Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) is trading higher on December 4, 2025 after delivering record fiscal third‑quarter 2026 results, raising its full‑year guidance, and showcasing rapid adoption of its AI platform Agentforce and Data 360.
By early afternoon U.S. trading, Salesforce stock was around $238–239 per share, up roughly 1.7% on the day, according to exchange data and brokerage commentary. [1] Despite today’s bounce, shares remain more than 25% below where they started the year and about 35% under their 52‑week high of $369, leaving CRM in “recovery mode” after a rough 2025 for software and AI names. [2]
Below is a breakdown of the latest numbers, guidance, and forecasts shaping the Salesforce stock story right now.
Salesforce stock today: CRM edges higher after earnings beat
Market data from multiple providers show CRM trading near $238.7, with a daily gain of about 1.5–2.0% following the earnings release and guidance update. [3]
Analysts and trading desks point to three main drivers behind today’s move:
- Earnings and margin beat: Non‑GAAP earnings per share significantly exceeded Wall Street expectations, and margins expanded. [4]
- Raised full‑year guidance: Management nudged revenue and profit forecasts higher for fiscal 2026. [5]
- Explosive AI metrics: Agentforce and Data 360 crossed $1.4 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), with triple‑digit growth. [6]
Trading commentary from platforms like TradingView and EBC notes that investors are particularly focused on Salesforce’s ability to sustain mid‑30% non‑GAAP operating margins while still investing heavily in AI and data. [7]
Record Q3 FY26 results: growth, margins and cash flow
Salesforce’s fiscal third quarter 2026 (for the period ended October 31, 2025) delivered a combination Wall Street likes: solid top‑line growth, strong margins, and rising cash flow.
Headline numbers
According to the company’s official earnings release and subsequent analysis: [8]
- Revenue: About $10.26–10.3 billion, up roughly 9% year over year (around 8.6%–9% in constant currency).
- Subscription & support revenue:$9.7 billion, growing 10% year over year.
- Current remaining performance obligation (cRPO):$29.4 billion, up 11%.
- Total remaining performance obligation (RPO):$59.5 billion, up 12%, indicating a sizeable future revenue pipeline.
On profitability, Salesforce showed why traders are talking about a “leaner, more profitable” version of the company:
- GAAP operating margin:21.3%, up from roughly 20% a year ago.
- Non‑GAAP operating margin:35.5%, comfortably ahead of analyst expectations.
- Non‑GAAP EPS:$3.25, versus consensus around $2.85–$2.86, a beat of about 13–14%. [9]
Cash generation was equally robust:
- Operating cash flow:$2.3 billion, up 17% year over year.
- Free cash flow:$2.2 billion, up 22%.
- Capital return: Salesforce returned $4.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter, including $3.8 billion in share repurchases and about $395 million in dividends. [10]
For a company still tied closely to enterprise IT budgets, those numbers signal that cost discipline from recent restructuring is maturing into a durable margin story, not just a one‑off reset.
Agentforce and Data 360: Salesforce’s AI engine passes $1.4 billion ARR
The real focal point this quarter wasn’t just classic CRM—it was AI.
Salesforce’s AI and data offerings, Agentforce and Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud), are now central to the company’s growth pitch. Management highlighted that: [11]
- Combined Agentforce + Data 360 ARR reached nearly $1.4 billion, up 114% year over year.
- Agentforce ARR alone surpassed $500 million, up roughly 330% year over year.
- Salesforce has closed over 18,500 Agentforce deals, including more than 9,500 paid deals, up about 50% quarter over quarter.
- Agentforce has processed more than 3.2 trillion tokens through Salesforce’s large language model (LLM) gateway.
- Data 360 ingested 32 trillion records in Q3, up 119% year over year, with especially rapid growth in “Zero Copy” and unstructured data.
A detailed post‑earnings breakdown from Salesforce‑focused publication Salesforce Ben calls Q3 “the quarter of Agentforce,” arguing that accelerating adoption helps justify the company’s aggressive AI narrative after a slower start. [12]
Beyond the numbers, Salesforce is rapidly building AI and data infrastructure through partnerships and M&A: [13]
- Deepened AI partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and AWS bring cutting‑edge models (like Claude and Gemini) into the Agentforce 360 Platform and Slack, and even allow querying Salesforce data directly from tools such as ChatGPT.
- Internal deployment (“Customer Zero”) shows AI at work inside Salesforce itself: the company reports that its SDR Agent generated 800,000 leads in just three weeks, and Agentforce in Slack is on track to save about 500,000 hours of employee time annually.
