Tech
Starlink's S-1 Shows $66 Per Month. The 2028 Bill Doesn't.
The S-1 shows a two-year per-satellite payback and a 63% EBITDA margin. Factor in interest on $29.1 billion in debt plus steady-state replacement capex, and the $1.75 trillion price runs to roughly 730x maintainable earnings.
SpaceX filed its S-1 with the SEC on May 20, pricing the company at $1.75 trillion on Starlink's $7.17 billion in 2025 connectivity segment EBITDA.
The connectivity segment led. Starlink posted $3.25 billion in Q1 2026 revenue and $1.19 billion in operating income. Subscribers doubled in twelve months, from 5.0 million in Q1 2025 to 10.3 million by March 31.
Q1 2026 average revenue per subscriber landed at $66 per month, down from $81 across full-year 2025 and $99 in 2023. SpaceX attributes the decline to expansion into price-sensitive markets outside North America.
Amazon Kuiper has not yet launched consumer service; its FCC license requires half its planned constellation in orbit by mid-2026. Whatever pricing Amazon sets for its residential tier would likely cap how far Starlink can raise the $66 monthly rate without prompting churn.
What the Constellation Is
The S-1 reports $11.387 billion in 2025 connectivity revenue from a fleet of 10,370 satellites on orbit as of May 16, per tracking by analyst Jonathan McDowell. SpaceX has placed 11,979 in total; 1,609 have deorbited or failed. Attrition runs at one to two satellites per day.
SpaceX manufactures five satellites per day in Hawthorne at roughly $400,000 per unit. The S-1 capex line points to a fuller figure: roughly 3,000 satellites deployed in 2025 at $4.178 billion in space-segment capex, about $1.4 million per satellite after reused-rocket savings.
What Each Satellite Earns
Across $11.387 billion in 2025 revenue and 10,370 active satellites, each unit generates roughly $1.1 million annually, or about $125 per orbit-hour. Amortized over a five-year design life, that is $280,000 in capital charge per satellite per year. At the 63% segment EBITDA margin, each satellite produces roughly $692,000 annually, recovering its capital in approximately two years.
That two-year recovery cycle explains SpaceX's deployment logic: more satellites at 63% margin generate revenue faster than any plausible ARPU increase.
The Number the S-1 Doesn't Project
Of the 10,370 active satellites, 7,028 are second-generation units launched in 2023 or later. At a five-year design life, those begin retirement as early as 2028. Replacing the full constellation at roughly 2,074 satellites per year at $1.4 million each runs to about $2.9 billion annually.
At the $1.75 trillion IPO price, the constellation prices at roughly 244x gross segment EBITDA. Subtract the $2.9 billion in replacement capex and the multiple on maintainable earnings moves to approximately 407x. Those are different denominators for the same price.
Palantir, the most-cited high-growth AI benchmark, trades above 100x EV/adjusted EBITDA as of May 2026. At 50x, a discount reflecting Starlink's capital intensity, the constellation needs $35 billion in annual segment EBITDA. At 63% margin, that requires $55.6 billion in connectivity revenue: roughly 47 million subscribers at 2023's $99 ARPU, or 70 million at today's $66.
Debt service changes the math on the two-year satellite payback. SpaceX reported a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025 despite Starlink's positive EBITDA, driven by xAI's cash burn and $1.9 billion in interest on $29.1 billion in total debt. Subtract the disclosed interest from the $4.3 billion post-capex base and the residual is $2.4 billion; against a $1.75 trillion IPO price, roughly 730x.
Gen2 satellite retirements begin in 2028. That year's capex guidance is the first place the $2.9 billion replacement cost meets an audited number. At $60 ARPU, the subscriber threshold to reach 50x climbs past 75 million.