AMPL · Amplitude, Inc. · Stock research

Current Thesis

The binary this name carried resolved on 2026-08-05. Q2 revenue came in at $100.9M against $98.165M consensus, ARR reached $410M (+22% YoY, versus +17% at the Q1 report on 2026-05-06), RPO grew 35% YoY to $483M, and both halves of the FY2026 guide moved up — revenue to $407.2–411.2M from $397–403M, non-GAAP operating income to $6.3–9.3M from $2.5–6.5M. Five price-target raises landed inside 48 hours: UBS, BTIG and Piper Sandler to $13 and DA Davidson to $12.5 on 2026-08-06, Citi to $11 on 2026-08-07. The narrative leg on offer is now concrete — a mid-teens-growth analytics vendor re-accelerating past 20% while turning free cash flow positive at a 24% margin. What the print did not deliver is the retention inflection the whole re-rate was underwritten on: dollar-based net retention printed 103% (105% pro forma) against management's stated 115% ambition. The 2026-08-07 close of $11.26 sits 10.6% below the trailing 52-week high of $12.60, and the highest published target on the tape is $13.

Bullish and bearish views on Amplitude, Inc.

The model's bull view on Amplitude, Inc. (AMPL), in brief: Q2 2026 (2026-08-05): revenue $100.9M, +21% YoY, the first $100M quarter, versus $98.165M consensus. The bear view: Net retention at 103% (105% pro forma) is barely expansionary and sits 12 points under the 115% target management has anchored to. Both cases follow in full.

Bull Case

• Q2 2026 (2026-08-05): revenue $100.9M, +21% YoY, the first $100M quarter, versus $98.165M consensus.
• ARR $410M, +22% YoY, against $374M and +17% at Q1 (2026-05-06). Statsig's disclosed ~$16M incremental ARR sits inside that sequential step; Q2 was the first quarter carrying it.
• RPO $483M, +35% YoY — contracted backlog compounding faster than reported revenue.
• Customers at or above $100k ARR: 824, +30% YoY from 634 a year earlier.
• Guidance raised on every line: FY2026 revenue $407.2–411.2M, non-GAAP operating income $6.3–9.3M, non-GAAP EPS $0.06–0.08 versus $0.05 consensus. Q3 revenue guided $105.6–108.0M against $102.581M consensus.
• Free cash flow $23.7M in Q2 (24% margin) versus $18.2M in the year-ago quarter; cash, equivalents and marketable securities $161.4M.
• The published target band moved roughly 30% in five weeks: Raymond James initiated Strong Buy with a $10 target on 2026-07-01, Piper Sandler went to $11 on 2026-07-21, and the post-print cluster settled at $12.5–$13 on 2026-08-06.
• Product story predates the print: Agentic AI Analytics launched 2026-02-16 with MCP connectors piping behavioural data into Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Figma, Notion and GitHub.

Bear Case

• Net retention at 103% (105% pro forma) is barely expansionary and sits 12 points under the 115% target management has anchored to. Per Investing.com's recap of the Q2 slides (2026-08-05), pro forma NRR was 104% in Q2 2025 — one point of movement in a year.
• The Statsig cohort flatters the headline: 105% pro forma versus 103% core. Renewal-cycle repricing of acquired customers is a 2027 question that Q2 did not answer.
• GAAP operating loss of $(35.2)M on $100.9M of revenue, versus a non-GAAP operating loss of $(1.5)M; GAAP EPS $(0.27) against non-GAAP $(0.01). Stock-based compensation is doing most of the work in the adjusted numbers.
• Room to published targets is thin. The $13 high target is about 15% above the 2026-08-07 close of $11.26, and Citi's $11 target (2026-08-07) is below that close while the rating stays Neutral. The Street remains split after a beat-and-raise.
• The three-month return is +76.2% into a quarter with no scheduled company catalyst behind it — the next dated hard number is roughly three months out.
• Non-GAAP operating income of $6.3–9.3M on $407.2–411.2M of FY revenue leaves almost no cushion; a single quarter of hiring or integration spend erases the margin story that funded half the re-rate.

