Alphabet’s share classes come in three flavors: Class A (ticker GOOGL) with one vote per share, Class C (ticker GOOG) with no vote, and Class B, which is not publicly traded and carries ten votes per share. All three receive the same dividends and the same economic exposure per share. The only thing that separates them is voting power, and that difference is what keeps co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in control of the company even though they own less than 13% of the shares.
The Three Classes at a Glance
Each class represents the same underlying claim on Alphabet’s earnings. A dividend of $0.21 per share pays $0.21 to a GOOGL holder, a GOOG holder, and a Class B holder alike. A stock split affects all three the same way. Where they diverge is governance.
- Class A (GOOGL) trades on NASDAQ and carries one vote per share on matters like director elections and merger approvals.
- Class C (GOOG) trades on NASDAQ and carries zero votes. Same economics as Class A, no voice at shareholder meetings.
- Class B does not trade publicly. Each share carries ten votes and is held almost entirely by the founders and a small group of insiders.
That ten-to-one voting weight is the mechanism behind everything else in this article.
GOOGL vs. GOOG: Which Ticker to Buy
For most retail buyers, the choice comes down to whether you want a single symbolic vote or not. The two tickers track each other extremely closely. Historically GOOGL has traded at a small premium over GOOG, on the order of 0.5% or less, which reflects how little practical value the vote carries when two people already control the outcome.
Some investors buy GOOGL on principle, treating the vote as a form of accountability even when it can’t shift results. Others buy GOOG when it is fractionally cheaper and pick up marginally more shares for the same dollars. Dividends, splits, and earnings exposure are identical per share either way, so the returns are effectively the same.
Why Class B Exists
Class B is the piece of the structure that gives the founders their grip on the company. Page holds approximately 26.7% of total voting power and Brin approximately 25.0%, per Alphabet’s 2025 proxy statement. Together that is more than 51%. They reach that majority not because they own a majority of shares, but because each of their Class B shares is worth ten votes while every publicly held share is worth either one or zero.
The Class C shares were created on April 2, 2014, when Google distributed one new Class C share for every existing Class A and Class B share. The point of Class C was to give the company a form of stock it could hand out for acquisitions and employee compensation without diluting the founders’ voting control. Every Class C share issued in a deal or as pay adds zero votes to the public side.
In July 2022, Alphabet ran a 20-for-1 stock split across all three classes. The split made shares more accessible at a lower per-share price but changed nothing about the voting math. Twenty one-vote shares still equal twenty votes.
No Sunset, One Structural Check
Some dual-class companies include a sunset clause that automatically collapses super-voting shares into ordinary shares after a set period. Alphabet does not. Founder control persists indefinitely for as long as Page and Brin hold their Class B shares. The Council of Institutional Investors and similar groups have pushed for time-based sunsets at dual-class companies; Alphabet has not adopted one.
There is one built-in limit. Under Alphabet’s certificate of incorporation, a Class B share automatically converts to a single-vote Class A share whenever it is transferred outside a narrow set of permitted recipients. Permitted transfers include transfers between the two founders and transfers to certain family trusts, charitable entities, and affiliated partnerships. Any other transfer triggers an irreversible conversion. Super-voting power cannot be sold on the open market or handed off to arbitrary heirs. If the founders eventually dispose of their Class B holdings outside those permitted channels, the multi-class advantage dissolves on its own.
What Voting Actually Looks Like
The practical consequence of the structure is that shareholder vote outcomes are effectively predetermined. Director elections, executive compensation, major acquisitions, and any other matter requiring a shareholder vote will go the way the founders want. Public shareholders can cast ballots and file proposals, and institutional holders (who own roughly 78% of Class A shares) do engage with the board on governance topics. But when the founders vote against a proposal, it loses.
The clearest illustration came in 2018, when a shareholder proposal to move Alphabet to a one-share-one-vote structure was reportedly supported by a large majority of outside Class A shareholders. It was defeated because the founders’ Class B votes overwhelmed the Class A majority. That dynamic is fully legal and fully disclosed in Alphabet’s proxy statements, which spell out how many Class B shares the founders hold and what share of total voting power they command.
Dividends and Buybacks Treat All Three Classes Equally
For most of Alphabet’s history as a public company, it paid no dividends. That changed on April 25, 2024, when Alphabet announced its first cash dividend of $0.20 per share, paid on June 17, 2024. Alphabet now pays quarterly. As of early 2026, the quarterly dividend is $0.21 per share, or $0.84 annualized.
Payments are made on the same per-share basis across all three classes. GOOGL, GOOG, and Class B holders each receive the same amount for each share they own. The board retains full discretion to change or suspend the dividend.
Alphabet does not run a company-sponsored Dividend Reinvestment Plan, but most brokerages allow you to set up automatic reinvestment through your account settings if you want dividends to buy additional shares instead of sitting as cash.
Alongside the dividend, the board authorized up to $70 billion in stock repurchases in April 2024. Buybacks reduce the total shares outstanding, which increases each remaining share’s claim on future earnings. Because buybacks operate at the share level rather than by class, they benefit all three classes proportionally.
What the Structure Means for a Shareholder
If you own Alphabet stock or are thinking about buying, the class structure translates into a few concrete points. You participate fully in the company’s profits, dividend payments, and stock price movements regardless of which public ticker you hold. You have essentially no influence over how the company is governed, and that will remain true for as long as the founders keep their Class B shares. The premium between GOOGL and GOOG is small enough that the choice is mostly about preference rather than economics. And the conversion rule embedded in the certificate of incorporation is the only mechanism, short of a voluntary change by the founders, that will ever wind the dual-class arrangement down.