Contrasting Docusign (NASDAQ:DOCU) and Consensus Cloud Solutions (NASDAQ:CCSI)

Consensus Cloud Solutions (NASDAQ:CCSI) and Docusign (NASDAQ:DOCU) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and risk.

Risk and Volatility

Consensus Cloud Solutions has a beta of 1.55, meaning that its stock price is 55% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Docusign has a beta of 1, meaning that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Consensus Cloud Solutions and Docusign, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Consensus Cloud Solutions	0	1	2	0	2.67
Docusign	0	16	5	0	2.24

Consensus Cloud Solutions currently has a consensus price target of $37.50, suggesting a potential upside of 21.99%. Docusign has a consensus price target of $78.80, suggesting a potential upside of 72.35%. Given Docusign’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Docusign is more favorable than Consensus Cloud Solutions.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Consensus Cloud Solutions and Docusign”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Consensus Cloud Solutions	$349.70 million	1.66	$84.53 million	$4.35	7.07
Docusign	$2.98 billion	3.08	$1.07 billion	$1.43	31.97

Docusign has higher revenue and earnings than Consensus Cloud Solutions. Consensus Cloud Solutions is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Docusign, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Consensus Cloud Solutions and Docusign’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Consensus Cloud Solutions	24.17%	-579.06%	14.35%
Docusign	9.57%	15.02%	7.55%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

93.9% of Consensus Cloud Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.6% of Docusign shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of Consensus Cloud Solutions shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Docusign shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

About Consensus Cloud Solutions

Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information delivery services with a software-as-a-service platform worldwide. The company offers eFax Corporate, a digital cloud-fax technology; Unite, a single platform that allows the user to choose between various protocols to send and receive healthcare information and can integrate into an existing electronic health record system or stand-alone if no EHR is present. It also offers jsign, an electronic and digital signature solution; Conductor, an interface engine and interoperability platform that provides integration technology; Clarity that transforms unstructured documents into structured actionable data; and eFax, an online faxing solution, as well as other products under the MyFax, MetroFax, Sfax, and SRfax brands. In addition, the company provides ECFax, an Corporate eFax. It serves healthcare, government, financial services, law, and education sectors. Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc. was incorporated in 2021 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

About Docusign

DocuSign, Inc. provides electronic signature solution in the United States and internationally. The company provides e-signature solution that enables sending and signing of agreements on various devices; Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which automates workflows across the entire agreement process; Document Generation streamlines the process of generating new, custom agreements; and Gen for Salesforce, which allows sales representatives to automatically generate agreements with a few clicks from within Salesforce. It also provides Identify, a signer-identification option for checking government-issued IDs; Standards-Based Signatures, which support signatures that involve digital certificates; Monitor that uses advanced analytics to track DocuSign eSignature web, mobile, and API account; Notary which enables notaries public to conduct remote online notarization transactions; and Web Forms, a web forms that quickly draft agreements using pre-populated data from completed forms or external systems via APIs. In addition, the company offers Rooms for Real Estate that provides a way for brokers and agents to manage the entire real estate transaction digitally. Signature and CLM are FedRAMP, an authorized version of DocuSign eSignature for U.S. federal government agencies; and life sciences modules that support compliance with the electronic signature practices. The company sells its products through direct and partner-assisted sales, and digital self-service purchasing. DocuSign, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.