GoDaddy NYSE: GDDY reported first-quarter 2026 results that management said reflected continued operating leverage and early traction from its AI-focused product strategy. The company posted 6% revenue growth and expanded normalized EBITDA margin to 33%, an increase of more than 200 basis points year over year, while free cash flow rose 15% to $474 million.
Chief Executive Officer Aman Bhutani said GoDaddy is leaning into shifting customer expectations driven by increased use of large language models and chat-based interfaces. “We are leaning into this shift, positioning GoDaddy as the platform that helps entrepreneurs turn intent into action through AI-powered experiences and outcomes,” Bhutani said.
Financial results and segment performance
Chief Financial Officer Mark McCaffrey said GoDaddy delivered revenue “at the high end of our guidance” and generated trailing 12-month free cash flow of $1.68 billion. Total revenue grew 6% on both a reported and constant currency basis to $1.3 billion, while annual recurring revenue (ARR) increased 6% to $4.3 billion. International revenue grew 7% to $416 million.
In the Applications & Commerce (A&C) segment, revenue grew 12% to $0.5 billion, supported by attach of subscription-based solutions. McCaffrey said A&C ARR grew 10% and the segment now represents about 40% of total business. Segment EBITDA margin improved 110 basis points to 45% “on product mix.”
In the core platform segment, revenue rose 3% to $769 million on 5% growth in primary domains, with a mix shift toward higher-priced non-.com top-level domains. McCaffrey said results were partially offset by “softness in non-core GoDaddy hosting,” the expiration of the company’s .co registry contract, tougher comparisons in aftermarket, and other factors. Core platform segment EBITDA margin expanded 150 basis points to 33% on product mix.
Total bookings grew 3% to $1.5 billion. McCaffrey attributed bookings dynamics to “a few points of impact from our promotional offer,” the .co registry contract expiration, and lapping prior-year aftermarket strength. A&C bookings grew 9%, while core platform bookings declined 1%.
AI product rollout: Airo AI Builder and Websites + Marketing upgrade
Bhutani highlighted GoDaddy’s progress with AI-native products, starting with Airo AI Builder, introduced last quarter at airo.ai. He described it as an AI-native experience that helps customers move from “idea to execution in minutes,” generating websites, applications, and related capabilities across identity, presence, and commerce.
Bhutani said Airo AI Builder “has rapidly scaled to $10 million-plus in annualized bookings run rate within weeks of its beta launch.” On the call, he clarified that this figure represents annualized bookings and includes “both subscriptions and credits or tokens.” He also told analysts that the run rate reflects only subscriptions and credits for Airo AI Builder and does not include cross-sell or attach of other GoDaddy products “yet.”
GoDaddy is expanding distribution of Airo AI Builder on godaddy.com and has begun selling it through Airo Care. Bhutani said the company will ramp targeted paid marketing in May, funded through efficiencies elsewhere, while monitoring product mix and maintaining margin discipline. When asked about exposure within GoDaddy’s funnels, Bhutani said only a “small amount of traffic” from GoDaddy.com is currently being directed to the new experience, with the domains and “create” (website) paths still routed to the existing “champion” version of Websites + Marketing.
Bhutani also discussed an AI-native upgrade to Websites + Marketing that combines AI-driven capabilities with an editor. GoDaddy tested the upgraded product in the domains funnel during the quarter, and Bhutani said early results “exceeded our expectations.” He added that GoDaddy plans to use experimentation to guide improvements and expects to test the new version multiple times during the year, with a goal that it “win sometime this year” against the current version, which he called “an established champion.”
On pricing for Websites + Marketing, Bhutani said any pricing changes would wait until the upgraded product reaches parity on experience and metrics such as publish rates. On Airo AI Builder pricing, he said GoDaddy tested two different plans and is “happy with the plan we’ve settled with,” describing tiers including a free option and paid plans (starter, professional, and ultimate) with both subscription and credit components.
Agent Name Service and the “agentic” internet
Bhutani also emphasized GoDaddy’s Agent Name Service (ANS), which the company introduced last quarter as a potential identity layer for “the agentic open internet.” He said GoDaddy signed two partnerships over the last quarter with real-world use cases and is working to align key players around an open standard and the use of DNS for agent identity and discovery. Bhutani said non-GoDaddy agents in GoDaddy’s ANS implementation “now number in the thousands.”
