Salesforce Agrees to Buy Braze for $5.66 Billion, and Braze Stock Soars 52%: How the $47.50 Cash Deal Works

An all-cash takeover lifted Braze shareholders overnight, and the small gap left between the stock and the offer shows what traders think about the deal's odds.

What did Salesforce agree to buy?

Salesforce (CRM) agreed on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, to buy Braze (BRZE), a maker of customer-engagement marketing software, for $47.50 a share in cash. The deal has an enterprise value of about $5.66 billion. Braze shares jumped 51.7% to close at $45.57, while Salesforce stock ended roughly flat.

The announcement says the $5.66 billion figure is enterprise value, a measure of a company's total worth that adds debt and subtracts cash from its stock market value. The merger agreement, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is dated Oct. 19.

The offer is about 58% above Braze's Monday closing price of roughly $30.04, according to InsideArbitrage and Fast Company. A premium is the extra amount a buyer pays over the current share price to win approval from the target company's owners.

What does Braze do, and why does Salesforce want it?

Braze, founded in 2011 and based in New York, helps brands send personalized messages through apps, email, text and websites based on what customers are doing in real time. It went public in 2021 and serves about 2,770 customers, including Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo, according to the announcement.

Salesforce said Braze's real-time engagement and AI decision-making tools should strengthen its Marketing Cloud and connect with its Data 360, Customer 360 and Agentforce products. Agentforce is Salesforce's platform for AI "agents" that can handle tasks for businesses. "Braze was built to turn live customer behavior into personalized engagement at scale," said Patrick Stokes, Salesforce's president of applications and marketing.