In this article, we will list the 5 Best Growth Stocks to Buy and Hold in 2026. Please visit 12 Best Growth Stocks to Buy and Hold in 2026 if you’d like to see an extended list and the methodology behind it.
5. Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP)
Backed by one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 26.37% and 23.24%, respectively, Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) ranks among the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026.
Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) heads into late April 2026 with solid analyst backing. As of April 23, 2026, 76% of analysts covering the stock have a Buy rating, and the consensus price target of $160 implies around 76% upside potential.
On April 21, 2026, RBC Capital stood by its “Outperform” rating and $170 price target on Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP), after fresh U.S. e-commerce growth data pointed to continued market share gains for the company. The firm said the data shows first-quarter gross merchandise volume grew 34.3% year-over-year to $100.4 billion, coming in 1.8% above the consensus estimate of $98.7 billion. RBC also noted that gross payment volume momentum has been running ahead of GMV, driven by growing payments uptake and continued strength in offline channels.
Beyond the volume numbers, RBC flagged a few other tailwinds worth watching.
U.S. consumer spending picked up through March, and e-commerce growth came in stronger compared with the fourth quarter. Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) is also expected to benefit from a larger foreign exchange tailwind in the first quarter than it saw in the fourth quarter, estimated at 225 basis points versus 120 basis points.
Looking further out, RBC said Shopify’s ability to grow ahead of the broader U.S. e-commerce market should continue, supported by traction with large enterprises, international expansion, and newer channels such as point-of-sale and business-to-business.
All of that builds on a strong set of results that Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) reported for the fourth quarter and full-year 2025.
The company reported fourth quarter revenue growth of 31%, alongside a 19% free cash flow margin. For the full year, revenue grew 30% with a 17% free cash flow margin. Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) also highlighted that 2025 strength was broad-based across merchant sizes, regions, and channels.
For 2026, Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) guided first-quarter revenue to grow at a rate in the low-30s percentage range compared to the same period last year and also announced a $2 billion share repurchase program. The company will announce its Q1 2026 results on May 5, 2026.
Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) operates as an e-commerce technology company across the United States, Asia-Pacific, Canada, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The company offers tools to run, scale, market, and start online businesses of different sizes.
4. ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)
With one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 19.81% and 18.47%, respectively, ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) earns a place on our list of the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026. The stock has 70% upside potential as of April 23, 2026.
Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow came back to ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) on April 23, 2026, reinstating coverage with an “Overweight” rating and a price target of $132. His read on the first-quarter results was measured: the broader macroeconomic environment had an impact, but nothing that changes the fundamental story.
Lenschow highlighted that ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) remains among the strongest-positioned software names, owing to its deep integration within customers’ IT environments, a structural advantage the firm believes will position the company as an integral participant in enterprise AI adoption.
That assessment is reinforced by the company’s first-quarter financial results, announced a day earlier.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) reported subscription revenue of $3.671 billion, up 22% year-over-year, with total revenue of $3.770 billion, reflecting equivalent growth. Demand indicators remained robust: current remaining performance obligations rose 22.5% to $12.64 billion, while total remaining performance obligations expanded 25% to $27.7 billion. Now Assist customers with annual contract values exceeding $1 million grew more than 130% year-over-year, underscoring durable commercial momentum in the company’s AI product portfolio.
Still, the quarter was not without headwinds.
Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.97 per share, with subscription revenue growth facing a 75-basis-point drag from delayed large deal closings in the Middle East.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) also shared its expectations for the rest of the year.
For the second quarter of 2026, it sees subscription revenue coming in between $3.815 billion and $3.820 billion and expects to keep 26.5 cents of operating profit for every dollar earned. For the full year, ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) increased its revenue forecast to between $15.735 billion and $15.775 billion, with operating profitability of 31.5% and free cash flow margin of 35%.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) provides cloud-based and AI-embedded end-to-end workflow automation solutions for enterprises. The company is located in Santa Clara, California, and was founded in June 2004 by Frederic B. Luddy.
3. Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY)
Backed by one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 21.72% and 16.23%, respectively, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) ranks among the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026.
As of April 23, 2026, a majority of analysts covering the stock have a Buy rating on it; that is, 77% of all covering analysts, and their consensus price target of $1,250 suggests Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) could climb around 40% from current levels.
That confidence was on display the same day, when Guggenheim raised its price target on Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) to $1,183 from $1,163 and held on to its “Buy” rating, just ahead of the company’s first quarter results.