Responding to a question about competitive advantages, Bhutani argued that as agents proliferate online, registration and discovery standards will become necessary to establish trust. He said ANS is designed around agent discovery using the Domain Name System and suggested that linking agent identity to domains reinforces domains’ role in internet identity—an area where GoDaddy participates as “the world’s largest domain registrar.”
Operational efficiency and AI in care, sales, and development
Management also pointed to internal AI deployment as a lever for efficiency and performance. Bhutani said GoDaddy is seeing immediate impact in software development, enabling faster creation of applications with fewer dedicated teams, and is testing replacement of smaller third-party SaaS tools with internally built solutions on Airo AI Builder.
In customer care, Bhutani said GoDaddy launched Airo Care, an AI-native support technology across voice and chat. He said an initial test improved resolution rates by about 50%, and subsequent tests improved non-English market resolution performance by more than 150%, which he said helped equalize resolution rates between English and non-English markets. Bhutani said Airo Care has been rolled out to more than 50 markets and 20 languages.
GoDaddy is also developing an AI-native commerce sales agent. Bhutani said the voice-based agent handled the entire sales experience without human intervention and delivered conversion rates comparable to human-assisted sales for smaller leads in the prior quarter.
Asked how AI-driven efficiencies may flow through to profitability versus being reinvested, McCaffrey said GoDaddy is balancing margin expansion with “a very disciplined framework approach” to investing, using data points to support return expectations before increasing spend. He cited planned marketing increases for AI Builder as an example, adding that while returns may be “immaterial for the current year,” the company sees potential for future growth.
Customer strategy, promotions, capital returns, and outlook
Bhutani reiterated GoDaddy’s emphasis on “high-intent” customers. In response to questions on customer quality, he said GoDaddy assesses intent by channel traffic and then measures activation and attach of other products, which management views as predictive of renewal at the end of the one-year term.
Bhutani said GoDaddy refined its promotional program discussed last quarter to better balance customer acquisition and bookings. He said promotions drove strong gross customer adds and that new domain registrations accelerated by 6% for independent and partner customer populations. He also said GoDaddy removed a lower-value product offering during the quarter, which partially offset customer growth from promotions but “did not materially impact bookings.” McCaffrey later characterized the retired offering as a prior-year product that “wasn’t really generating the value that we needed,” adding it had “no impact on bookings” but a slight impact on churn.
On capital allocation, McCaffrey said GoDaddy repurchased 3 million shares for $280 million during the quarter, ending with 133 million fully diluted shares outstanding. He said net debt was $2.6 billion, representing net leverage of 1.4x on a trailing 12-month basis and within the company’s target range. Addressing questions about quarterly buyback pacing, McCaffrey told investors to focus on GoDaddy’s longer-term track record and said the company’s approach “hasn’t changed.”
Looking ahead, McCaffrey reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance issued in February:
- Total revenue: $5.195 billion to $5.275 billion (6% growth at midpoint)
- Q2 revenue: $1.285 billion to $1.305 billion (6% growth at midpoint)
- Normalized EBITDA margin: ~33% for Q2; “over 33%” for the full year
- Free cash flow: approximately $1.8 billion for the full year
McCaffrey also said GoDaddy expects A&C revenue growth in the low double digits and core platform growth in the low single digits for both Q2 and the full year. He noted the full-year revenue outlook includes “just over 200 basis points” of cumulative impact from the .co registry contract expiration, exclusion of high-value aftermarket transactions, and effects of product evolution and promotional activity. He added that excluding foreign exchange impacts, GoDaddy expects bookings and revenue growth rates to be “at or above parity for the remainder of the year.”
About GoDaddy NYSE: GDDY
GoDaddy is a technology company that provides a suite of online services aimed primarily at small businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals looking to establish and grow an online presence. The company's core activities include domain name registration and aftermarket services, a range of website hosting options, and tools for building, managing and promoting websites. Its product mix is designed to simplify the technical aspects of running a website so customers can focus on their businesses.
Product and service offerings span website builders and managed WordPress hosting, shared and dedicated hosting, e-commerce capabilities, email and productivity solutions, SSL certificates and site security tools, and online marketing and search engine optimization services.
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