To The Moon

$CoreWeave, Inc.(CRWV)$Earnings Call Insights: CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV) Q3 2026

Management view

• "CoreWeave delivered an exceptional third quarter. Revenue is growing rapidly. Margins are rising faster than planned. Customer demand remains extremely strong, and our newest contracts are among the most profitable we have ever underwritten." (Co-founder, President, CEO & Chairman Michael Intrator)

• "Revenue reached $3.7 billion, up 168% year-over-year and above the high end of our guidance" and "Adjusted operating income reached $379 million, well above our $200 million to $260 million guidance." (CEO Intrator)

• "At the end of Q3, our weighted average cost of debt across our entire business was 7.9%, down 250 basis points year-over-year" and "we will not use the unsecured debt market to fund our business at current yields nor do we need to." (CEO Intrator)

• "In the next 3 months alone, we will collect approximately $9 billion in prepayments and deposits from signed customer contracts" and "In July, we increased pricing across SKUs by approximately 25%, followed by another 10% increase later in the quarter." (CEO Intrator)

• "Our managed inference platform launched earlier this year has already exceeded $250 million of booked ARR." (CFO & Treasurer Nitin Agrawal)

Outlook

• "We... raise our full year 2026 revenue guidance to $13 billion to $13.3 billion and adjusted operating income guidance to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion" and "we expect to exit 2026 with annualized run rate revenue of $20 billion to $21 billion." (CFO Agrawal)

• "We expect CapEx of $37 billion to $39 billion" and "For the fourth quarter, we expect interest expense of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion." (CFO Agrawal)

• "Looking ahead, we expect adjusted net loss to reduce meaningfully in 2027 and to become adjusted net income positive in the first half of 2028 and for the full year 2028." (CFO Agrawal)

• Compared with last quarter’s guidance language, management reiterated flexibility on spend, saying, "we retain flexibility in how quickly we execute our growth plan" and "This means we have levers to control our CapEx." (CFO Agrawal)

Financial results

• "Revenue was $3.7 billion" and "Revenue backlog ended the quarter at approximately $133 billion." (CFO Agrawal)

• "Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 was $2.3 billion" and "This strong performance translated into $2 billion of operating cash flow in Q3." (CFO Agrawal)

• "Net loss for Q3 was $709 million" and "Interest expense for Q3 was $846 million." (CFO Agrawal)

• "CapEx totaled $14.5 billion in Q3, above the high end of our guided range" and "As of September 30, we had $6.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities." (CFO Agrawal)

Q&A

• Gabriela Borges, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division: "walk us through the implications for the CoreWeave model if and when the industry gets into a period of normalized or oversupply." CEO Intrator: "the demand for compute is growing faster than the capacity to deliver that infrastructure" and "We are largely sold out through 2027." CFO Agrawal added: "Pricing for long-dated customer contracts is going up to $20 million to $25 million per megawatt... And for shorter duration contracts, it's up to as high as up to $40 million per megawatt."

• Borges, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division: asked about cost risk between contract pricing and later deployment costs. CFO Agrawal: "As we sign customer contracts, we also place the corresponding POs and lock in the pricing" and "we've already identified the data centers in which those customer contracts will land."

• Brad Zelnick, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: asked how credit-market concerns impact contracting beyond 2027. CEO Intrator: "we haven't brought 2028 to market because we are waiting for that to season further" and "we're not getting out too far on the curve... we're trying to coordinate our road map for capacity with the road map of the clients."

• Samik Chatterjee, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division: asked what’s driving margin upside and the role of short-term contracts. CFO Agrawal: "All 3 of those vectors contributed" (execution, demand/pricing, premium products). CEO Intrator: "We really like the stability associated with the long-term contracts" and "we really like the margin additions that come with the short-term contracts."

• Benjamin Reitzes, Melius Research LLC: asked about Texas exposure and confidence on timing. CEO Intrator: "the overwhelming majority of our power is either online or fully permitted and under construction."

• Amit Daryanani, Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division: asked about returns and mix for short-term capacity. CFO Agrawal: short-term contracts "pay back CapEx... 6 to 18 months" while long-dated contracts pay back hardware CapEx "1 to 2 years" at current pricing; CEO Intrator tied future short-term monetization to fleet roll-offs: "130,000 GPUs are coming off contract in 2027" and "an additional 170,000 are coming off contract in 2028."

Sentiment analysis

• Analysts’ tone was slightly negative to neutral around macro, credit, and regulatory uncertainty, with questions citing "a wall of new supply," "concerns in credit markets," and "regulatory pressures." (Borges, Zelnick, Chatterjee)

• Management tone in prepared remarks was positive and confident, emphasizing "exceptional" performance and funding resilience, including "we will not use the unsecured debt market... nor do we need to" and "We are confident in our ability to deliver." (CEO Intrator)

• Compared with last quarter, management leaned more into capital-market selectivity and prepayments, with Q3 highlighting "approximately $9 billion" near-term prepayments and a stated intent not to issue additional parent-level unsecured debt "through 2027." (CEO Intrator; CFO Agrawal)

Quarter-over-quarter comparison

• Q3 emphasized faster-than-expected margin progression, with "margins moving into the low double digits a quarter earlier than planned" and adjusted operating margin "exceeded 10%" vs. Q2’s margin framework that "margins... continue to sequentially expand reaching low teens in Q4." (CEO Intrator; Q2 CFO Agrawal)

• Q3 introduced more explicit pricing step-ups, noting "approximately 25%" SKU price increases and a subsequent "another 10%" increase, while Q2 referenced "our July pricing changes" and "an approximately 25% increase across SKUs" as upcoming impact. (CEO Intrator; Q2 CFO Agrawal)

• Q3 placed greater weight on recontracting and paid-off fleet economics, including "recontracting at premiums" and renewal math tied to 2027/2028 GPU roll-offs; Q2 discussed renewals more as emerging upside, saying "the upside of recontracting is real" and citing an "A100 contract that extends into 2029." (CEO Intrator; Q2 CFO Agrawal)

Risks and concerns

• "We recognize we are operating in a dynamic macro environment" and funding sensitivity to yields was addressed with "we do not intend to issue additional parent-level unsecured debt through 2027." (CFO Agrawal)

• Industry supply risk was debated, but management argued demand is outpacing supply, saying "the demand for compute is growing faster than the capacity to deliver that infrastructure." (CEO Intrator)

• Regulatory risk was raised, with management stating, "We do not anticipate any impact" and "we do not see material risks to our 2027 deliveries based on ongoing construction at fully permitted sites." (CEO Intrator)

Final takeaway

Management described Q3 as a step-change quarter, citing $3.7B revenue, $379M adjusted operating income, and double-digit adjusted operating margins ahead of plan, alongside a higher 2026 outlook of $13.0B-$13.3B revenue and $1.275B-$1.375B adjusted operating income. Leadership emphasized pricing power (including two in-year SKU price increases), heavy use of secured asset-level financing and customer prepayments (about $9B expected in the next three months), and increasing optionality from a paid-off fleet with sizable GPU roll-offs in 2027 and 2028 that management framed as incremental revenue opportunities without additional CapEx.