{"id":1957,"slug":"godaddy-fy2025-retention-85-percent-quarantined","title":"GoDaddy FY2025 10-K — ~85% customer retention (84% in 2024 due to divestitures); 90% for >3-year cohort","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["page-builders","editorial-discipline","customer-retention"],"reference_body":"**Claim (vendor — quarantined):** GoDaddy's **FY2025 10-K** states verbatim:\n\n> \"In each of the five years ended December 31, 2025, our customer retention rate was approximately 85%, with the exception of the year ended December 31, 2024 when the retention rate was approximately 84% due to divestitures, migrations and end of life of certain products… the retention rate for our customers who had been with us for over three years as of December 31, 2025 was approximately 90%.\"\n\n**Source:** SEC EDGAR — GoDaddy Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025.\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source vendor / Directional.\n\n**Caveat (commercial incentive):** GoDaddy's valuation depends on retention figures. Crucially, the metric describes **only customers who are still customers** — never-launched users, churned users, and customers who moved providers are not in the denominator. **Survivorship bias** applies. See [[survivorship-bias-central-threat-diy-evidence]] and [[rule-r2-quarantine-vendor-retention-survivor-only]].\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** When discussing retention with a client, pair this figure with the independent comparator ([[smb-saas-monthly-churn-3-to-7-percent]]) so the survivorship gap is visible.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"smb-saas-monthly-churn-3-to-7-percent","title":"SMB-focused SaaS churn benchmark — 3–7% monthly logo churn (≈31–58% annually); DIY builders fit this reference class","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"com-net-domain-renewal-75-percent-q4-2025-verisign","title":".com/.net domain renewal — preliminary 75.0% Q4 2025 (final 75.4% Q3 2025); low-to-mid-70s since 2004","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"survivorship-bias-central-threat-diy-evidence","title":"Survivorship bias is the central, recurring threat in DIY-builder evidence — vendor stats and active-site surveys both exclude failures","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-diy-page-builder-effectiveness-longevity-june-2026","title":"Research brief: effectiveness and longevity of DIY / page-builder websites for SMBs (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"three-success-definitions-diy-builders-2026","title":"Three success definitions for DIY-builder sites — subscription active vs domain resolving vs content updated","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"godaddy-builder-platform-profile","title":"GoDaddy Website Builder — bundled with GoDaddy domains/hosting; third globally among DIY builders","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-r2-quarantine-vendor-retention-survivor-only","title":"R2 — Treat every vendor retention number as survivor-only and quarantine it","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T12:08:39.290Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T12:08:39.290Z"}