Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze, the customer engagement platform, for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value. It will pay $47.50 in cash for each share of Braze Class A common stock, the two companies announced on October 20, 2026. The deal still needs Braze shareholder approval and regulatory clearances, and Salesforce expects to close it in its fiscal year 2028.
The Salesforce-Braze deal in 20 seconds
- Price: $47.50 in cash per share, 58% above the pre-announcement close.
- Braze has about 2,770 customers, including Canva, Instacart, and Venmo.
- Its technology will strengthen Marketing Cloud and Agentforce.
- Closing is expected between February 2027 and January 2028.
The deal follows other recent Salesforce purchases: in the past few weeks, the company has announced the acquisitions of Loops for Tableau and of Listen Labs. This time the target is marketing: Braze competes directly with Marketing Cloud, and Braze’s own annual report names Salesforce, Adobe, Iterable, and Klaviyo among its competitors.
What Braze is and why Salesforce wants it
Braze, headquartered in New York with 15 offices across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, coordinates personalized campaigns and messages across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and other channels. Its architecture processes user behavior in real time through event streams and updates customer profiles instantly. The company says it handles trillions of messages and actions per year and has an AI product, BrazeAI, that decides the content, offer, channel, and timing of each send.
Salesforce says those capabilities will complement the four layers of its architecture: Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce, and SIForce. Within Customer 360, Braze would strengthen Marketing Cloud’s cross-channel personalization. The companies sum up the goal in three objectives: reacting to customer behavior in real time, delivering richer cross-channel and in-app experiences, and combining Braze’s AI decisions with Salesforce’s customer context and Agentforce agents. Salesforce frames it as part of its push into what it calls agentic marketing.
Patrick Stokes, President of Applications and Marketing at Salesforce, explains it this way: “Braze was built to turn real-time customer behavior into personalized engagement at scale.” Bill Magnuson, Braze’s CEO and co-founder, says “Salesforce shares our commitment to marketers” and that they will keep “building as Braze.” The announcement doesn’t detail what roles Magnuson and the other co-founder, Jon Hyman, will hold after closing, though it mentions they will bring their expertise to Marketing Cloud.
A 58% premium, but still below the IPO price
According to data compiled by StockTitan, the $47.50 price represents a 58% premium over Braze’s $30.04 close on October 19, 2026, the last session before the announcement, and 31% above its highest close of the prior 52 weeks. Even so, the price is 27% below the $65 at which Braze went public in November 2021. Braze, which trades on the Nasdaq, grew revenue 26% in the quarter ended July 31, 2026; Salesforce’s announcement doesn’t give revenue figures.
The same source, citing the deal documentation, notes the break-up fees: Salesforce would pay $300 million under certain scenarios, mainly if the deal falls through for regulatory or antitrust reasons, and Braze would pay $191.39 million if its board changes its recommendation or accepts a better offer. The co-founders and other shareholders, holding around 5.3% of the shares, have committed to vote in favor. The agreement’s outside date is October 19, 2027, extendable in 90-day increments if only regulatory approvals are pending.
Timeline, financing, and risks
Salesforce will pay in cash and says the acquisition doesn’t change its guidance for fiscal year 2027. It hasn’t given guidance for fiscal 2028 or updated its long-term targets. The company’s fiscal year 2028 runs from February 1, 2027, to January 31, 2028, so the deal won’t close before February 2027.
Until closing, the two companies remain independent. The announcement itself lists the usual risks: that shareholder or regulatory approvals aren’t obtained, that competing offers emerge, that the deal affects Braze’s workforce or customers, or that the integration doesn’t deliver the expected results. Braze will file a preliminary proxy statement with the SEC, the U.S. securities regulator, with the details for its shareholders.
As advisors, Salesforce used J.P. Morgan Securities and the law firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Covington & Burling. Braze used Qatalyst Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell.
FAQ
How much is Salesforce paying for Braze?
About $5.66 billion in enterprise value, at $47.50 in cash per Class A share.
When will the Braze acquisition close?
Salesforce expects to close it in its fiscal year 2028, which runs from February 2027 to January 2028, pending Braze shareholder approval and regulatory clearances.
What premium are Braze shareholders getting?
According to StockTitan, the price is 58% above Braze’s close on October 19, 2026, though still 27% below its 2021 IPO price.
Will the Braze brand disappear?
The announcement doesn’t say. Braze’s CEO says they will keep building “as Braze,” and Salesforce plans to integrate its technology into Marketing Cloud.
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