Salesforce to buy Braze, the app messaging firm, for $5.66 billion

Salesforce plans to buy Braze, a New York company that helps brands decide what message to send you, when to send it and where, for $5.66 billion. The deal was announced Oct. 20. If it goes through, the emails, app alerts and offers from big brands may be timed and tailored by AI more closely to what you browse and buy.

What Braze does

Braze makes software for personalized marketing across mobile apps, websites, email and other digital channels. It uses live customer data and AI to pick the message, the timing and the channel. It serves about 2,770 customers, including Urban Outfitters, Instacart and Canva. Co-founder Jon Hyman wrote that its customers reach 9 billion monthly active users, and that Braze handled about 4.5 trillion messages and other actions in 2025.

The deal terms

• Braze shareholders would get $47.50 per share in cash.
• That is about 58% above the stock's Oct. 19 closing price.
• Closing is expected between Feb. 1, 2027 and Jan. 31, 2028.
• Shareholders and regulators still have to approve it.

Salesforce said the deal should not affect its fiscal 2027 financial guidance. Braze CEO and co-founder Bill Magnuson said he would remain CEO and the company would keep operating as Braze.

Why Salesforce wants it

Salesforce sells software for sales, marketing, commerce and customer service. Marketing Cloud is the tool businesses use to manage campaigns. An analyst told Reuters that Braze gives Salesforce "a real-time engagement layer that its marketing business has historically lacked." Salesforce also expects Braze's AI to work alongside Agentforce, its platform for AI agents that can make decisions and carry out tasks.

Braze's AI tools, called BrazeAI, can anticipate customer behavior, write marketing content and choose when, where and how to reach shoppers, according to Braze.

What it could mean for shoppers and stores

Salesforce said that with its customer data, Braze could help marketers adapt as people browse, buy and use products. Digital Commerce 360 data shows 78 of the Top 2000 North American online retailers use Salesforce for ecommerce. Together they made more than $192.60 billion in web sales in 2025.

Braze case studies show what the tools can do. Grove Collaborative reported a 10% checkout rate on a reminder campaign for shoppers who browsed without buying. E.l.f. Beauty saw monthly app usage rise 125% between March and September 2023. These are Braze's own figures.

The bigger picture

Salesforce is growing its AI business through its own development and through deals. In its fiscal second quarter, Agentforce annual recurring revenue passed $1.5 billion, up 240% from a year earlier. In September it completed a $3.6 billion deal for Fin, which makes AI agents for customer service, and bought Contentful for roughly $1.5 billion. The material does not say how shoppers will see changes in their messages, or when.