Setup & Price Structure

• Life-cycle: MATURING. Coverage went from a single fresh initiation (Raymond James, 2026-07-01) to at least six named targets by 2026-08-07, with five of the raises stacked into 48 hours around the print. The fundamental leg is still working — the guide went up — but the $11–$13 target band now brackets spot, which removes the mechanical "chase the upgrade to target" bid that drove late June and July. RSI(14) at 62.9 on 2026-08-07 is not stretched; the flow moderation shows in the 10.6% distance below the 52-week high, not in momentum exhaustion.
• The structural gate named earlier in this coverage has been cleared. The 200-day sat at $10.34 in mid-July with the stock pressing it from below near $9.63 (2026-07-17); the 2026-08-07 close of $11.26 is above it.
• Underneath sits the July consolidation of roughly $8.30–$9.65, built on the gap from ~$7.65 to ~$9 around 2026-06-30/07-01. That band is what price re-enters if the post-print structure fails.
• Crowding observables, stated as observables: +76.2% over three months; five target raises within two sessions; a target ceiling ~15% above the last close; no confirmed dated company event inside the next 30 days.
• Insider record: CTO Curtis Liu sold 22,201 Class A shares on 2026-06-01 at roughly $8.03 under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 2025-11-26; Both pre-scheduled, both priced far below the current market. No post-print discretionary open-market sale appears on the record as of 2026-08-09.

Catalyst Calendar (next 30 days)

• 2026-08-09 to 2026-09-08: no confirmed company-dated event. The Q2 print (2026-08-05) and the accompanying 10-Q for the period ended 2026-06-30 are already public. The window is a news vacuum in which price trades on sell-side revisions and software-group beta.
• ~2026-09-04 (est., unconfirmed): conference season. Amplitude presented at the Citi Global TMT Conference on 2025-09-04 and the Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference on 2025-09-11; the 2026 slate had not been announced as of 2026-08-09. Treat these as pattern, not schedule.
• ~2026-11-04 (est.): Q3 2026 print, extrapolating from Q1 on 2026-05-06 and Q2 on 2026-08-05. This is the next hard test of whether NRR moves off 103% and whether the raised FY guide holds.

What Would Change Our Mind

The structure that changed the read is the 200-day reclaim — $10.34 in mid-July, cleared by the 2026-08-07 close at $11.26. Giving it back is what breaks the frame: a weekly close below $10.30 returns price into the July $8.30–$9.65 consolidation and re-labels the post-print advance a failed breakout rather than a base. On fundamentals, net retention printing under 103% at the Q3 report (~2026-11-04, est.), or any trim to the raised FY revenue guide of $407.2–411.2M, removes the acceleration that produced the 2026-08-06 target moves. A third condition is about participation rather than price: if the coverage cluster stops publishing targets above $13 while the stock stalls in the $11–$12.60 zone, the theme reads SATURATED and the incremental bid is thin regardless of what the P&L does. In the other direction, a hold above the $12.60 zone paired with net retention moving toward 110% at Q3 would extend the leg rather than end it.

Correlation Notes

• High-beta small/mid-cap software: the name trades with the IGV/WCLD-type complex and with rate expectations. A broad multiple compression in growth software would override company-specific news; the market capitalisation was about $1.0B at $8.35 per the 2026-06-30 session recap, small enough that a single broker's target change moves the quote.
• Read-across candidates for demand signals are the product-analytics and marketing-data cohort — Braze, Sprout Social, Klaviyo, Datadog — whose prints land before Amplitude's ~2026-11-04 report and set the group's expectation for net retention.
• AI-lab headlines carry sentiment spillover through the Statsig link: OpenAI paid $1.1B for Statsig and retained the engineering team, while Amplitude took brand, customers and code (announced 2026-05-05). Coverage of OpenAI's tooling roadmap will be read as a signal about that asset regardless of what Amplitude reports.