By Mackenzie Tatananni
GoDaddy stock has fallen into a serious slump this year, sinking 26% against a 0.6% gain for the broader U.S. stock market. The web hosting company's latest earnings report only added to that pain.
GoDaddy late Tuesday posted fourth-quarter earnings of $1.80 a share, outstripping analysts' calls for $1.58. Revenue came to $1.27 billion, in line with Wall Street forecasts. But full-year guidance was softer than expected. For 2026, GoDaddy is targeting total revenue of $5.195 billion to $5.275 billion, representing 6% growth at the midpoint of the range. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for $5.246 billion, above the midpoint of the range.
The real killer was bookings, which came to $1.28 billion in the fourth quarter, below analysts' calls for $1.31 billion. Bookings within GoDaddy's applications and commerce division decelerated by 3 basis points in the quarter. The slowdown occurred after GoDaddy implemented a new go-to-market strategy that included promotional pricing for one-year contract terms, Oppenheimer analyst Ken Wong noted after the report.
Notably, "management did not quantify the impact of the new go-to-market on A&C," Benchmark analyst Mark Zgutowicz wrote on Wednesday. He expects bookings to remain pressured in the near term due to a shift toward shorter contracts and a lower initial average order size from discount allocation. Meanwhile, the gap between bookings and revenue should narrow progressively through 2026 "and to near parity by year-end as volume and attach improve."
GoDaddy shares sank 13% to $80.43 in premarket trading Wednesday. Futures tracking the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite were up 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.
Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com
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February 25, 2026 08:09 ET (13:09 GMT)
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