What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Datadog (DDOG) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Datadog generated $1.11B of operating cash flow and $1.08B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 97% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Datadog (DDOG) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Datadog's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Datadog (DDOG) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$1.11B

Capex

-$33.8M

Free Cash Flow

$1.08B

FCF Margin

+97.0%

Cash flow waterfall for Datadog (DDOG) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $1.08B

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by purchases or sales of investments.

Cash flow breakdown for Datadog (DDOG) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$1.11B	$1.11B
Capital Expenditure	-$33.8M	$1.08B
Free Cash Flow	$1.08B	$1.08B
Acquisitions	-$127M	$953M
Other Investing	-$1.05B	-$92.7M
Net Debt Change	-$636M	-$728M
Other Financing & FX	$74.9M	-$653M
Net Cash Decrease	-$653M	-$653M

Operating Cash Flow$1.11B
Capital Expenditure-$33.8M
Free Cash Flow$1.08B
Acquisitions-$127M
Other Investing-$1.05B
Net Debt Change-$636M
Other Financing & FX$74.9M
Net Cash Decrease-$653M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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