What Did Cloudflare Stock Investors Miss Before The Run? Trefis Team Thu, November 12, 2026 at 10:13 AM EST 3 min read NET -0.68% ^GSPC -0.16% AKAM -0.99% ZS -3.40% PANW -5.15% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.
Cloudflare (NET) stock rose 63.5% between May 13 and November 11, 2026, outpacing the 2.9% gain for the S&P 500. Sales growth accelerated during those months, and management credited its Workers Developer Platform and AI agent workloads across its network. The run appears surprising only if the AI demand behind Workers remained hidden until May. So when did AI demand for Workers first show up?
Cloudflare Tied Workers To AI In Early 2025
Management made this connection out loud on the call for the fourth quarter of 2024, held on February 6, 2025: "The killer application for Cloudflare Workers is turning out to be AI." On the same call, management said Workers could become the first choice for developers seeking the best price for performance. That statement arrived more than a year before the six months measured here.
On November 17, 2025, Cloudflare agreed to acquire Replicate, an AI platform that helps developers deploy and run AI models. So by late 2025, the company was putting money, not just words, behind AI for developers.
Did Cloudflare's Filed Quarters Show Faster Growth?
Yes, for three quarters in a row. Revenue growth against a year earlier rose from 26.5% in the quarter ended March 2025 to 33.6% in the quarter ended December 2025, and each quarter in between was faster than the one before. All of those quarters were filed before May 13, 2026.
The release for the December quarter, published on February 10, 2026, added a sign about new business. Cloudflare said it had closed its biggest contract ever by yearly value, averaging $42.5 million a year. The company also said new annual contract value grew nearly 50% from a year earlier. Then growth paused: revenue rose 33.5% in the quarter ended March 2026, roughly matching the pace of the quarter before.
What Had Changed At Cloudflare By November?
Growth had sped up again. Revenue rose 39.2% from a year earlier in the quarter ended September 2026. This pace came well above the March quarter's rate, and it represented growth across the entire company rather than a single product line. Peers did not move as one group during the same six months: Palo Alto Networks gained 46.8%, while Akamai Technologies fell 46.2%.
The 63.5% gain came after a fall. Every one of the signs from 2025 and early 2026 was public by May 13, and in the six months before that date Cloudflare stock fell 14.6%. So reading the signs early meant holding through that fall before the figures sped up again.
Is Cloudflare's Growth Still Speeding Up?
Yes, through the quarter ended September 2026. Revenue grew 35.9% in the quarter ended June 2026, between the March and September rates, so growth has risen since the March quarter. Existing customers are spending more as well: dollar-based net retention, what existing customers spend now against a year earlier, was 122% in the September quarter, up from 119% a year before.
Management still ties that growth to Workers and AI agents, as it did in early 2025. Its forecast is for fourth-quarter revenue to grow 38%, against 39% in the third quarter by its own count, so management expects growth to slow slightly rather than climb again. Revenue growth in Cloudflare's fourth-quarter report, expected in February 2027, is the number to watch.
Want Income To Go With Your Growth Stocks?
Growth stocks pay off mostly when you sell. Dividend stocks pay you along the way. The Trefis Income Solution owns 50 of them, each with at least 10 straight years of dividends, yielding about 3x the S&P 500.
Spot an error or want more like this? Tell us in 10 seconds.
