Cloudflare Shares Rise After Piper Sandler Recommends Buying the Stock

TLDR

• On April 15, 2026, Piper Sandler raised its rating on Cloudflare (NET) from Neutral to Overweight
• A new price target of $222 was set, above the current trading level of ~$178.65
• The stock climbed roughly 5% following the news during Wednesday afternoon trading
• Analysts forecast revenue of $2.79B in 2026 and $3.6B in 2027, with ~30% growth rates
• Cloudflare’s AI partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic were cited as key growth catalysts

(SeaPRwire) –   Piper Sandler lifted its rating on Cloudflare (NET) from Neutral to Overweight on Wednesday, pushing the stock up about 5% in afternoon trading.

Cloudflare, Inc., NET

The firm established a $222 price target, implying around 24% upside from the current level of $178.65.

This upgrade comes after a tough stretch for the stock: NET had dropped 15.4% over the prior week, which Piper Sandler identified as a buying opportunity.

Even with that recent dip, the stock is still up 64% over the past year.

The core reason for the upgrade is Cloudflare’s positioning across multiple growth vectors as defined by Piper Sandler — delivery, application security, networking-as-a-service, SASE, infrastructure, and AI-as-a-service.

Piper Sandler has long viewed Cloudflare as one of its top long-term investment stories, noting that the infrastructure landscape is shifting in ways that play directly to Cloudflare’s strengths.

Piper Sandler flagged early Q1 2026 indicators as solid, pointing to accelerating website growth, rising market share, and strong demand for security and networking products.

The firm expects Cloudflare to reaffirm its 2026 guidance in its next report.

AI Partnerships and Edge Computing Drive Outlook

A major part of the bull case for Cloudflare is its expanding role in AI infrastructure. Edge computing — which places AI processing closer to end users — is becoming a larger market segment, and Cloudflare is well-positioned to capture this opportunity.

The company has direct partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic, which analysts say positions it strongly as AI workloads grow across caching, security, and application delivery.

Piper Sandler described Cloudflare’s model as a “true platform strategy,” with strong large language model relationships expected to drive compounding growth.

Most recently, revenue growth hit 30% alongside a 75% gross profit margin — numbers that support the long-term thesis.

The firm projects revenue of approximately $2.79 billion in 2026, rising to $3.6B in 2027, with earnings per share increasing steadily over both years.

Recent Product Launches Add to the Story

Cloudflare has been active on the product front. The company recently launched Cloudflare Mesh, a private networking tool designed to connect AI agents and infrastructure without exposing internal systems to the public internet.

It also expanded its Agent Cloud platform to help developers build and deploy AI agents at scale, and introduced Dynamic Workers — an isolate-based runtime for rapid execution of AI-generated code.

A partnership with Wiz (part of Google Cloud) was announced to strengthen security for AI applications, giving security teams better tools to protect AI-powered workloads.

TD Cowen separately maintained its Buy rating on NET with a $265 price target, estimating 30% year-over-year revenue growth for Q1 2026.

Piper Sandler noted that Cloudflare’s valuation remains high relative to peers, and that sustaining growth in the high-20s for multiple years is a requirement, not just an aspiration.

RPO growth and coverage ratios are what give the firm confidence that Cloudflare can meet that benchmark.