Cloudflare shares surge as revenue growth accelerates to 39% and outlook rises

Shares in Cloudflare Inc. jumped more than 14% in late trading today after the connectivity cloud company smashed third-quarter expectations and lifted its full-year outlook well above what Wall Street had been modeling. The gain more than wiped out an 8% fall in the stock during the regular session.

For the quarter ended on Sept. 30, Cloudflare reported adjusted earnings per share of 38 cents, up from 27 cents in the same quarter of 2025, on revenue of $782.5 million, up 39% year-over-year. Analysts were expecting earnings of 34 cents per share on revenue of $736.8 million.

Revenue growth hit its fastest pace in nearly four years as the annualized run rate crossed $3 billion. Current remaining performance obligations rose 37% from a year earlier. The adjusted operating margin also improved, to 17.5% from 15.3%, after shrinking year-over-year in each of the two prior quarters.

Because stock-based compensation ran to $174.1 million, Cloudflare still lost $34.1 million on an unadjusted basis, compared with a $1.3 million loss a year earlier. Another $11 million went to restructuring from the roughly 1,100 job cuts announced in May. Free cash flow slipped to 10% of revenue from 13% a year ago.

On the product side, short-lived blocking rules that write themselves during a live attack are the core of Adaptive Intelligence, which Cloudflare added to its Bot Management product in late August. AI agents got tools of their own earlier in the month through Cloudflare Wallets and cloudflare.pay, which give an agent an identity handle and will let it pay for services from a stablecoin balance. Federal agencies can now put more sensitive workloads on Cloudflare for Government, which reached FedRAMP High status in August.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Matthew Prince called the period “Cloudflare’s best quarter ever” in the earnings release. Cloudflare has built the development platform for the AI-powered internet, and organizations of every size keep turning to it for protection as digital threats escalate, he said. Prince added that the business has “found an even higher gear for this next phase of growth.”

Cloudflare also named Christian Smith president of revenue today, with responsibility for worldwide sales and revenue operations. He replaces Mark Anderson, who had already said he would retire from the full-time role at year-end. Smith previously ran sales at Splunk Inc. as chief revenue officer.

For the fourth quarter, Cloudflare expects adjusted earnings of 43 cents per share on revenue of $845 million to $846 million. Analysts had forecast 38 cents per share on revenue of $798.2 million.

Cloudflare now expects 2026 revenue of $2.963 billion to $2.964 billion, about $97 million above the midpoint of the range it gave in August. Analysts had been looking for $2.87 billion in revenue and $1.26 in adjusted earnings per share for the year, and the company is now guiding to $1.35.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.

• 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
• 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network

Are you an AWS customer? Support SiliconANGLE financially by buying your AWS services from our Marketplace portal page and links: https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/

About SiliconANGLE Media

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.