Analyzing BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) & Commerce.com (NASDAQ:CMRC)

Commerce.com (NASDAQ:CMRC) and BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Commerce.com and BlackLine, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Commerce.com	3	3	1	0	1.71
BlackLine	2	8	5	0	2.20

Commerce.com presently has a consensus target price of $4.17, suggesting a potential upside of 27.23%. BlackLine has a consensus target price of $40.08, suggesting a potential upside of 42.40%. Given BlackLine’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe BlackLine is more favorable than Commerce.com.

Profitability

This table compares Commerce.com and BlackLine’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Commerce.com	-1.66%	20.49%	2.92%
BlackLine	4.75%	20.89%	4.19%

Volatility & Risk

Commerce.com has a beta of 1.12, suggesting that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BlackLine has a beta of 0.66, suggesting that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Commerce.com and BlackLine”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Commerce.com	$342.35 million	0.79	-$19.34 million	($0.07)	-46.79
BlackLine	$700.43 million	2.34	$24.17 million	$0.57	49.38

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

79.2% of Commerce.com shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.1% of BlackLine shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Commerce.com shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 9.1% of BlackLine shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

BlackLine beats Commerce.com on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Commerce.com

BigCommerce Holdings, Inc. operates a software-as-a-service platform for small businesses, mid-markets, and large enterprises in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company’s platform provides various services for launching and scaling e-commerce operation, including store design, catalog management, hosting, checkout, order management, reporting, and pre-integrations. As of December 31, 2021, it served approximately 60,000 online stores across industries. BigCommerce Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

About BlackLine

BlackLine, Inc. operates a cloud-based software platform which is designed to transform accounting and finance operations for organizations of all types and sizes. Its scalable platform supports critical accounting processes such as the financial close, account reconciliations, intercompany accounting, and controls assurance. The company was founded by Therese Tucker in May 2001 and is headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA.