ACIW , CCSI , RNG

This week, we use AAII’s A+ Investor Stock Grades to provide insight into three software stocks. With a fast-changing digital landscape within the software industry, should you consider the three stocks of ACI Worldwide Inc. (ACIW), Consensus Cloud Solutions Inc. (CCSI) and RingCentral Inc. (RNG)?

Software Stocks Recent News

The software industry has been seeing significant reshaping and intensified competition as artificial intelligence (AI) transforms how products are built and sold. A 2026 industry outlook article from Deloitte notes that the enterprise software market continues to grow and generate strong cash flows, but investor confidence is being tested by the costs of AI. The report projects that 40% of enterprise applications will be integrated with task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025. Fueled largely by productivity gains tied to AI agents, the application software market is projected to reach $780 billion by 2030, reflecting a 13% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). However, it remains unclear whether these newer agentic offerings can sustain the roughly 70% margins that the top software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers have experienced in recent years.

As the report points out, this growth is setting up a race between AI-native challengers and established incumbents. Within the next few years, AI agent–powered solutions could represent 60% of the total addressable software market. In 2025 alone, U.S. software companies spent more acquiring AI companies than they had in the previous three years combined, signaling how aggressively companies are moving to close the gap through mergers and acquisitions. Given this fast-changing landscape within the software industry, should you invest in ACI Worldwide, Consensus Cloud and RingCentral?

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Grading Software Stocks With AAII’s A+ Stock Grades

When analyzing a company, it is helpful to have an objective framework that allows you to compare companies in the same way. This is why AAII created the A+ Stock Grades, which evaluate companies across five factors that research and real-world investment results indicate to identify market-beating stocks in the long run: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions (and surprises) and quality.

Using AAII’s A+ Stock Grades, the following table summarizes the attractiveness of three software stocks—ACI Worldwide, Consensus Cloud and RingCentral—based on their fundamentals.

AAII’s A+ Stock Grade Summary for Three Software Stocks

What the A+ Stock Grades Reveal

ACI Worldwide Inc. (ACIW) is a global payment technology company operating in the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and beyond. It offers real-time payment software and solutions for banks, financial intermediaries, merchants and billers worldwide. The company operates through two segments: banks and merchants. ACI Worldwide provides a broad range of payment processing solutions, including real-time payments, fraud detection, card issuing and acquiring, and bill payment platforms, serving some of the world’s largest financial institutions and retailers. It also offers cloud-based and on-premise software solutions that enable secure, high-volume transaction processing across multiple payment channels, including mobile, online and point-of-sale environments. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.

The company has a Growth Grade of A, which is very strong. The components of the Growth Composite Score consider a company’s success in growing sales on a year-over-year and long-term annualized basis and its ability to consistently generate positive cash from its core operations. ACI Worldwide has a five-year annualized sales growth rate of 6.3% and has generated year-over-year sales increases in the past five consecutive years. It has also generated positive annual cash from operations in the past five consecutive years.

ACI Worldwide has a Quality Grade of A, based on a score of 97, which is very strong. A higher-quality stock possesses traits associated with upside potential and reduced downside risk. The Quality Grade is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals to assets, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score. To be assigned a Quality Score, though, stocks must have a valid (non-null) measure and corresponding ranking for at least four of the eight quality measures.

The company ranks strongly in terms of return on invested capital and F-Score. Its return on invested capital is 72.9%, ranking in the 92nd percentile among all U.S.-listed stocks. Its F-Score is 7, ranking in the 81st percentile. The F-Score is a number between 0 and 9 that assesses the strength of a company’s financial position based on its profitability, leverage, liquidity and operating efficiency.

Consensus Cloud Solutions Inc. (CCSI) is a digital cloud fax and information transformation company operating in the U.S., Europe and beyond. It offers secure document delivery and interoperability solutions for healthcare, government, legal and financial services markets. The company operates through its flagship eFax and jSign platforms, as well as its Clarity and Unite healthcare interoperability solutions, serving enterprise and small business customers worldwide. Consensus Cloud provides a broad range of digital fax and document management services, including cloud fax, electronic signatures, and HIPAA-compliant secure messaging for regulated industries. It also offers AI-powered solutions that convert unstructured fax data into structured, actionable information, enabling seamless integration with electronic health record systems and other enterprise platforms. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Consensus Cloud has a Value Grade of B, based on its Value Score of 80, which is good value. The Value Grade is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio, price-earnings (P/E) ratio, price-to-book-value (P/B) ratio, price-to-free-cash-flow (P/FCF) ratio, shareholder yield and the ratio of enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). For these value metrics, a lower rank is more attractive. The company has an enterprise-value-to-EBITDA ratio of 6.1%, ranking in the 15th percentile. Its shareholder yield is 5.5%, ranking in the 14th percentile.

Consensus Cloud has a Momentum Grade of A, based on its Momentum Score of 84. This means that the stock’s momentum is very strong in terms of its weighted relative strength over the last four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters, with the most recent quarterly price change given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters given a weight of 20%. The ranks are 89, 52, 83 and 25, sequentially from the most recent quarter, with higher ranks signaling stronger price momentum. The weighted four-quarter relative price strength is 12.0%.

Consensus Cloud has a Quality Grade of A, based on a score of 99, which is very strong. The company ranks strongly in terms of its return on invested capital and F-Score. Its return on invested capital of 81.5% ranks in the 93rd percentile, and its F-Score of 8 ranks in the 92nd percentile.

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RingCentral Inc. (RNG) is a global cloud communications and collaboration company operating in the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and beyond. It offers unified communications, video conferencing, contact center and messaging solutions for businesses of all sizes across a broad range of industries. The company operates through its core RingCentral MVP platform, as well as its RingCX contact center and RingCentral Video collaboration solutions, serving enterprise and small to medium-sized business customers worldwide. RingCentral provides a broad range of cloud-based communication services, including business phone systems, team messaging, video meetings and omnichannel customer engagement tools delivered through its software-as-a-service platform. It also offers AI-powered features, analytics and integrations with leading enterprise applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, enabling seamless workflow automation and productivity enhancement. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Belmont, California.

The company has a Growth Grade of A, which is very strong. RingCentral has a five-year annualized sales growth rate of 16.3% and has generated year-over-year sales increases in the past five consecutive years. It has also generated positive annual cash from operations in the past five consecutive years.

RingCentral has a Momentum Grade of A, based on its Momentum Score of 93. This means that the stock’s momentum is very strong in terms of its weighted relative strength over the last four quarters. The ranks are 94, 92, 57 and 32, sequentially from the most recent quarter. The weighted four-quarter relative price strength is 24.0%.

Earnings estimate revisions indicate how analysts view a firm’s short-term profits. RingCentral has an Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade of B, which is positive. The grade is based on the statistical significance of its latest two quarterly earnings surprises and the percentage change in its consensus estimate for the current fiscal year over the past month and past three months. RingCentral reported a positive earnings surprise of 4.0% for second-quarter 2026, and in the prior quarter reported a positive earnings surprise of 2.7%. Over the last month, the consensus earnings estimate for third-quarter 2026 has increased from $1.249 to $1.278 per share based on one upward revision and two downward revisions. Over the last month, the consensus earnings estimate for full-year 2026 has increased from $4.937 to $5.071 per share based on one upward revision.

RingCentral has a Quality Grade of A, based on a score of 99, which is very strong. The company ranks strongly in terms of its gross income to assets and buyback yield. Its gross income to assets of 134.4% ranks in the 99th percentile, and its buyback yield of 7.3% ranks in the 94th percentile.

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