- Acquisitions of Informatica, Regrello, Apromore, Spindle AI and Doti are designed to create a unified, AI‑ready data foundation and process‑automation layer for enterprise customers.
All of this feeds Salesforce’s pitch that it is becoming the default “agentic enterprise” platform: humans plus AI agents, running on unified data, inside one ecosystem.
Guidance: stronger FY26 outlook and the “50 by FY30” framework
The market reaction is as much about the future as the quarter just reported.
Q4 FY26 and FY26 guidance
Salesforce raised and reiterated key elements of its near‑term outlook: [14]
- Q4 FY26 revenue guidance:
- $11.13–$11.23 billion, implying 11–12% growth and modest upside versus prior Street estimates around $10.9 billion.
- Q4 FY26 non‑GAAP EPS:
- $3.02–$3.04, slightly above consensus going into the print.
- Full‑year FY26 revenue:
- Raised to $41.45–$41.55 billion, up 9–10% year over year, including a small contribution from Informatica.
- Full‑year FY26 non‑GAAP operating margin:
- Reaffirmed at 34.1%, with GAAP operating margin guided to 20.3%.
- Operating cash flow and free cash flow growth:
- Targeted at about 13–14% year over year.
Reuters summarised the move as Salesforce “raising its revenue and adjusted profit forecasts as AI adoption picks up steam,” noting that shares jumped more than 2% in after‑hours trading when the numbers hit. [15]
Long‑term ambition: $60B+ revenue and “50 by FY30”
Beyond 2026, management is still anchoring investors on its FY2030 targets, outlined at its Investor Day and repeated in recent analysis: TS2 Tech+1
- Revenue goal:$60+ billion in organic revenue by FY30 (excluding Informatica), implying double‑digit annual growth from the FY26 base.
- “50 by FY30” framework: the sum of
- subscription & support constant‑currency growth rate, plus
- non‑GAAP operating margin
is targeted to reach 50 by FY30.
In plain language, Salesforce is telling investors it plans to keep double‑digit growth while sustaining mid‑30s margins, driven by AI (Agentforce), data (Data 360) and scaled distribution.
How Wall Street is re‑pricing Salesforce stock
Consensus ratings and average price targets
Fresh data from MarketBeat and other aggregators show that analysts remain broadly constructive even after several months of volatility and target cuts: [16]
- Overall rating: “Moderate Buy” / “Overweight” on average.
- Analyst split: Around 27 Buy, 12 Hold, and 1 Sell rating, according to one MarketBeat tally.
- Average 12‑month price target: About $323–$326 per share, depending on the data provider.
- Target range:
- Low: roughly $221–$223.
- High:$430, with Citizens and some others still modeling that as a bull‑case outcome.
Given today’s price near $239, the mid‑$320s average target implies mid‑30s percentage upside (around 35–37%), while some Fintel/Nasdaq aggregations suggest potential upside of 40%+ based on a slightly higher average. [17]
Fresh target changes after Q3
Post‑earnings notes have fine‑tuned those targets rather than flipping the Street’s view:
- BMO Capital Markets trimmed its price target from $280 to $275 but kept an “Outperform” rating, citing the EPS beat ($3.25 vs. $2.86), in‑line revenue of $10.26 billion and stronger Q4 EPS guidance. [18]
- A cluster of banks—including Evercore ISI, Barclays, Baird, Deutsche Bank, Wolfe Research and Fubon—have adjusted targets into a $270–$360 band while maintaining mostly Buy/Overweight stances, with a FactSet‑tracked mean price target around $326. [19]
- Wedbush reiterated an Outperform rating with a $375 target, emphasizing that Agentforce and Data 360 momentum could re‑accelerate growth and sustain the margin story. [20]
At the same time, some firms are clearly cautious, trimming targets more because of sector‑wide software de‑rating and lingering AI uncertainty than because of anything unique to Salesforce.
What current forecasts say about Salesforce’s valuation
After a sizable drawdown in 2025, a number of research notes are arguing that Salesforce is cheaper than it looks—at least relative to its own history and to software peers.
Recent valuation snapshots show: [21]
- Trailing P/E (TTM): Around 34–35x earnings, based on a share price near $238–239 and trailing EPS just under $7.
- Forward P/E: Generally in the high‑teens to low‑20s, with several datasets clustering around ~19x–20x forward earnings.
