Buying a share is supposed to be one decision. You choose the company, and the share you get carries a piece of its profits and a say in how it is run. With Alphabet, that split matters: GOOGL vs GOOG comes down mainly to voting rights. GOOGL is Class A stock with one vote per share, GOOG is Class C stock with no voting rights, and both have the same economic claim on Alphabet’s earnings, assets, and dividends.
Then you type a company's name into a broker and two tickers come back, one letter apart, priced a few dollars apart, with nothing on the screen to say which one you are meant to want. Same company. Same earnings, same dividend, same claim on the assets. One costs slightly more, and the difference has sat there so long that most people click whichever appears first and move on.
The reason is a multi-class share structure. Founders who want public money without handing over the direction of the business split the stock into classes: one that carries a vote, one that carries ten, and sometimes one that carries none at all. Alphabet Inc, Google's parent company, runs the best-known version of this, with founder control concentrated in Class B shares that are not publicly traded. That setup affects more than governance on paper: it can create a voting premium, shift liquidity between tickers, and matter to funds, traders, and retail investors deciding which class better fits their goals.
This guide is for investors and traders comparing Alphabet’s share classes, including buyers in brokerage accounts, governance-focused funds, options traders, and users looking at tokenized stock or derivative versions on platforms such as BloFin. It explains how the share classes were created, what the stock split changed, why GOOG and GOOGL can trade at slightly different prices, how liquidity and mandates influence demand, and which class may make more sense depending on whether you care about voting power, execution, or simply owning Alphabet exposure. It is not always treated as a trivial distinction: when Berkshire Hathaway put $10 billion into Alphabet in June 2026, it bought both classes and paid $3.61 a share more for the one that votes (source: Alphabet 8-K).
What is the difference between GOOG and GOOGL?
The main difference between GOOG and GOOGL is voting rights, not money. GOOGL (Class A) gives you one vote per share on corporate matters like board elections and shareholder proposals. GOOG (Class C) gives you no votes at all. Beyond that, the two classes are economically the same: identical dividends, identical earnings per share, identical claim on Alphabet's assets (source: Alphabet 10-K).
Alphabet initiated its first dividend in 2024, and every class receives the same amount. The current quarterly payment is $0.22 a share, raised from $0.21 in June 2026, for an annual $0.88 and a yield of about 0.26% (source: Stock Analysis). Neither class gets a larger payout than the other.
Class A usually trades at a slight premium to Class C because of the votes, and the gap is normally around 1% or less. In the prospectus supplement for its June 2026 equity offering, Alphabet recorded the June 2, 2026 closing prices as $361.85 for Class A and $358.39 for Class C, a spread of $3.46 or about 0.97% (source: Alphabet prospectus supplement).
BloFin lists tokenized Alphabet as GOOGLX/USDT on Spot. GOOGLX tracks the Class A price and gives you economic exposure to it, while the vote and the legal share ownership stay with the custodian.
For most investors the practical takeaway is short. If you do not care about votes and want Alphabet at a marginal discount, lean toward GOOG. If you want nominal voting rights and do not mind paying a fraction of a percent for them, choose GOOGL.
Alphabet's three share classes: Class A, Class B, and Class C
Alphabet Inc has a multi-class share structure built for corporate governance. Three classes of Alphabet shares exist, all representing the same economic interest per share but with different voting power (source: Alphabet description of securities).
Class A (GOOGL) carries one vote per share and is publicly traded on Nasdaq. This is the class held by many institutional investors and index funds.
Class C (GOOG), Alphabet's Class C stocks, carries zero votes per share and is also publicly traded on Nasdaq. Alphabet created Class C shares in April 2014 to allow raising capital and issuing employee compensation without diluting voting power.
Class B shares are not publicly traded and have ten votes per share. These are held by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and a small group of insiders. Class B can convert into Class A on a one-for-one basis at the holder's choice, but Class A and Class C cannot convert into Class B (source: Alphabet proxy statement).
Since the dividend began in 2024, all three classes receive an identical per-share amount. As of late 2025 Alphabet reported approximately 5.82 billion Class A shares, 837 million Class B shares and 5.44 billion Class C shares outstanding (source: WTOP). Those counts have since risen, because Alphabet issued new Class A and Class C stock in its June 2026 equity raise, covered below.
