What Was Cloudflare Telling You Before Its Stock Ran?
Cloudflare (NET) stock returned 58.8% over the twelve months to October 12, 2026. During its August 2026 call, management credited growth to a more productive sales force alongside AI agent workloads on its network and its Workers developer platform. Neither theme was new by then. How early did Cloudflare start talking about them?
Cloudflare Named AI Before Its Revenue Showed It
Executives raised both themes well before October 9, 2025, the first day of the twelve months measured here. During the November 7, 2024 call, the company described Cloudflare as a single cloud platform for running AI models. It also noted the addition of a record number of new large customers.
The February 6, 2025 call offered an even clearer message. “The killer application for Cloudflare Workers is turning out to be AI,” management said. The company noted that sales productivity had risen from a year earlier for a fifth straight quarter. At the same time, it pointed out that the capacity of its sales force had been holding the business back.
Official figures took longer to reflect these themes. Revenue grew 27.8% in the second quarter of 2025, the newest quarter filed before that October date, compared to 30.0% a year earlier. Investors could hear the case from management before they could see it in revenue.
The stock rose before revenue growth did. The shares were down 39% from their mid-February high by April 18, 2025. Yet they rose 109.4% over the six months before October 9, 2025. The stock was already climbing when the measured twelve months began.
Cloudflare’s Sales Then Caught Up With Its Words
The stock outperformed the broader market over those twelve months, a period when the S&P 500 returned 17.3%. Cloudflare’s competitors did not move in tandem: Palo Alto Networks returned 87.7% during the window, while Zscaler lost 28.4%.
Cloudflare’s reported revenue caught up over the same twelve months. It rose 36% from a year earlier in the second quarter of 2026, compared to 27.8% in the same quarter of 2025.
Existing customers were spending more as well. Dollar-based net retention, which tracks spending by existing clients against a year earlier, stood at 120% on the August 6, 2026 call. Management had reported a figure of 110% during the November 2024 call. The company also noted in August that Workers had become a meaningful contributor to revenue, though Cloudflare does not report revenue by product.
Cloudflare Guided For A Smaller Sales Gain
Executives guided for revenue growth of 31% in the third quarter of 2026, compared to the 36% reported for the second quarter. The third quarter has ended, but its results are not yet out. Management said its business is moving toward usage-based contracts, making quarter-to-quarter results harder to forecast. It sets guidance prudently for this reason.
During the August call, management noted that new customer bookings had increased at the fastest rate in more than five years. This signaled that demand was still building at the time.
The shares remain priced well above the broader market. Cloudflare stock trades at 49.5 times sales, compared to 3.1 for the S&P 500. The company also recorded an operating loss equal to 8.1% of revenue over the last twelve months.
Revenue growth is the number to watch in Cloudflare’s next report. Expansion at or above the 36% mark of the second quarter would indicate the sales pickup is still building. Growth near the 31% guided by management would point to a slowdown.
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