Compare price, profitability, solvency, and SEC-reported financials side by side—before deciding which assumptions deserve a closer look.
Decision snapshot: PAYX stock price vs NOW: inconclusive Relative valuation is incomplete for this pair. Review the available filing metrics before drawing a conclusion.
Quick read
Each company valued on the other's multiple, then compared with the market price.
Implied fair value · at NOW's multiple
Needs NOW P/E.
Implied fair value · at PAYX's multiple
Needs PAYX P/E.
Live quote
Price unavailable
Metric by metric
Where each company leads, and how wide the gap is.
Growth lag
Pricing power
Operating leverage
Lower is better
Not comparable
Lower leverage
Statements
Core statements aligned to each company's latest fiscal year.
SEC periods: PAYX FY 2026 (ended May 31, 2026) · NOW FY 2025 (ended Dec 31, 2025). Fiscal years are not aligned.
Trendline
Eight fiscal years of revenue, earnings, and margins before underwriting a re-rating.
Price framework
Market cap plus debt, less cash.
Price framework
Discounted free cash flow, then bridged to a per-share price. Same assumptions applied to both companies.
Paychex, Inc. · implied price per share
Bear
$55.75
Base
$65.59
Bull
$75.43
ServiceNow, Inc. · implied price per share
Bear
$22.00
Base
$25.89
Bull
$29.77
Balance sheet health
Financial health checks to separate durable balance sheets from potential value traps.
Financial strength on a 0–9 scale.
Bankruptcy-risk signal from balance sheet and earnings power.
Not enough data to score either balance sheet.
Debt / equity
Total debt against shareholders' equity
1.22x
0.01x
Net debt / EBITDA
Leverage against operating earnings
1.12x
-1.59x
Cash and equivalents
Liquid reserves on the balance sheet
$1.12B
$4.78B
Total debt
Interest-bearing obligations outstanding
Comparable set
Where the pair sits against the wider comparable set.
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$4.57B
$92.00M
Live quote
Edwyn research
LLM-powered synthesis
An on-demand narrative read of the same deterministic data.
Based on an earlier data snapshot. Review the filing dates below or refresh after signing in.
If you believe PAYX can sustain its superior margins and ROIC while closing some of NOW's growth premium, then PAYX looks attractive to own because it is cheaper on P/E, P/S, and EV/EBITDA despite stronger profitability; if you believe growth should dominate valuation, the case weakens because NOW still grows faster.
PAYX trades at 22.9x P/E versus NOW at 61.1x, despite PAYX generating higher net income and much stronger margins. The implied price of $298.85 versus the current price of $111.96 suggests a large upside, but NOW-implied range of $145.13-$302.42 and historical band of $100.76-$123.16 indicate the stock is already near the top of its own recent trading range.
Supporting Metrics