How GOOG and GOOGL were created: Stock splits and history
Google went public in 2004 with a single publicly traded class, Class A. Class B super-voting shares existed from the start but were reserved for insiders. The company reorganized under the Alphabet parent in 2015, but the event that created two public tickers happened a year earlier.
On April 2, 2014, the Google split took the form of a stock dividend that created GOOG and GOOGL: shareholders received one new non-voting Class C share for each existing Class A share they held. The move aimed to retain control for founders Page and Brin while creating a non-voting class the company could use for capital raising, acquisitions, and employee compensation without diluting founder votes (source: Legal Clarity). Two tickers appeared on Nasdaq afterwards: GOOGL for the original Class A voting shares and GOOG for the new Class C non-voting shares.
A second event followed years later. Alphabet announced a 20-for-1 stock split in February 2022, effective July 15, 2022, with split-adjusted trading beginning the following Monday. Each GOOGL and GOOG share became 20 shares, the split applied equally across Class A, Class B and Class C, and the share price dropped proportionally while the count multiplied. Voting ratios, economic rights and the class structure were unchanged (source: WTOP). A split changes the arithmetic of a holding and nothing about what it is, in the same way as any other, and the mechanics are the same ones covered in stock splits explained.
Alphabet's dual-class model influenced other technology firms considering similar structures, though the design remains specific to its founding priorities: long-term projects in AI, cloud and speculative bets, insulated from pressure for quarterly returns.
Alphabet board structure and dual-class governance
A dual class structure is one where some shares carry more votes than others, letting insiders keep control while selling economic stakes to the public. Alphabet runs a three-tier version, and the governance effect is the same: founders set the company's direction regardless of how publicly traded shares vote, even though voting shares can in theory influence Alphabet's business direction through board elections and shareholder proposals.
Alphabet's board of directors is elected by holders of Class A and Class B voting together, and the board oversees strategy, chief executive performance and capital allocation. Board elections are the one thing Class C holders sit out entirely (source: Alphabet description of securities).
Control sits with Class B. As of December 31, 2024, Page and Brin held roughly 87.4% of all Class B shares, representing about 52.1% of total voting power (source: Alphabet 10-K). Because each Class B share carries ten votes, their voting power far exceeds their economic ownership, and issuing billions more Class A and Class C shares does not dilute it in the way it would at a single-class company. Those percentages are read from the 2024 annual report and will have moved with subsequent share issuance, including the June 2026 raise.
The structure has drawn criticism. S&P Dow Jones Indices announced in 2017 that it would stop admitting new multi-class companies to the S&P Composite 1500 and its component indices, and Alphabet, already a member, was unaffected. That policy was reversed on April 17, 2023, and multi-class companies are eligible again (source: S&P Dow Jones Indices). Supporters of the structure argue it lets Alphabet fund long-horizon work in AI infrastructure, autonomous vehicles and cloud without answering for it every quarter.
The choice between GOOG and GOOGL is therefore about marginal voting power. Neither class changes who controls Alphabet's direction, though owning GOOGL can still give shareholders a say on the company's policies even if founder control dominates outcomes.
Class A (GOOGL): What Alphabet's Class A shares offer
Class A shares are Alphabet's publicly traded voting stock, listed on Nasdaq under GOOGL. Each carries one vote, and holders can vote on corporate matters including board elections, auditor ratification and shareholder proposals.
Ticker: GOOGL
Voting: one vote per share
Dividends: the same per-share amount as every other class
Price: typically a slight premium to GOOG, reflecting the votes
Volume: GOOGL shares average about 22.0 million over 20 days, against 12.9 million for GOOG (source: Stock Analysis)
GOOGL is the line many index products and mutual funds hold when their mandate prefers voting stock, though some investors see it as the better investment only if they value the vote enough to justify the slightly higher price, which supports its liquidity and its options activity. In practice a retail holder's vote is symbolic, because Page and Brin retain majority control through Class B. Some investors still prefer it: governance-focused funds with a voting mandate, long-term holders who want at least nominal rights, and options traders who find better depth in GOOGL contracts.
