SAN FRANCISCO, July 13, 2026, 15:06 (PDT)
Salesforce Inc. NYSE:CRM rose 4.8% to end Monday at $171.22, topping the S&P 500’s 0.8% drop. Investors moved back into the stock as debate about whether acquisitions can push Salesforce’s AI strategy picked up. The bounce came after a positive view of its $3.6 billion deal for Fin, which landed just a few days after KeyBanc cut the stock on worries about Agentforce.
The valuation looks trickier than the headline multiple shows. Salesforce’s $149.1 billion equity price is about 10.4 times projected fiscal 2026 free cash flow, which measures cash left after capital spending. But factoring in debt, that multiple jumps—debt-adjusted, it’s around 12.3 times. Salesforce closed April with about $39.5 billion in debt and $11.8 billion of cash and marketable securities, putting net debt at roughly $27.7 billion.
| Salesforce valuation lens | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Equity value to free cash flow | $149.1 bln divided by $14.4 bln | 10.4x |
| Debt-adjusted value to free cash flow | ($149.1 bln plus $39.5 bln minus $11.8 bln) divided by $14.4 bln | 12.3x |
| Net debt to free cash flow | $27.7 bln divided by $14.4 bln | 1.9x |
This is a basic leverage-adjusted check that uses the same free-cash-flow number, instead of a standard unlevered enterprise-value multiple.
The gap is key because leverage has made the per-share price look cheap, but Agentforce itself is still small. Annual recurring revenue, or ARR, hit $1.2 billion last quarter, up 205%. That’s only 2.6% of Salesforce’s projected $46.05 billion in fiscal 2027 revenue at the midpoint. For the year, Salesforce expects 11% growth, with about three points of that coming from Informatica. That leaves around 8% organic growth.
Salesforce still trades at a heavy discount to other leading application software names. Its price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E, is 64% below ServiceNow Inc. NYSE:NOW and 48% under Workday Inc. NASDAQ:WDAY. Some of that spread is about growth rates: ServiceNow reported its revenue up 22%, while Workday saw 13.5% growth.
| Company | Monday close | Daily move | Market value | Trailing P/E | Latest revenue growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce NYSE:CRM | $171.22 | up 4.8% | $149.1 bln | 23.5x | 13.0% reported |
| ServiceNow NYSE:NOW | $111.26 | gained 3.3% | $115.7 bln | 65.4x | 22.0% |
| Workday NASDAQ:WDAY | $144.87 | rose 4.3% | $36.8 bln | 45.1x | 13.5% |
Salesforce’s total growth got a boost of about four points from Informatica, which puts organic growth near 9%.
Salesforce used a $25 billion accelerated share buyback to cut its diluted share count by over 10% from a year ago. The company bought 103 million shares at an average price of $198.34, which is about 14% higher than Monday’s close. That lower share count bumped up first-quarter EPS by $0.14. It’s a mechanical boost to per-share results, but the company funded the buyback with debt, not extra cash.
Fin could see higher growth if more customers pick its agents across channels like chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, telephone and Slack. The deal price is about 25% of Salesforce’s most recent annual free cash flow, and is about three times current Agentforce ARR for scale. Fin’s revenue isn’t out there, so that’s not a real acquisition multiple. Deal set to close in Salesforce’s fiscal Q4, which ends January 2027.
KeyBanc’s Jackson Ader cut his rating, citing weak checks and customer feedback around Agentforce. “Our checks and customer conversations have not been strong, nor has the feedback been on Agentforce,” Ader said. On the other side, Chief Financial Officer Robin Washington said in May that Salesforce expects “organic revenue acceleration in the second half of FY27.” Investor’s Business Daily
The risks are clear. Fin and Informatica might take longer to combine, and customers might have trouble getting their data ready for autonomous agents. Debt cuts the margin for error if growth just stays in the high single digits. Interest expense jumped to $317 million in the first quarter, up from $68 million a year ago. If Salesforce can’t land better organic bookings, its discount to ServiceNow isn’t likely to narrow.
Salesforce is guiding for 10% to 11% revenue growth in its fiscal second quarter, and says over four percentage points of that will come from Informatica. For the stock to get a solid rerating, the company will likely need to prove Agentforce is driving up contracted revenue and organic sales, not just that deals like Informatica and buybacks are boosting the top line.
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