Paylocity Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:PCTY) and Bridgeline Digital Inc. (NASDAQ:BLIN) are two firms in the Application Software that compete against each other. Below is a comparison of their dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, earnings and valuation, institutional ownership.
Valuation & Earnings
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Paylocity Holding Corporation | 417.73M | 11.30 | 53.18M | 0.96 | 86.29 |
| Bridgeline Digital Inc. | 11.97M | 0.22 | 12.06M | -2.11 | 0.00 |
Table 1 shows top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation of the two companies.
Profitability
Table 2 hightlights the net margins, return on assets and return on equity of the two companies.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Paylocity Holding Corporation | 12.73% | 23.6% | 3.5% |
| Bridgeline Digital Inc. | -100.75% | -200.3% | -98.7% |
Risk & Volatility
A beta of 2.09 shows that Paylocity Holding Corporation is 109.00% more volatile than Standard & Poor’s 500. Bridgeline Digital Inc. has a 1.65 beta and it is 65.00% more volatile than Standard & Poor’s 500.
Liquidity
The current Quick Ratio of Paylocity Holding Corporation is 1.1 while its Current Ratio is 1.1. Meanwhile, Bridgeline Digital Inc. has a Current Ratio of 1.7 while its Quick Ratio is 1.7. Bridgeline Digital Inc. is better positioned to pay off its short-term and long-term debts than Paylocity Holding Corporation.
Analyst Recommendations
Paylocity Holding Corporation and Bridgeline Digital Inc. Ratings and Recommendations are available on the next table.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Paylocity Holding Corporation | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2.75 |
| Bridgeline Digital Inc. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
The consensus target price of Paylocity Holding Corporation is $84, with potential downside of -5.82%.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
Institutional investors held 66.2% of Paylocity Holding Corporation shares and 18.2% of Bridgeline Digital Inc. shares. Insiders held 33.3% of Paylocity Holding Corporation shares. Competitively, Bridgeline Digital Inc. has 7.48% of it’s share held by insiders.
Performance
Here are the Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Half Yearly, Yearly and YTD Performance of both pretenders.
| Performance (W) | Performance (M) | Performance (Q) | Performance (HY) | Performance (Y) | Performance (YTD) | |
| Paylocity Holding Corporation | -4.26% | 17.11% | 29.95% | 5.77% | 78.5% | 38.15% |
| Bridgeline Digital Inc. | 0% | -12.62% | -34.34% | -74.19% | -87.51% | -0.52% |
For the past year Paylocity Holding Corporation has 38.15% stronger performance while Bridgeline Digital Inc. has -0.52% weaker performance.
Summary
Paylocity Holding Corporation beats Bridgeline Digital Inc. on 11 of the 12 factors.
Paylocity Holding Corporation provides cloud-based payroll and human capital management (HCM) software solutions for medium-sized organizations in the United States. It offers Paylocity Web Pay for enterprise-grade payroll processing and administration; Paylocity Web HR for employee record management and HR compliance and reporting; Talent Management for employee performance appraisal process and performance review; Paylocity Web Time, a time and attendance solution; and Paylocity Web Expense, an expense management tool designed to streamline and automate the expense management process. The company also provides Paylocity Web Benefits and Paylocity Enterprise Benefits, which are benefit management solutions that integrate with insurance carrier systems to provide automated administrative processes and allow users to choose benefit elections and make life event changes online, summarize benefit elections, and perform other benefit-related tasks, as well as enable premium reconciliation, management of voluntary benefits, and reporting. Paylocity Holding Corporation was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
Bridgeline Digital, Inc. operates as a digital engagement company in the United States. The companyÂ’s iAPPS platform enables companies and developers to create Websites, Web applications, and online stores. It offers iAPPS Experience Manager, a marketing automation engine and content management system; iAPPS Content Manager that enables non-technical users to create, edit, and publish content via a browser-based interface; and iAPPS Commerce, an online B2B and B2C e-commerce solution, which allows users to manage domestic and international commerce initiatives. The company also provides iAPPS Marketier, an online marketing management solution that helps marketers drive to their sites through personalized and targeted marketing automation flows; and iAPPS Analyzer to manage, measure, and optimize Web properties by recording detailed events and mining data for statistical analysis. In addition, it offers iAPPS Social, a social media management solution that empowers customers to set up customized watch lists; and iAPPSds, a Web content management and e-commerce platform to multi-unit organizations and franchises. Further, the company provides digital strategy, Web design and development, usability engineering, information architecture, and search engine optimization services; co-location, application monitoring, emergency response, version control, load balancing, managed firewall security, and virus protection services; and shared, dedicated, and Software as a Service hosting services. It serves vertical markets, such as financial services, franchises/multi-unit organizations, retail brand names, health services and life sciences, technology, credit unions and regional banks, and associations and foundations through its direct sales force. The company was formerly known as Bridgeline Software, Inc. and changed its name to Bridgeline Digital, Inc. in March 2010. Bridgeline Digital, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.