BloFin's tokenized Alphabet, GOOGLX, mirrors the price behavior of Class A while leaving these votes and direct shareholder rights behind. What a tokenized stock does and does not give you is set out in tokenized stocks.
Class C (GOOG): What Alphabet's Class C shares offer
GOOG is Alphabet's Class C stock, the non-voting GOOG shares created in 2014 that trade alongside GOOGL on Nasdaq. They confer economic rights only.
Ticker: GOOG
Voting: zero votes per share
Dividends: identical to Class A and Class B
Price: usually slightly cheaper than GOOGL, reflecting the absent vote
Volume: 20-day average of about 12.9 million shares (source: Stock Analysis), and GOOG is generally more liquid than GOOGL shares, which can make entries and exits easier for traders
Class C is what Alphabet generally uses for stock-based employee compensation and for acquisitions, because issuing non-voting stock pays people in equity without further diluting founder votes. Investors who choose it usually do so for one of three reasons: they care only about economic returns, they want whichever class is marginally cheaper on their trade date, or their broker offers better pricing on GOOG. That added liquidity also helps explain why some shorter-term participants pay attention to trading volume when deciding which share class to use.
Over multi-year periods the two classes have delivered very similar returns; for example, GOOG delivered a 114.74% return over five years, with cumulative differences between the classes usually well under a percentage point. For anyone outside an activist fund, non-voting GOOG is functionally equivalent to GOOGL as a route to Alphabet exposure.
Alphabet's Class B shares and founder voting power
Class B is Alphabet's high-vote insider stock. It stays off-exchange and is held mainly by Page and Brin along with a small group of executives and directors.
Each Class B share carries 10 votes, against one for Class A and none for Class C
Class B converts into Class A on a one-for-one basis at the holder's choice, and only in that direction
Class B stays off-exchange, so it is unavailable to public buyers
The arithmetic is what preserves control. Founders hold a minority of the economics and a majority of the votes, which lets them approve or block mergers, major share issuances and other strategic decisions regardless of how public shareholders vote. GOOG and GOOGL together are Alphabet's public float, while the Class B block sits behind them as the control mechanism. Dual-class structures are common among large technology firms, and this trade-off between control stability and shareholder voice is part of Alphabet investment decisions.
Price spread between GOOG and GOOGL and index effects
The two classes trade within a tight band, because they represent shares of the same underlying company and the same cash flows, which is why their stock prices stay close, and the price gap is normally around 1% or less. Three things drive what gap there is: a voting-rights premium some investors will pay for GOOGL, index and ETF demand that favors one class over the other, and the difference in liquidity between the two order books. In practice, GOOG often trades at a slight discount, while GOOGL can carry a slightly higher price because of voting rights.
The June 2, 2026 closing prices give the shape of it: $361.85 for Class A against $358.39 for Class C, a $3.46 spread or about 0.97% (source: Alphabet prospectus supplement). Professional traders sometimes arbitrage the gap when it widens beyond the normal band, creating arbitrage opportunities as they short the richer class and buy the cheaper one until GOOG trades and GOOGL trades reconverge. For a retail holder the spread is too small and moves too quickly to trade, and it is a minor input into which class to own.
Both classes appear as separate lines in the major indices, so portfolio trackers and brokerage apps show them as distinct holdings even though they represent the same business, and both GOOGL and GOOG have shown similar price performance since 2014 because they track the same underlying business.
Real-world illustration: Berkshire Hathaway's June 2026 Alphabet placement
The largest recent change to Alphabet's capital structure came in June 2026, and it touched both public classes at once.
Alphabet announced an equity capital raise on June 1, 2026 and priced it the following day, upsizing the total to $84.75 billion across registered public offerings of Class A common stock, Class C capital stock and depositary shares representing mandatory convertible preferred stock, together with a $40 billion at-the-market program and a concurrent private placement. Berkshire Hathaway took $10 billion of that placement, split evenly: $5 billion of Class A at $351.81 a share and $5 billion of Class C at $348.20 (source: Alphabet 8-K), with the upsized total confirmed in the pricing release the following day (source: Alphabet). The stated use of proceeds was general corporate purposes including capital expenditure to scale AI infrastructure and global compute.
