Summary
GoDaddy reported third quarter 2021 revenue of $964.0 million, up 14.2% from the prior-year quarter, or 13.5% on a constant currency basis. Total bookings reached $1,038.1 million, up 9.9%, or 9.1% on a constant currency basis. Operating income was $131.3 million, up 42.1%, and operating margin expanded to 13.6% from 10.9%. Net income attributable to GoDaddy Inc. was $97.5 million, up 50.7% from $64.7 million in the prior-year quarter. For the first nine months, revenue was $2,796.4 million, up 14.5%, and net income attributable to GoDaddy Inc. was $155.1 million versus a prior-year loss of $565.6 million, a swing to profit. The company said revenue growth came from more customers, higher average revenue per user and recent acquisitions.
Commerce was the centerpiece of the quarter. GoDaddy launched OmniCommerce for Websites + Marketing with point-of-sale devices and integrated payments. Websites + Marketing annualized recurring revenue grew more than 20% year over year, while Commerce annualized recurring revenue grew more than 30%. Annualized recurring revenue from the Create and Grow group, which includes Websites + Marketing, Managed WordPress, Sellbrite and GoDaddy Studios, surpassed $400 million. Annualized gross merchandise volume across the GoDaddy ecosystem was approximately $25 billion, growing nearly 30% year over year. Domains under management rose to 84.1 million as of September 30, 2021 from 81.8 million a year earlier. The company also launched Invoicing and Payments in the Hub by GoDaddy Pro and hosted Expand 2021 India. Global tennis star Naomi Osaka launched a campaign with GoDaddy as the official ecommerce partner for KINL, her skincare line.
Cash flow metrics held up. Operating cash flow was $226.4 million in the quarter, up 14.7%, and $657.1 million for the first nine months, up 9.8%. Capital expenditures were $12.6 million in the quarter, up 50.0%, and $33.7 million year to date, down 13.8%. Unlevered free cash flow, a non-GAAP measure, was $251.5 million in the quarter, up 12.3%, and $756.8 million year to date, up 17.5%. Deferred revenue, current portion, was $1,900.1 million, up 11.8%. Remaining performance obligations were $2,656.8 million, up 10.0%. The company also executed an accelerated share repurchase agreement during the quarter and said it had a consistent, cash-generative business.
Management guided fourth quarter revenue growth to approximately 11% year over year. For the full year, GoDaddy raised its revenue outlook to approximately 14% year-over-year growth and raised its full year unlevered free cash flow outlook to approximately $960 million, or 16% year-over-year growth. The company points to new commerce opportunities and a business that generates cash. Risks include the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has kept nearly all employees remote and increased cybersecurity risk from less secure network connections. The filing also cites competition, rapid market evolution, fluctuations in results, service interruptions, security breaches, acquisition integration, product acceptance, hiring and retention, regulatory and legal developments, intellectual property litigation, and economic and credit market conditions. GoDaddy's debt agreements contain covenants that restrict additional indebtedness, liens, restricted payments and other actions, and the company may need to raise capital for acquisitions or share repurchases.
Costs rose alongside the growth. Cost of revenue increased because of higher domain costs, more aftermarket domain sales and the acquired registry business. Technology and development increased on higher headcount, cloud infrastructure costs and compensation expense tied to the Poynt acquisition. Marketing and advertising rose on discretionary spending, but the year-over-year increase decelerated from the prior-year period when GoDaddy invested heavily to capture demand. Customer care was roughly flat in the quarter and down for the first nine months following the 2020 restructuring. General and administrative costs rose on acquisition-related expenses and professional fees.
