 billion. That smaller unit grew 14.3% that year, compared with 8.1% for uniform rental. Management says most of the growth comes from volume. This means adding new customers, improving retention and selling more services to existing accounts, while pricing remained consistent with the prior year.
Wider margins accompanied that growth. Gross margin reached 51.5% in the fiscal first quarter of 2027, a level management called an all-time high, and Cintas’s operating margin now stands at its highest point for any quarter end from fiscal 2017 onward.
Cintas Expects Earnings Per Share To Outpace Sales
On September 23, 2026, management raised its fiscal 2027 revenue guide to a range of $12.15 billion to $12.27 billion, up from $12.10 billion to $12.25 billion. That represents growth of 7.9% to 8.9%. Management also expects adjusted earnings per share to grow 10.3% to 12.1%. That pace exceeds sales growth, and management raised that guide too.
Even so, the sales guide projects slower growth than in fiscal 2026. The 8.4% midpoint sits below Cintas’s slowest quarter that year, which grew 8.7%, even though management’s outlook assumes fiscal 2027 has one more workday than fiscal 2026. In its fire protection business, management said the latest quarter benefited from the extra day and a very favorable revenue mix, and that gross margin there may move in later quarters. Management also said adding new technicians to the unit could push that margin back a little.
Cintas’s stock price appears to assume the company will keep the widest margin in its group while growing sales at roughly Ecolab’s pace. So far the margin sits at its highest point, and management has raised its targets, yet its own guide has sales growth slowing. Cintas’s gross margin is the measure to watch when the company reports in December 2026.
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