Cheap Salesforce Vs. Expensive ServiceNow: Which Stock Is A Better Buy Today?
Cheap Salesforce Vs. Expensive ServiceNow: Which Stock Is A Better Buy Today?
Vandita JadejaFri, April 24, 2026 at 3:04 PM UTC
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24/7 Wall St.Quick Read -
Salesforce (CRM) reported $41.5B fiscal 2026 revenue with Agentforce ARR hitting $800M and closed 29,000 deals (up 50% QoQ).
ServiceNow (NOW) grew subscription revenue 21% YoY with Now Assist ACV doubling and 244 deals above $1M. Both beat earnings but stocks fell anyway.
Salesforce screens cheaper at a 14x forward PE versus ServiceNow’s 25x multiple, with stronger free cash flow of $14.4B and a $50B buyback, while ServiceNow faces margin headwinds from self-hosted to hosted mix shift and integration risks from recent acquisitions.
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Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) and ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) just closed earnings cycles that put their agentic AI strategies on full display. Salesforce wrapped fiscal 2026 with $41.5 billion in revenue and an $800 million Agentforce ARR line.
ServiceNow closed calendar 2025 with 20.88% annual revenue growth and a Now Assist franchise racing toward a $1 billion ACV target. Both beat. Both stocks sold off anyway.
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Agentforce Scales Fast. Now Assist Doubles Faster.
Salesforce posted Q4 EPS of $3.81 versus a $3.05 estimate on revenue of $11.20 billion, up 12.1% YoY. Agentforce closed 29,000 deals (up 50% QoQ), and the combined Agentforce plus Data Cloud ARR hit $2.90 billion, up over 200% YoY. Total RPO reached $72.40 billion.
ServiceNow countered with Q4 EPS of $0.92 versus $0.89 and revenue of $3.57 billion, up 20.66% YoY. Subscription revenue climbed to $3.47 billion (21%), and cRPO grew to $12.85 billion (25% YoY). Large-deal momentum was the headline: 244 transactions above $1 million in net new ACV. Bill McDermott's pitch: "There is no AI company in the enterprise better positioned for sustainable profitable revenue growth than ServiceNow."
Business Driver
Salesforce
ServiceNow
Q4 revenue growth
+12.1%
+20.7%
AI growth engine
Agentforce $800M ARR
Now Assist ACV doubled YoY
Core customer base
Sales, service, marketing
IT, workflows, security
salesforce.comCash Machine vs. Control Tower Builder
Salesforce is using the Informatica acquisition, which contributed $399 million to Q4 revenue, to build a data backbone under Agentforce. A $50 billion buyback and a raised $63 billion FY30 revenue target tell you where Benioff's head is.
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ServiceNow is sprinting sideways. Moveworks closed in December 2025. The pending Armis deal is expected to triple the security TAM, and Veza plugs in identity security. Add a $5 billion buyback authorization, a planned $2 billion accelerated repurchase, and a five-for-one stock split.
CRM trades at a forward PE of 14. NOW sits at 25. Year-to-date, CRM is off 34.41%, and NOW has dropped 44.66%.
The Next Test Is Margin Discipline
I will watch whether Salesforce delivers its guided FY27 non-GAAP operating margin of 34.3% alongside organic re-acceleration in H2. On the NOW side, the 150 bps Q1 FY26 headwind from self-hosted to hosted mix shift and subscription gross margin compression to 82.5% are real.
Sundry Photography / iStock Editorial via Getty ImagesWhy Salesforce Screens Better Today
On the numbers this week, Salesforce screens more favorably. FY26 free cash flow of $14.4 billion, a 14x forward PE, and that $50 billion buyback give me a margin of safety NOW's richer multiple does not.
ServiceNow still grows faster, and the acquisition spree could pay off. Integrating Moveworks, Armis, and Veza carries execution risk, though, and the stock's 17.75% single-session drop says expectations remain unsettled. A turnaround-seeking investor might prefer that variance. On scale, cash generation, and a cheaper multiple, CRM carries the stronger quantitative profile this quarter.
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Source: “AOL Money”