Two things follow for anyone reading the share classes. The placement prices carry a $3.61 spread, about 1.04%, so even a buyer as sophisticated as Berkshire paid a modest premium for the vote and treated the two classes as otherwise interchangeable. And because new Class A and Class C stock was issued while Class B was not, every share-count and voting-power figure published before June 2026 now understates dilution, including the percentages in Alphabet's 2024 annual report.
GOOG vs GOOGL performance: Which class has done better?
Since Class C was created in 2014, GOOGL stock and Class C have delivered very similar long-term returns, and daily moves are almost identical because both GOOG and GOOGL track the same business. Over three-to-five-year periods cumulative returns usually differ by less than one percentage point, and short-term gaps that open during volatility spikes tend to revert.
Dividends now apply equally to both classes, so any total-return comparison after 2024 has to count them on both sides. Alphabet's payout ratio is about 4.4%, so the dividend is a small part of that total either way, and buybacks do considerably more work (source: Stock Analysis).
Other things will matter far more to your outcome than the class you choose: your entry price and holding period, broader technology sector volatility, Alphabet's earnings trajectory across search, advertising and Google Cloud, and your own position sizing. The difference between GOOG and GOOGL is governance, not returns, which matters because the class structure rarely changes the quality of the underlying investment when comparing Google stock options.
Which Alphabet share class does GOOGLX on BloFin track?
BloFin lists tokenized Alphabet as GOOGLX/USDT on spot, listed September 2, 2025, and GOOGLUSDT as a perpetual futures contract, listed March 26, 2026 at up to 20x leverage.
GOOGLX is backed 1:1 by Alphabet Class A stock through a tracker certificate issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey special-purpose vehicle. The reference class is Class A, not Class C or Class B. The holder is a creditor of the issuer rather than an owner of the share, and is not entitled to the underlying equity, to voting rights, or to shareholder information rights.
The rights stack differs across the three instruments:
GOOGL: a Class A share with one vote, dividends and full economic exposure
GOOG: a Class C share with dividends and economic exposure but no vote
GOOGLX: an on-chain token tied to the Class A price, with economic exposure only, and with legal and counterparty risk a share does not carry
This works the same way as tokenized NVIDIA against the real NVDA share, which tracks the price without granting ownership. If you are choosing between the tokenized spot pair and the perpetual, the same trade-off is worked through for the NVIDIA pair in spot versus the perpetual.
The general mechanics of the two instrument types are in spot versus perpetual futures, and the cost of holding the perpetual over time is set by funding, which is charged between longs and shorts on each interval and has no equivalent on either share class.
GOOGL vs GOOG: Which Alphabet share class suits you?
There is no universally better investment between GOOG and GOOGL. It depends on how much you care about voting rights, how large the premium is on the day you buy, and where you are trading.
Choose GOOGL if you value the vote, want alignment with funds that hold voting stock, or find the premium negligible on your trade date. Choose GOOG if you care only about price performance and the identical dividend, votes are irrelevant to you, or GOOG happens to be cheaper at your broker on the day; buying GOOG is often the simpler choice for investors who only want economic exposure at the lower quoted price.
For short-term traders and for many retail investors using derivatives or tokenized routes, the distinction is largely academic, because contracts for difference, options, tokens and futures do not pass through voting rights at all. On BloFin, GOOGLX and GOOGLUSDT are built for price exposure and active trading rather than governance, and anyone who wants an actual vote has to hold GOOGL directly through a broker. If leverage is part of the plan, understand liquidation before sizing anything, and if the platform is new to you, start with your first trade.
Both classes give you exposure to the underlying business in search, advertising, cloud and AI, and both still represent equal ownership per share despite different voting rights, so your risk management and diversification will matter more than the A-versus-C choice. The price difference is a rounding error, and the control question was settled by Class B a long time ago.
Frequently asked questions
Should I buy GOOG or GOOGL?
