Sep 8, 2026 earnings call — AI adoption and product-led growth
Braze reported revenue of $227 million and raised Q3 and full-year revenue guidance.
Revenue $0.2B (est $0.2B) · EPS $0.19 (est $0.16) · Next-quarter revenue outlook $0.2B–$0.2B
Key quotes
"While AI monetization is still early, enterprise customers are realizing ROI using our solutions and adoption is accelerating."
"For a marketer, the Harness has a much simpler purpose. It's what closes the gap between having a great idea and being able to ship it."
"We ended the quarter with approximately $414 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities."
Analyst Q&A 8
AI agents unlocking features
Q (Ryan MacWilliams · Wells Fargo): How can more powerful AI models and agents unlock new Braze use cases? Also, which customers or products might drive near-term AI revenue and adoption?
A: Management said Operator integrates deeply with Braze features and customer data, letting customers build multistep campaigns faster and more easily. They see rapid, habit-forming adoption of Operator and expect it to drive instant product-led growth and faster monetization of new AI features.
"When Operator runs, it has a deep understanding of all the features available to it in its development environment, similar to how Cursor would integrate with an entire IDE." — William Magnuson (CEO)
cRPO and bookings mix
Q (David Hynes · Canaccord): Why did cRPO moderate this quarter despite healthy dollar-based net retention? How much was seasonality versus bookings mix or the OfferFit acquisition? Also, how meaningful can the AWS partnership be for pipeline?
A: Management said seasonality is a key factor: Q4 and Q1 are their largest renewal quarters, and they also lapped the OfferFit acquisition in the quarter. They described strong bookings, durable sales productivity, diverse upsell motions, and expect formalized AWS alignment to accelerate marketplace growth on top of recent foundation work.
"Q4 and Q1 are always our largest renewal quarters." — William Magnuson (CEO)
AI spending and customer budget concerns
Q (Raimo Lenschow · Barclays): Are you seeing AI crowd out other spending or slow pipeline? Are customers cost conscious when adopting AI, and how does Braze address that? Also, why was operating profitability better this quarter but guidance slightly below consensus?
A: Management said customers are cost conscious and do calculations before scaling AI, so Braze built controls (Agent Console, billing, observability) to help manage costs and compliance. On profitability, they cited Forge timing and hiring new sales capacity as reasons for investment into the back half while still raising full-year operating income margin guidance.
"We actually think that it's a critical component of the Harness." — William Magnuson (CEO)
Decisioning Studio and OfferFit pricing
Q (Scott Berg · Needham): Is OfferFit still delivering the expected ASP uplift, and how will Decisioning Studio Go change pricing and adoption?
A: Management said the acquisition's price range remains about $250,000 to $300,000 and that pricing power has held. They said Decisioning Studio Go will be a lower-price, self-serve option paid with action credits, offering faster deployment but less flexibility than the Pro version, and both price points will serve different customer needs.
"The use case price range that we talked about around the acquisition is around $250,000 to $300,000, I believe." — William Magnuson (CEO)
Which customers adopt AI and ProServ mix
Q (Brian Peterson · Raymond James): Which customer types or industries are adopting AI first, and how big was the shift of customer success revenue to professional services? What are ProServ growth expectations?
A: Management said larger teams adopt Operator earlier because of complex builds, but adoption is trending toward universal use and they expect broad uptake in the next quarter or two. Pankaj said professional services will contribute about 9% to 10% going forward, migration to new packages is about 50% complete, and about 80% of the remaining customers should migrate over the next 6 quarters.
"I'd expect that the professional services contribution is going to range between 9% to 10% moving forward." — Pankaj Malik (CFO)
DBNR outlook and gross margins
Q (J. Lane · Stifel): Can new AI capabilities help maintain or raise the 110% DBNR rate? And do you have capacity for Decisioning Studio demand and how will that affect gross margins?
A: Management said they expect room for customer growth as more customers adopt more channels and invoke AI in send flows, and they track AI-invoked sends as a North Star metric. They said Decisioning Studio Go reduces services needs, hiring and productivity improvements are underway, and while gross margin has seasonality (lower in holiday quarter), BrazeAI product family and optimizations provide accretive gross-margin benefits.
"That's a number that is growing rapidly, and it's something that we're going to continue to keep as a North Star for the coming years." — William Magnuson (CEO)
Customer mix and large deals
Q (James Wood · TD Cowen): How are you balancing enterprise versus mid-market targeting, and how is 7-figure deal activity and large-deal pipeline looking into H2?
A: Management said they are focused on accelerating growth in the $500,000-plus customer cohort and see strong differentiation for complex, larger customers. They noted enterprise seasonality with Q4 typically strong for $1 million-plus deals, and they cited a strong pipeline heading into the back half and expectations that Forge will accelerate pipeline.
"we've been really excited about the continued growth potential and acceleration in the $500,000-plus customer cohort." — William Magnuson (CEO)
AI in RFPs and DIY alternatives
Q (Arjun Bhatia · William Blair): How often does AI come up in RFPs and deal cycles, and how often do customers consider building their own AI versus buying?
A: Management said AI is in every RFP and deal cycle, and Braze can shine because it delivers end-to-end marketer productivity, decisioning, Agent Console, and QA features like Agentic Standards. They also said while build-versus-buy persists, most customers choose Braze as their AI investment and Braze supports a spectrum from DIY infrastructure to full managed solutions.
"it is in every single RFP, and it is a focus area in every single deal cycle." — William Magnuson (CEO)