- Price‑to‑sales (TTM): Roughly 5.6–5.7x revenue.
- PEG ratio (price/earnings vs. growth): About 1.1–1.8, depending on whose growth estimates you use.
One widely cited Yahoo Finance piece frames the stock as “historically cheap,” noting that Salesforce’s forward P/E has dropped below 20x, well under its multi‑year average, even as AI‑related ARR is growing triple‑digits. [22]
Independent analyses on platforms like TipRanks and Finbox make a similar point: after a roughly 30% year‑to‑date decline, Salesforce now trades at a discount to the median software forward P/E, even though it still carries strong margins and cash flow. [23]
In other words, CRM is no longer priced like a hyper‑growth “story stock”—but it’s still not a bargain‑bin value play. The bull case is that AI‑driven upsell and cross‑sell will make today’s ~19–20x forward earnings look inexpensive a few years from now.
The core debate: AI payoff vs. execution and “pilot purgatory”
Even as analysts cheer the Q3 numbers, there is a clear debate on the Street about how quickly Salesforce’s AI investments will translate into large‑scale, high‑margin revenue.
Bullish arguments emphasize that: [24]
- AI ARR growth for Agentforce and Data 360 (over 100% year over year) is unusually strong for a company already nearing $40+ billion in annual revenue.
- cRPO and RPO growth in the low‑double digits hints at a healthy multi‑year pipeline.
- Management appears committed to protecting mid‑30s non‑GAAP margins, even while absorbing acquisitions and funding new AI agents, which could support a “profitable compounder” narrative into the late 2020s.
Skeptical views highlight several risks: TS2 Tech+2Salesforce+2
- Pilot vs. production: Some channel checks and partner surveys suggest a lot of AI work is still stuck in “pilot purgatory” — many experiments, fewer full‑scale rollouts — and data quality issues at customers can slow deployment.
- Integration complexity: Folding in Informatica, Regrello, Apromore, Spindle AI and Doti is strategically attractive but operationally complex; missteps could weigh on growth or margins.
- Macro and competition: Enterprise IT budgets remain sensitive to macroeconomic data, while rivals like Microsoft, Oracle and others are pushing their own AI‑driven CRM and data platforms.
A Salesforce‑centric commentary summed it up neatly: the quarter “goes a long way” toward validating the Agentforce story, but the company is still wagering heavily that AI agents and data will reshape the enterprise over the next five years. [25] If AI spending slows or fails to scale, that bet becomes a liability rather than a moat.
What to watch next for CRM investors
For investors and traders following Salesforce stock after these Q3 results, the next set of checkpoints is fairly clear:
- Agentforce & Data 360 momentum: Does AI ARR stay above 100% growth, and do more customers graduate from pilots into production environments with meaningful spend? [26]
- Margin discipline: Can Salesforce hold non‑GAAP operating margins above 34% while ramping investment in AI, go‑to‑market, and integration of acquired assets? [27]
- Informatica and other acquisitions: How quickly do these deals contribute to Data 360 and Agentforce cross‑sell, and what is the impact on reported GAAP EPS in the next 1–2 years? [28]
- Price‑target drift: Do average Street targets remain anchored in the $320s, or do we see further cuts if software multiples compress or AI enthusiasm cools? [29]
For now, the message from both management and most analysts is that Salesforce has navigated a tricky Q3 “danger zone” with stronger‑than‑feared growth, expanding margins, and AI metrics that support the long‑term story. Whether that translates into sustained share‑price recovery from the mid‑$230s will depend on how much of that AI promise turns into large, durable contracts—rather than just impressive slides on earnings day.
References
1. www.ebc.com, 2. www.tradingview.com, 3. www.ebc.com, 4. finviz.com, 5. investor.salesforce.com, 6. investor.salesforce.com, 7. www.tradingview.com, 8. investor.salesforce.com, 9. finviz.com, 10. investor.salesforce.com, 11. investor.salesforce.com, 12. www.salesforceben.com, 13. www.salesforce.com, 14. investor.salesforce.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. www.marketbeat.com, 17. www.marketbeat.com, 18. www.marketbeat.com, 19. www.marketscreener.com, 20. seekingalpha.com, 21. www.gurufocus.com, 22. finance.yahoo.com, 23. www.tipranks.com, 24. www.salesforceben.com, 25. www.salesforceben.com, 26. investor.salesforce.com, 27. investor.salesforce.com, 28. www.salesforce.com, 29. www.marketbeat.com