Either works for economic exposure, because both are different Alphabet shares of the same company and are identical on dividends, earnings per share and claim on assets. GOOGL carries one vote per share and usually trades at a premium of around 1% or less, while GOOG carries no vote, usually trades at a slight discount, and GOOGL may trade at a slightly higher price for the vote. If a vote matters to you, or your fund mandate requires voting stock, take GOOGL. If it does not, GOOG gives you the same economics for slightly less. Neither choice affects who controls Alphabet, which is settled by the unlisted Class B shares, which is why many existing shareholders simply choose the cheaper class unless they specifically want voting rights.
Do GOOG and GOOGL pay the same dividend?
Yes. Every Alphabet share class receives the same per-share amount, currently $0.22 a quarter, or $0.88 a year for a yield of about 0.26% (source: Stock Analysis). Alphabet initiated the dividend in 2024 at $0.20 a quarter, raised it to $0.21 in 2025 and to $0.22 in June 2026. The payout ratio is around 4.4% (source: Stock Analysis), so the dividend is a small part of total return for either class, and share repurchases do considerably more.
Why did Alphabet create a non-voting share class?
To let the company issue stock without diluting founder control, and so Alphabet could keep backing long-term projects without bending to short-term shareholder interests. On April 2, 2014 Google paid a stock dividend of one non-voting Class C share for each Class A share held, which created a currency it could use for acquisitions and employee compensation while leaving the voting arithmetic untouched, a structure Sergey Brin wanted to preserve founder control alongside Larry Page when the non-voting class was created (source: Legal Clarity). Class C has been the class most often used for equity compensation since. The two public tickers, GOOGL and GOOG, date from that distribution.
Which class is more liquid, GOOG or GOOGL?
GOOGL, by a clear margin. Its 20-day average volume is about 22.0 million shares against roughly 12.9 million for GOOG (source: Stock Analysis), which is close to 1.7 times the turnover. The gap reflects index and fund demand for voting stock. For ordinary order sizes either book is deep enough that it makes no practical difference, but for a large order GOOGL is the easier of the two to work.
Can I buy Alphabet Class B shares?
No. Class B is not listed on any exchange and is held by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with a small group of executives and directors. Each Class B share carries ten votes, and holders can convert into Class A one for one whenever they choose, though Class A and Class C cannot convert the other way. As of December 31, 2024 Page and Brin held roughly 87.4% of Class B, giving them about 52.1% of the total vote (source: Alphabet 10-K).
What did the 2022 stock split do to the share classes?
Nothing structural. Alphabet announced a 20-for-1 split in February 2022, effective July 15, 2022, applied equally across Class A, Class B and Class C. Each share became 20 shares, the price fell proportionally, and voting ratios, economic rights and the class structure were all unchanged (source: WTOP). A split changes the arithmetic of a holding and not what the holding is, which is why the GOOG and GOOGL distinction survived it untouched.
Does GOOGLX on BloFin track GOOG or GOOGL?
GOOGL. GOOGLX is backed 1:1 by Alphabet Class A stock through a tracker certificate issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey special-purpose vehicle, so the reference class is Class A. What the token leaves behind is the vote that comes with a real Class A share: the holder is a creditor of the issuer rather than a registered shareholder, and carries counterparty exposure to that issuer on top of the share price.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Alphabet's June 2026 prospectus supplement and the 8-K announcing its equity capital raise and Berkshire Hathaway private placement, Alphabet's 2024 annual report for founder voting power, Stock Analysis for dividend, volume and payout data, S&P Dow Jones Indices on multi-class index eligibility, WTOP on Alphabet's share counts and the 2022 stock split, and Legal Clarity on the 2014 Class C distribution, current as of September 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice. Alphabet stock, tokenized Alphabet and the GOOGLUSDT perpetual all carry the risk of loss, and the tokenized product carries rights that differ from owning shares directly, including no voting rights and exposure to the issuer's solvency. Share counts and voting percentages quoted from filings are accurate as of the date of the filing and change with subsequent issuance, including Alphabet's June 2026 equity raise. Prices, yields and volumes were read on September 4, 2026 and move continuously. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.