Jim Cramer is not telling you to get out of ServiceNow. He is telling you to get smarter about how much of it you own.
I want you to sell half and then let the rest run.
Cramer said that during the Aug. 25 Mad Money Lightning Round, when a caller asked about ServiceNow (NOW).
Twelve words that carry a specific message about position management. It is worth unpacking for any investor sitting on gains from the April low.
NOW hit its all-time high of $239.62 on Jan. 27, 2025. It then collapsed to approximately $81 in mid-April 2026. That’s a massive drawdown that shook out a lot of its believers and investors. Its 52-week high remains at $194.73.
Since that $81 low, the stock has recovered fairly to the current $125.80. That is a meaningful move.
Cramer now has a lesson on trade management. He’s essentially saying to make sure you pay yourself first after a profitable setup. And I couldn’t agree more, because that’s something I embrace in my setups, too. If you bought the dip, it is reasonable to bank half and ride the rest with house money.
Also Read: ServiceNow Inc. Latest News and Stories
What the Q2 ServiceNow results showed
The reason Cramer says “let the rest run” rather than “sell it all” is visible in the recent Q2 2026 results, reported July 22.
- Subscription revenues grew 24.5% year-over-year (YOY) to $3.877 billion
- Total revenues of $3.987 billion grew 24% YOY.
- Current remaining performance obligations reached $13.20 billion, up 21%.
- Total remaining performance obligations (RPO) hit $29.0 billion.
The company statistically beat the high end of guidance across every topline and profitability metric. To me, the headline for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) story is what I found intriguing. ServiceNow AI crossed $1 billion in annual contract value in Q2 2026.
Agentic deployments of ServiceNow AI increased ninefold in just nine months, according to CEO Bill McDermott.
In an environment where most enterprises are still searching for AI’s ROI, ServiceNow is the platform delivering it.
The full-year 2026 subscription revenue guidance was raised to $15.76-$15.78 billion, reflecting 22.5% year-over-year growth.
For Q3, guidance calls for subscription revenues of $3.975 billion to $3.980 billion and a 31% non-GAAP operating margin, according to ServiceNow Q2 2026 Results.
Following the strong Q2 report, a recent report by TheStreet showed that Bank of America raised its price target to $150 from $130 in August, maintaining a Buy and citing ServiceNow’s positioning as the workflow context layer for enterprise agentic AI.
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The structural AI story behind the ‘let the rest run’ thesis
Cramer’s “let the rest run” language is his way of signaling long-term conviction without encouraging investors to size up further at current levels.
The AI Control Tower product is the clearest expression of what makes ServiceNow structurally defensible. McDermott has called it the market standard for enterprise AI governance. Nearly all 50 U.S. states are using the platform, according to a July press release.
Anthropic is the first design partner connecting Claude directly to ServiceNow workflows. NVIDIA integrated AI Control Tower into its Enterprise AI Factory design. Microsoft extended the governance layer across Microsoft Agent 365. AWS surpassed $1 billion in ServiceNow Marketplace transactions.
Related: Jim Cramer resets investors biggest Nvidia fear
The long-term financial targets from the May Analyst Day are the numbers that justify any continued position.
By 2030, ServiceNow targets more than $30 billion in subscription revenue, 30% of ACV from AI, and a combined growth and free cash flow margin exceeding 60%, according to a ServiceNow report.
I remember covering ServiceNow’s CEO kill-switch interview in July, in which McDermott described the AI Control Tower as the tool that stops AI agents from going rogue.
I think that positioning (governance, not just automation) is the reason 50 of the last 54 analyst ratings are Buy or Strong Buy, according to TipRanks. The same report shows that the average analyst price target over the past three months is $141, implying roughly 12% upside from current levels.
Why Cramer’s ‘sell half’ advice makes sense
The honest context for Cramer’s recommendation is the entry point question. ServiceNow at $81 in April was a different proposition than ServiceNow at $125 now.
The stock is still down 17.88% year-to-date and 27.25% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance, meaning investors who held through the 2025 decline are still underwater from a 12-month perspective.
But investors who bought anywhere near the April low are sitting on meaningful gains, and the stock still trades well below its $239 all-time high.
More AI:
- Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready for
- Microsoft just took sides in the AI policy fight
- OpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarming
Selling half locks in a portion of the recovery while preserving full exposure to the business thesis.
If the $30 billion subscription revenue target and the agentic AI deployment acceleration play out through 2030 as management describes, the remaining half participates in that upside without the psychological and capital risk of holding a full position through what remains a volatile stock.
The baseline is that smart money management is selling some when you have it, not when you need to. With $29 billion in RPO, 24.5% subscription growth, and $1 billion in AI ACV crossed, it’s fair to say that this is a business worth holding. Just perhaps not all of it.
Related: ServiceNow CEO admits there’s a solution to AI’s biggest problem
