Head to Head Review: Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) & Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN)

Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN) and Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, risk, earnings, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Risk & Volatility

Five9 has a beta of 1.32, suggesting that its share price is 32% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Paychex has a beta of 0.9, suggesting that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Five9 and Paychex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Five9	2.77%	10.59%	3.87%
Paychex	26.45%	46.38%	12.24%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.6% of Five9 shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.5% of Paychex shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of Five9 shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Paychex shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Five9 and Paychex, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Five9	1	6	12	0	2.58
Paychex	4	13	1	0	1.83

Five9 presently has a consensus price target of $32.07, indicating a potential upside of 91.44%. Paychex has a consensus price target of $123.94, indicating a potential upside of 31.32%. Given Five9’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Five9 is more favorable than Paychex.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Five9 and Paychex”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Five9	$1.04 billion	1.26	-$12.80 million	$0.36	46.53
Paychex	$5.57 billion	6.08	$1.66 billion	$4.41	21.40

Paychex has higher revenue and earnings than Five9. Paychex is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Five9, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

About Five9

Five9, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides intelligent cloud software for contact centers in the United States, India, and internationally. It offers a virtual contact center cloud platform that delivers a suite of applications, which enables the breadth of contact center-related customer service, sales, and marketing functions. The company’s platform comprises of including interactive virtual agent, agent assist, workflow automation, workforce engagement management, AI insights, and AI summaries that allows to manage and optimize customer interactions across voice, chat, email, web, social media, and mobile channels directly or through its application programming interfaces. It also matches each customer interaction with an agent resource and delivers customer data to the agent in real-time through integrations with adjacent enterprise applications, such as CRM software, to optimize the customer experience and enhance agent productivity. The company serves customers in various industries, such as banking and financial services, business process outsourcers, retail, healthcare, technology, and education. Five9, Inc. was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in San Ramon, California.

About Paychex

Paychex, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated human capital management solutions (HCM) for payroll, benefits, human resources (HR), and insurance services for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Europe, and India. It offers payroll processing services; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; and regulatory compliance services, such as new-hire reporting and garnishment processing. The company also provides HR solutions, including integrated HCM technology solutions and HR advisory services through both virtual and on-site availability of a professionally trained HR representative, as well as HR support to non-payroll clients through its HR Partner Plus solution; and retirement services administration, such as plan implementation, ongoing compliance with government regulations, employee and employer reporting, participant and employer online access, electronic funds transfer, and other administrative services. In addition, it offers cloud-based HR administration software products for employee benefits management and administration, time and attendance, digital communication solutions, recruiting, and onboarding solutions; plan administration outsourcing and state unemployment insurance services; various business services to small to medium-sized businesses comprising payroll funding and outsourcing services, which include payroll processing, invoicing, and tax preparation; and payment processing services, financial fitness programs, and a small-business loan resource center. Further, the company provides insurance services for property and casualty coverage, such as workers’ compensation, business-owner policies, cyber security protection, and commercial auto, as well as health and benefits coverage, including health, dental, vision, and life. It markets and sells its services primarily through its direct sales force. The company was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Rochester, New York.