Is One Lagging Number Reason Enough To Sell Palantir Stock?
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Palantir Technologies (PLTR) signed contracts worth $2.918 billion in the third quarter of 2026, an increase of just 6% from a year earlier. Revenue grew 96% in the same quarter, marking the fastest growth rate the company has ever reported. Contracts signed now are what Palantir bills later, so their slow rise matters to anyone who owns the stock for its growth. What changed in the deals Palantir signed?
Palantir Signed Large Deals That Ran Shorter Than Usual
Management said on its November 2, 2026 call that Palantir signed several eight-figure deals in the quarter that were shorter than usual as customers rapidly adopted the first capabilities of its Sovereign AI offering. Over time, management expects both the length and the size of these contracts to increase.
The slow growth in signings shows up even in the U.S. commercial business, whose revenue passed U.S. government revenue for the first time in the quarter. There, Palantir signed contracts worth $1.463 billion, 11% more than a year earlier. Revenue in that business grew 148% over the same year. Across all its commercial customers, Palantir’s signings grew 17% from a year earlier, faster than the company as a whole, so signings grew more slowly outside its commercial business.
Palantir’s Signed Work Is Growing Slower Than Its Revenue
The value still to come from all of Palantir’s signed deals was $13.4 billion at the end of September. That figure rose 55% from a year earlier, a slower pace than revenue growth, so a larger share of Palantir’s future revenue has yet to be signed. A shorter contract is also worth less in total when it is signed, even when the customer spends the same each year.
Holders are still paying a high price for fast growth. Palantir stock fell 19.1% between October 9 and November 9, 2026, while the S&P 500 lost 3.3%. Even so, the stock trades at 110.9 times its earnings over the past twelve months, against 21.8 for the S&P 500. That price likely assumes revenue keeps growing quickly.
Where Palantir’s Contract Figures Look Stronger
The contracted revenue Palantir has yet to recognize, its remaining performance obligations, was $4.9 billion at the end of September, up 88% from a year earlier and close to the pace of revenue growth. That is a different and smaller measure than the $13.4 billion in total remaining deal value above. Existing customers are also spending more: net dollar retention, which compares what those customers spend now with a year earlier, was 165%, up 800 basis points from the previous quarter. Management also raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $8.530 billion and $8.534 billion, which it said would be 91% growth.
For a holder, the slow rise in new contract value is a moderate worry rather than an alarm, because the revenue already under contract is up sharply from a year earlier, though flat from the previous quarter, and the spending of existing customers is still growing fast. The worry will ease if Palantir’s deals get longer and larger, as management expects. Palantir is expected to report its fourth-quarter results in February 2027, and the year-over-year growth in the value of the contracts it signs is the measure to watch.
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