Cybersecurity cloud platform provider Qualys (NASDAQ: QLYS) reported Q2 CY2026 results beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations, with sales up 11% year on year to $182.2 million. Guidance for next quarter’s revenue was optimistic at $186.5 million at the midpoint, 2.1% above analysts’ estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.98 per share was 10.9% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
Is now the time to buy Qualys? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.
Qualys (QLYS) Q2 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $182.2 million vs analyst estimates of $178.6 million (11% year-on-year growth, 2% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $1.98 vs analyst estimates of $1.78 (10.9% beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $83.8 million vs analyst estimates of $77.45 million (46% margin, 8.2% beat)
- The company lifted its revenue guidance for the full year to $735 million at the midpoint from $724 million, a 1.5% increase
- Management raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $7.81 at the midpoint, a 3.5% increase
- Operating Margin: 34%, up from 31.3% in the same quarter last year
- Billings: $176.5 million at quarter end, up 18.1% year on year
- Market Capitalization: $5.45 billion
"In Q2, we continued to execute well, demonstrated by another quarter of solid revenue growth and profitability," said Sumedh Thakar, Qualys' president and CEO.
Company Overview
Originally developed to address the growing complexity of IT security in the cloud era, Qualys (NASDAQ: QLYS) provides a cloud-based platform that helps organizations identify, manage, and protect their IT assets from cyber threats across on-premises, cloud, and mobile environments.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Over the last five years, Qualys grew its sales at a 12.8% annual rate. Though this growth is acceptable on an absolute basis, we need to see more than just topline growth for the software sector, which can display significant earnings volatility. This means our bar for the sector is particularly high, reflecting the non-essential and hit-driven nature of the products and services offered. Additionally, five-year CAGR starts around Covid, when revenue was depressed then rebounded.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within software, a half-decade historical view may miss recent innovations or disruptive industry trends. Qualys’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its annualized revenue growth of 10% over the last two years was below its five-year trend. We’re wary when companies in the sector see decelerations in revenue growth, as it could signal changing consumer tastes aided by low switching costs. 
This quarter, Qualys reported year-on-year revenue growth of 11%, and its $182.2 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 2%. Company management is currently guiding for a 9.8% year-on-year increase in sales next quarter.
Looking further ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 6.7% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last two years. This projection doesn’t excite us and indicates its products and services will face some demand challenges.
ONE MORE THING: 3 Hidden Platforms Growing 3X Faster than Amazon, Google, and PayPal. Amazon, Google, and Meta all followed the same playbook: Dominate an ignored market. Build an unbeatable moat. Scale until you’re unstoppable.
These three platforms are running that exact playbook right now. The early investors in Amazon made fortunes. The early investors in these could do the same. Get All 3 Stocks Here for FREE.
Billings
Billings is a non-GAAP metric that is often called “cash revenue” because it shows how much money the company has collected from customers in a certain period. This is different from revenue, which must be recognized in pieces over the length of a contract.
Qualys’s billings came in at $176.5 million in Q2, and over the last four quarters, its growth was underwhelming as it averaged 11.7% year-on-year increases. This performance mirrored its total sales and suggests that increasing competition is causing challenges in acquiring/retaining customers. 
Customer Acquisition Efficiency
The customer acquisition cost (CAC) payback period measures the months a company needs to recoup the money spent on acquiring a new customer. This metric helps assess how quickly a business can break even on its sales and marketing investments.
It’s very expensive for Qualys to acquire new customers as its CAC payback period checked in at 117.3 months this quarter. The company’s slow recovery of its sales and marketing expenses indicates it operates in a highly competitive market and must invest to stand out, even if the return on that investment is low.
Key Takeaways from Qualys’s Q2 Results
We were impressed by how significantly Qualys blew past analysts’ billings expectations this quarter. We were also excited its adjusted operating income outperformed Wall Street’s estimates by a wide margin. Zooming out, we think this was a good print with some key areas of upside. The stock traded up 10% to $177.50 immediately following the results.
Qualys put up rock-solid earnings, but one quarter doesn’t necessarily make the stock a buy. Let’s see if this is a good investment. When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
