SpaceX's Third Quarter Just Ended. Here Are the 3 Numbers That Matter Most for the Stock.

SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) wrapped up its third quarter on Sept. 30. Not only was it the rocket and artificial intelligence (AI) company's first full quarter as a public company, but also the first full quarter for several deals and price changes made around its June initial public offering (IPO).

At roughly $152 as of this writing, shares are about 13% over the $135 IPO price but about 32% under the 52-week high of $225.64.

SpaceX hasn't set a date for the report yet. When it lands, up to 1.3 billion extra locked-up shares can start trading on the second full trading day after the release.

Here are the three numbers I think matter most.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Starlink needs to hold $66 a month

Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service, had 12.0 million subscribers at the end of June, twice the year-ago total. But each pays less. Starlink's average revenue per user (ARPU) was $66 a month in the second quarter, flat with the first quarter but down from $85 a year before. According to SpaceX's quarterly report, the fall came mainly from international expansion and cheaper service plans.

In May, Starlink lifted prices for most U.S. residential and Roam plans by $5 to $10 a month, with current customers paying the higher rates on or after June 18. So the third quarter is the first full one at the new prices.

But management didn't promise the average would climb.

"While our geographic expansion may drive down blended ARPU over time, we anticipate continued subscriber momentum to deliver strong revenue growth," chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said on SpaceX's second-quarter earnings call.

I'd watch for both: ARPU at $66 or more, and net additions around the record 1.7 million from the second quarter. If ARPU dips again even with U.S. prices higher, each new subscriber is arguably worth less than the headline total suggests.

2. Anthropic's first full quarter

In the second quarter, revenue from AI solutions and infrastructure (mainly Grok and X subscriptions plus rented-out data center capacity) leaped to $2.2 billion. This compared with $475 million three months earlier and $311 million a year before. Cloud services, which SpaceX just began offering that quarter, made up $1.6 billion of it.

These deals were just getting started, though. Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, agreed in May to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion a month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May and June at a lower fee. At the full rate, that one customer could make up around $3.75 billion of quarterly revenue -- over double what all of SpaceX's cloud services took in during the second quarter.

Google, owned by Alphabet, begins paying its full $920 million a month in October. And if SpaceX missed a Sept. 30 deadline to deliver the promised hardware, Google can cancel or pay less after a one-month grace period.

Sure, Cursor, the AI coding company SpaceX finished buying on Aug. 14, will probably add to the broader AI line too. So the bar I'd set is cloud services revenue of around $3.75 billion or more, plus word that Google's hardware came on time.

3. Is Falcon flying more often again?

SpaceX's space segment pulled in just $962 million in the second quarter. But launch cadence (how often the company flies) helps determine how much capacity Starlink can sell. After all, 27 of SpaceX's 37 Falcon launches in the second quarter carried its own payloads.

The tally of 37 compared with 40 in the first quarter and 45 a year before. It also lagged SpaceX's 2025 rate of 165 Falcon launches, or around 41 a quarter.

"We're currently launching at our highest Falcon cadence," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said on the August call.

The third-quarter total will show if that held, and I'd want to see Falcon back over 41. Starship also flew twice in the third quarter, versus once in the second. Its Sept. 28 flight reached orbit and deployed 26 next-generation Starlink satellites.

The AI number matters most

Of the three, I think the AI figure carries the most weight. SpaceX spent $23.6 billion on AI capital expenditures in the first half of 2026, compared with $3.3 billion a year before. A full quarter of Anthropic's fee is the first true test of whether that spending becomes revenue on time.

Yes, a strong report could clear all three bars. But at a valuation of about $2 trillion, investors are already paying for most of this to work out, and SpaceX still lost $541 million in the second quarter. I'd want to see the AI number before paying around $152 a share.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.