Nobody thinks about the database behind their banking app until it freezes, usually on the busiest days. To stay ready, many companies pay all year for capacity they need on a handful of days.
MongoDB Inc. (MDB) wants to break that habit. On Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, it launched Atlas Infinite, which bills customers only for the computing and storage they use, according to a press release.
Okta Inc. (OKTA), a login provider, said the option will let it handle surges “without paying for idle resources.” Infinite is still in public preview.
A day before the launch, MongoDB revealed that CEO CJ Desai had left for a senior role at Meta Platforms Inc. (META). Desai lasted under a year, and former chief Dev Ittycheria is back as interim CEO.
On Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, Wolfe Research flagged the exits of Chief Customer Officer Erica Volini, along with Pablo Stern-Plaza, chief product officer for AI and emerging products. Neither appears on MongoDB’s leadership page.
Revenue hit $771.8 million in the quarter ended Friday, July 31, 2026, up 30% from a year earlier, according to MongoDB’s earnings release.
Also read: MongoDB stock crashes 26% as its CEO jumps ship
Atlas, the cloud service Infinite plugs into, made up about 73% of it, the release shows. “It is business as usual at MongoDB,” CFO Mike Berry told investors the day Infinite debuted.
Most of MongoDB’s revenue depends on how much customers use it, according to a Bank of America research note shared with TheStreet. Infinite gives them a cheaper way to do the same work. The note calls the CEO change the key immediate risk, but pricing will matter longer.
After hosting a group call with MongoDB’s investor relations chief, BofA analyst Koji Ikeda kept his Buy rating and $540 price target.
The report, dated Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, is titled “AI strategy intact, near-term debate is execution; Reiterate Buy.” Its bear case warns that Infinite “compresses Atlas spend through improved efficiency.”
Customers pocket the savings before MongoDB sees growth
Infinite separates computing from storage, so each can grow on its own. In internal tests, it delivered 189% more throughput per dollar than the standard service, the release said. The same work can cost far less.
Management says customers will spend those savings on more work. Chief product officer Ben Cefalo cited the Jevons paradox, the 19th-century finding that efficient steam engines made Britain burn more coal.
Okta is buying the savings, while Cefalo is selling the growth. Although savings show up on the next bill, extra usage takes years to earn.
The savings could come out of MongoDB’s sales
The note’s other debate is whether MongoDB’s document database stays different enough from PostgreSQL.
Developers already lean toward that rival. PostgreSQL drew 57.9% of respondents to the database question in Stack Overflow’s 2026 Developer Survey, versus 19% for MongoDB.
Wolfe said the exits came faster than expected. Selling a new way to pay takes steady customer relationships, and the customer chief is gone.
Analysts say Buy MongoDB but disagree on what it’s worth
MongoDB carries a consensus Buy rating from 40 analysts with an average price target of $449.74, according to StockAnalysis. All five of the latest calls are Buys, yet their targets sit $155 apart.
Stifel Financial analyst Brad Reback cut his target price to $385 from $465 on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, a week after the CEO’s exit. Bank of America’s $540 is the highest.
Wolfe’s Alex Zukin held his target at $440 on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. Bank of Nova Scotia analyst Patrick Colville lifted his target to $450 on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026. Daniel Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co. started at $430 a day earlier.
On the day of the note, shares jumped as much as 7.9% before closing about 2.2% lower. Wolfe’s comments on the exits surfaced that afternoon. Shares remain about 21% below their August peak of $473.10.
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Bank of America thinks MongoDB’s bet has room to run
Ikeda raised his fiscal 2028 revenue estimate by 3% to $3.65 billion and his fiscal 2029 estimate by 6% to $4.39 billion, according to the note.
Before the investor day, I flagged the growth target as the number to watch. Management raised it to 20% or more a year from the high teens, as its investor day presentation shows.
Bank of America raised its Atlas forecasts yet sees growth slowing to 24% in fiscal 2028 and 23% in fiscal 2029. That compares with 27% in the year ending January 2027. Even the bull is not modeling a surge from Infinite.
For app users, the payoff could be fewer freezes on busy days. PicPay, a Brazilian payments app, handled four times its normal peak traffic for two hours with zero failures, MongoDB said. It is still early, so don’t count on it everywhere this holiday season.
The note’s bull case is that Infinite wins new AI and agent workloads, while its bear case is that cheaper usage shrinks Atlas spending. Ikeda sides with the bulls, arguing that “AI and modernization support durable growth.”
BofA will judge it by Atlas growth and existing customers’ spending. As the cloud shifts to pay-per-use, MongoDB will test whether cheaper computing grows a supplier’s sales or just its customers’ savings.
