ServiceNow (NOW) Q2‘26: beats and raises are back??!

Research evidence excerpt

ServiceNow (NOW) Q2‘26: beats and raises are back??!

23 July 2026

Estimate Change

Peter Weed

+1 917 344 8390

U.S. SMID-Cap Software peter.weed@bernsteinsg.com

ServiceNow Inc Luwei Yang

+1 917 344 8342

Rating luwei.yang@bernsteinsg.com

Outperform

Price Target

NOW 248.00 USD (236.00 OLD)

ServiceNow (NOW) Q2'26: beats and raises are back?!?

ServiceNow’s Q2’26 provided a much-needed relief relative to Q1 earnings on a few

Close Date 22 Jul 2026

dimensions — Q1 left some investors worrying about the beat/raise cadence, the strength of

NOW Close Price (USD) 95.46

core demand, inorganic driven growth, and perceived low Q2 organic cRPO guide. Instead,

Price Target (USD) 248.00

Q2 delivered a strong 230bps CC Subscription Revenue beat vs. guide. A portion of that

Upside/(Downside) 160%

beat came from on-premise early renewals (driven by urgency / demand for AI control tower

52-Week Range 210.20/81.24

and AI and Risk products), which have a smaller FY raise impact (as it just time shifted from

SPX 7,498.96

Q3), but the remainder was a clean ratable ACV beat that was read through as a raise to

FYE Dec

the FY guide. In addition, Q3 cRPO guide was another strong QoQ increase and no longer

Div Yield NA

has inorganic questions embedded within it, but the overall Q3 revenue guide is ~100bps

Market Cap (USD) (M) 98,419

lighter than it would have been otherwise given the pull-forward of the on-premise renewals

EV (USD) (M) 95,668

into Q2. Management emphasized they are keeping a conservative H2 guide, but demand

remains strong, and this makes them confident they can keep delivering a beat/raise. Performance YTD 1M 6M 12M

Absolute (%) (37.7) 2.6 (25.7) (50.4)

Intra-quarter “noise” about customers was partially handled, partially an open SPX (%) 9.5 0.4 8.5 18.8

question.