Forecast
Reported figures
GAAP, from SEC filings| Metric | Q3 FY2021 | Q2 FY2021 | QoQ | Q3 FY2020 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $964.0M | $931.3M | +3.5% | $844.4M | +14.2% |
| General & administrative | $81.2M | $84.5M | -3.9% | $76.4M | +6.3% |
| Total operating expenses | $832.7M | $843.3M | -1.3% | $752.0M | +10.7% |
| Operating income (loss) | $131.3M | $88.0M | +49.2% | $92.4M | +42.1% |
| Operating margin | 13.6% | 9.4% | +4.2 pp | 10.9% | +2.7 pp |
| Net income (loss) | $97.7M | $46.9M | +108.3% | $65.1M | +50.1% |
| Net margin | 10.1% | 5.0% | +5.1 pp | 7.7% | +2.4 pp |
Risks
Risk Factors state gross customer adds year to date have declined relative to 2020 and there is uncertainty regarding customer demand and growth going forward. MD&A notes customer demand declined in Q2 2021 and improved in Q3, but uncertainty remains, and a failure to attract or retain customers could harm operating results.
GoDaddy faces significant competition in domain registration, website building and web-hosting and expects competition to intensify from United Internet, Web.com, Donuts, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Cloudflare, Facebook and Tencent. Some competitors have greater resources and some offer domains or security certificates at low or no cost.
The filing reports an increased level of social engineering efforts and several successful efforts, including by a persistent threat actor that attempted to transfer customer domain names and targeted cryptocurrency-related domains. It also cites the March 2020 compromise of hosting login credentials of approximately 28,000 hosting customers and FTC Civil Investigative Demands issued in July 2020 and October 2021.
Because nearly all products are cloud-based and reliance on AWS and other vendors is increasing, GoDaddy faces greater risk of unauthorized access to personal, payment card and customer data. A recent malicious file distributed across hosting servers compromised a small number of customers' customers' credit cards.
Bookings outside the U.S. represented approximately 32% of totals in 2020, and international expansion requires significant investments while exposing GoDaddy to regulatory, foreign currency, geopolitical and tax risks in markets such as China, India, Russia and Ukraine. MD&A states international revenue was $319.7 million for the quarter, an increase of 12.7%.
GoDaddy has acquired Over, Uniregistry's registrar and brokerage business, Neustar's registry business, SkyVerge and Poynt, and may fail to integrate them or realize expected synergies. Poynt adds offline commerce and payment hardware risks, including additional compensatory cash payments subject to performance and employment conditions.
The Risk Factors highlight failure to accurately predict customer needs or emerging technological trends such as artificial intelligence. GoDaddy launched OmniCommerce and two point-of-sale devices in September 2021, and failure of such new products to gain acceptance could impair competitive position and revenue growth.
GoDaddy announced a new Chief Financial Officer effective June 2, 2021 and a new Chief Legal Officer effective July 12, 2021, and may face transition and integration challenges. It also cites intense competition for skilled personnel, H-1B visa limits and difficulties onboarding and maintaining culture while working remotely.
General macroeconomic conditions, including recession or COVID-19, could reduce demand from small businesses and independent ventures, and higher-priced services and aftermarket offerings have been negatively impacted as customers become more price-conscious. MD&A states the pandemic has not had a material impact on results so far but future impact remains uncertain.
A majority of revenue is processed through credit cards and other online payments, and fraud, refunds or chargebacks could lead processors to require reserves, increase fees or terminate contracts. Expansion into offline commerce through Poynt adds merchant screening, hardware failure and manufacturing risks.
GoDaddy is transitioning to AWS and increasingly relies on third-party cloud providers, while also serving customers from owned and co-located data centers. System failures, capacity constraints or third-party service interruptions could harm reputation and financial results.
The business is subject to data localization requirements in jurisdictions such as India and China, evolving privacy rules such as GDPR and CCPA, Internet regulations, export controls and anti-bribery laws. Compliance costs or restrictions could limit product offerings or increase operating costs.
SaaS KPIs
All quarters →Total bookings
Domains under management
Unlevered free cash flow
Summary, forecast, risks and KPIs are extracted from GoDaddy Inc.'s SEC filings for Q3 FY2021 (10-Q / 10-K and the 8-K earnings release); GAAP figures in the summary are checked against the reported XBRL data. They can contain errors; the filings are authoritative. Processed Oct 2, 2026.