The firm updated its model to account for a disclosed $584 million charge tied to in-process research and development, equal to $0.52 per share, folding in the cost of Lilly’s recently announced acquisitions of Centessa Pharmaceuticals and Kelonia Therapeutics. Even with those charges weighing on near-term earnings, Guggenheim kept a constructive view on Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY).
The acquisitions themselves tell the bigger story.
On April 20, 2026, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) agreed to acquire Kelonia in a deal worth up to $7.0 billion — $3.25 billion upfront with the remainder tied to milestone-based payments. Kelonia’s technology is designed to generate CAR-T therapies inside the body rather than outside it, with its lead candidate KLN-1010 targeting a protein called BCMA in patients with multiple myeloma.
A few weeks earlier, on March 31, 2026, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) had also agreed to acquire Centessa Pharmaceuticals to bolster its neuroscience pipeline. Centessa’s lead asset, cleminorexton, showed a potentially best-in-class profile in Phase 2a studies across three related sleep disorders, which are narcolepsy type 1, narcolepsy type 2, and idiopathic hypersomnia.
Thus, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is making a deliberate push into high-value areas of medicine. Management believes the pipeline these deals add can keep it growing for years to come.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) develops, manufactures, discovers, and sells pharmaceutical products. These products span oncology, diabetes, immunology, neuroscience, and other therapies.
2. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
With one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 34.77% and 30.61%, respectively, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) earns a place on our list of the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) heads into late April 2026 with robust analyst backing. As of April 23, 2026, 94% of analysts covering the stock have a Buy rating on it, and the consensus price target of $260 points to roughly 30% upside potential.
On April 15, 2026, ahead of NAB Show 2026, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) rolled out new updates across creative tools and system optimization, with RTX technology making inroads into professional video workflows and AI-assisted PC management.
Adobe’s Premiere Color Mode was the marquee item, a beta feature built into Premiere that taps GPU acceleration on NVIDIA GeForce RTX and RTX PRO systems. It is the first time 32-bit color depth has come to Premiere, with the feature designed to make the editing experience faster and more responsive while improving real-time color grading across layered edits and tonal adjustments.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) also used the occasion to push Project G-Assist further into the market.
The experimental on-device assistant for GeForce RTX AI PCs delivered better detection of gaming settings, a stronger knowledge base for esports and AAA game recommendations, and broader control over features in the NVIDIA App, including DLSS Overrides, Smooth Motion, RTX HDR, Digital Vibrance, and encoder settings.
Project G-Assist is not a new idea. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) first showed it off at Computex 2024 as a tech demo designed to simplify complex PC environments through voice- and text-based system optimization. The April 15 update moves that concept further along.
The developments, taken side by side, reflect where NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is putting its energy: making powerful hardware easier to use for creators and gamers alike.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a fabless semiconductor and AI computing company that designs GPUs, AI accelerators, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and system-on-a-chip units. Through its CUDA ecosystem, the company enables industries ranging from autonomous vehicles to scientific research by advancing AI, accelerated computing, and data center infrastructure.
1. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Backed by one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 22.42% and 11.61%, respectively, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) ranks among the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026. The stock has 14% upside potential as of April 23, 2026.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) heads into late April 2026 with solid analyst backing. BMO Capital raised its price target on the stock to $315 from $310 on April 23, 2026, keeping its “Outperform” rating in place. The move was driven by channel checks indicating that AWS growth was picking up pace in the first half of the year.
Investors, however, are still waiting for proof that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s heavy spending is delivering real returns, and BMO flagged that openly. On the retail side, although consumers are still holding up, economic uncertainty and rising global tensions have begun to take a toll on sales.
The revenue picture added some reassurance.
On April 9, 2026, Reuters reported that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) had disclosed annualized revenue of more than $15 billion from AI services at its cloud-computing unit, based on first-quarter performance. That figure gave investors an unusually clear window into how much the company’s infrastructure buildout is actually generating at a time when such visibility has been hard to come by.
The backdrop makes that number even more meaningful.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has projected around $200 billion in 2026 capex, with the bulk of it going toward building out its cloud and data center capacity. Reuters reported that CEO Andy Jassy said the company was not spending without a plan and that it already had firm customer commitments backing a large portion of its expected AWS infrastructure spend.
Rounding out the picture, Amazon’s custom chip business, including Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro, had crossed an annualized revenue run rate of more than $20 billion, underlining the growing scale of its infrastructure push.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) operates across e-commerce, digital content, advertising, and cloud computing. Its online and offline stores offer both in-house and third-party products, while its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division runs one of the world’s largest data center networks.
While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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