GoDaddy Q3 2026: Domains Lifted Its Core Segment. The Rest, Including Hosting, Fell $7.4M

GoDaddy’s third quarter of 2026 looks like the two before it at the top line. Revenue rose 6% to $1.342 billion, and the Applications and Commerce (A&C) segment again grew faster than Core Platform, the segment that sells domains, hosting and website security. Inside Core, GoDaddy’s quarterly filing splits revenue into domains and everything else. Domain revenue, which includes the aftermarket, rose $40.6 million to $636.5 million. The rest of the segment, where GoDaddy books standalone hosting and website security, fell $7.4 million to $181.0 million, a decline of 3.9%.

That category has shrunk year over year in each quarter of 2026, and the third-quarter drop was the largest, after $3.5 million in the first quarter and $3.6 million in the second.

Key facts

• Aftermarket: revenue of $151 million, up 10% from $136 million, with an average transaction value of $357 against $345 a year earlier.
• Customers: 20.5 million at the end of September, 40,000 more than in June, after additions of 13,000 in the first quarter and 22,000 in the second.
• Airo: an annualized bookings run rate above $100 million, more than double the $50 million GoDaddy reported a quarter earlier.
• Outlook: full-year revenue toward the higher end of $5.215 billion to $5.255 billion, with A&C growth of about 10% and Core about 4%.

Domains Up, the Rest of Core Down

Core revenue reached $817.5 million, up 4.2%. In its 10-Q, GoDaddy describes the segment as primarily domain registrations and renewals, aftermarket domain sales, domain protection, website hosting products and website security products, along with products that contain no software component. Hosting and security count toward Core only when they are sold outside a bundle with GoDaddy’s own software. Inside such a bundle, they are booked in A&C, together with website building, commerce and third-party email and productivity tools. The non-domain category therefore combines standalone hosting, website security and Core’s other products, and its decline is not a measure of hosting revenue alone.

GoDaddy’s breakdown of revenue by product type shows the same pattern in each quarter of 2026.

Over nine months, Core revenue outside domains fell $14.5 million, or 2.6%, to $547.4 million, while domain revenue grew $98.0 million. Within domains, the filing credits $26.2 million of the third-quarter growth to domain registrations and add-ons and $14.3 million to the aftermarket. It also credits the 5.7% growth in total bookings to strength in domain registration and the aftermarket, among other factors.

Primary Domains Up 6%, the Aftermarket Up 10%

Revenue from primary domains rose 6% to $486 million, and domains under management reached 82.4 million at the end of September, 1.6 million more than at the end of 2025. The aftermarket, where GoDaddy earns on the sale of already registered domains, grew faster, from $136 million to $151 million. The average transaction value rose to $357 from $345. GoDaddy calls the aftermarket a transactional business subject to global macroeconomic conditions, and it excludes the business from its annualized recurring revenue metric. Annual aftermarket revenue reached $510 million in 2025, up from $457 million in 2024.

According to Domain Name Wire, GoDaddy had warned on its second-quarter call that a strong third quarter of 2025 would make it hard to show much aftermarket growth this quarter. On the latest call, according to the same report, the company pointed to large transactions as a factor in the result.

Airo Tops $100 Million in Bookings Run Rate, Email Customers Renew Fewer Seats

A&C revenue grew 9% to $524.3 million, at a segment EBITDA margin of 46.9%, against 32.9% for Core. GoDaddy puts the annualized bookings run rate of Airo, its AI product for small businesses, above $100 million. The company describes Airo as replacing Websites + Marketing as its flagship website building solution. Airo is also now the default in what GoDaddy calls the domains path. GoDaddy expanded its developer platform with APIs for hosting, professional email and commerce that AI agents can use.

Bookings in A&C benefited from growth in productivity solutions, which GoDaddy attributes to targeted pricing actions taken earlier this year. That growth was partly offset by lower unit volume, as customers renewed email accounts with fewer seats.

40,000 More Customers and 11% Fewer Shares

GoDaddy ended September with 20.5 million customers, 40,000 more than in June and 75,000 more than at the start of the year. Average revenue per user rose 6.8% to $253. Operating income grew 22% to $362.5 million, and free cash flow 9% to $480.8 million.

Through October 26, the company had repurchased 15.7 million shares this year for $1.4 billion, a 12% gross reduction in fully diluted shares since January. Fully diluted shares outstanding stood at 123 million, against 137 million a year earlier. GoDaddy now expects full-year revenue toward the higher end of its $5.215 billion to $5.255 billion range. It reaffirmed its targets for a normalized EBITDA margin above 33% and free cash flow of about $1.8 billion. It plans to refresh select financial targets at an investor night on December 1.

About the Data

Revenue by product type, including Core Platform: other, comes from the revenue notes in GoDaddy’s 10-Q filings for the first three quarters of 2026. Percentage changes are our calculation. Other figures come from the 10-Q filings and from GoDaddy’s third-quarter release and presentation.