Sifting through countless of stocks in the Professional Services industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in Paylocity Holding Corporation or NICE Ltd. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd.

Paylocity Holding Corporation provides cloud-based human capital management, payroll software, and spend management solutions for the workforce in the United States. The company offers payroll solutions comprising payroll and tax services, global payroll, on-demand payment, and garnishments; human resources (HR) solutions consisting of human resources, employee self-service, workflows and documents, HR compliance dashboard, and HR edge; time and attendance, scheduling, and time collection; time and labor solutions, including time and attendance, scheduling, and time collection; and talent solutions, such as recruiting, onboarding, market pay, learning, performance, and compensation. It also provides benefits solutions comprising benefit enrollment and updates, and third-party administrative solutions; employee experiences consisting of community, video, employee voice, recognition and rewards, modern workforce index, data insights, and reporting; and Paylocity for finance solutions, such as headcount planning, expense management, accounts payable automation, corporate cards, and guided procurement. In addition, the company offers implementation and training, client services, and tax and regulatory services. It serves for-profit and non-profit organizations across industries, including business services, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, restaurants, retail, technology, and others. The company also sells its products through sales representatives. Paylocity Holding Corporation was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois.

NICE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides AI-powered cloud platforms for customer engagement, and financial crime and compliance in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Customer Engagement; and Financial Crime and Compliance. The Customer Engagement segment provides CXone Mpower platform for organizations to automate service, augment the workforce with AI-powered solutions, and unify enterprise knowledge, data and AI models resolutions, and customer experiences. The Financial Crime and Compliance segment offers embedded-AI solutions that identify risks and help prevent money laundering and fraud, as well as help ensure financial markets compliance in real-time. It also provides NICE Evidencentral, a digital evidence management and investigation platform for criminal justice system. In addition, the company offers NiCE Actimize provides cloud platforms embedded with AI capabilities for real-time and cross-channel fraud prevention, know-your-customer, anti-money laundering, and capital markets compliance; X-Sight, an open AI-cloud platform for Financial Crime and Compliance, enabling financial services organizations; Xceed which provides AI, data intelligence, machine learning, and insights for AML and fraud prevention for small and mid-sized organizations; cloud platforms provide financial services organizations with the agility required to adapt changing regulatory and threat landscapes; data intelligence solutions enable organizations to turn raw data into actionable intelligence to prevent and detect financial crimes; AI and analytics; intelligent investigations solutions; and self-service solutions. The company was formerly known as NICE-Systems Ltd. and changed its name to NICE Ltd. in June 2016. NICE Ltd. was incorporated in 1986 and is headquartered in Ra'anana, Israel.

Latest Professional Services and Paylocity Holding Corporation, NICE Ltd. Stock News

As of May 29, 2026, Paylocity Holding Corporation had a $6.2 billion market capitalization, compared to the Professional Services median of $1.1 million. Paylocity Holding Corporation’s stock is down 20.4% in 2026, up 7.4% in the previous five trading days and down 40.68% in the past year.

Currently, Paylocity Holding Corporation’s price-earnings ratio is 24.6. Paylocity Holding Corporation’s trailing 12-month revenue is $1.7 billion with a 14.9% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 10.5%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $8.083 per share for the current fiscal year. Paylocity Holding Corporation does not currently pay a dividend.

As of May 29, 2026, NICE Ltd. had a $5.2 billion market cap, putting it in the 68th percentile of all stocks. NICE Ltd.’s stock is down 10.3% in 2026, up 7.3% in the previous five trading days and down 43.74% in the past year.

Currently, NICE Ltd.’s price-earnings ratio is 9.6. NICE Ltd.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $2.9 billion with a 17.6% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 26.2%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $11.091 per share for the current fiscal year. NICE Ltd. does not currently pay a dividend.

How We Compare Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. Stock Value Grades

Company	Ticker	Value
Paylocity Holding Corporation	PCTY	D
NICE Ltd.	NICE	A

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

Paylocity Holding Corporation has a Value Score of 36, which is Expensive. NICE Ltd. has a Value Score of 81, which is Deep Value.

The Value Stock Winner: NICE Ltd.

As you can clearly see from the Value Grade breakdown above, NICE Ltd. is considered to have better value than Paylocity Holding Corporation. For investors who focus solely on a company’s valuation, NICE Ltd. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. Growth Grades

Company	Ticker	Growth
Paylocity Holding Corporation	PCTY	B
NICE Ltd.	NICE	A

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

Paylocity Holding Corporation has a Growth Score of 69, which is Strong. NICE Ltd. has a Growth Score of 89, which is Very Strong.

The Growth Grade Winner: NICE Ltd.

As you can clearly see from the Growth Grade breakdown above, NICE Ltd. has a more attractive growth grade than Paylocity Holding Corporation. For investors who focus solely on how a company is growing relative to other companies in the same industry, NICE Ltd. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd.’s Momentum Grades

Company	Ticker	Momentum
Paylocity Holding Corporation	PCTY	F
NICE Ltd.	NICE	F

Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

Paylocity Holding Corporation has a Momentum Score of 18, which is Very Weak. NICE Ltd. has a Momentum Score of 11, which is Very Weak.

The Momentum Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Paylocity Holding Corporation or NICE Ltd. has a strong enough Momentum Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Paylocity Holding Corporation or NICE Ltd. is the better investment when it comes to momentum.

Other Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. Grades

In addition to Growth, Value and Momentum, A+ Investor also provides grades for Estimate Revisions and Quality.

Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Paylocity Holding Corporation or NICE Ltd. Stock?

Overall, Paylocity Holding Corporation stock has a Value Score of 36, Growth Score of 69 and Momentum Score of 18.

NICE Ltd. stock has a Value Score of 81, Growth Score of 89 and Momentum Score of 11.

Comparing Paylocity Holding Corporation and NICE Ltd.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.