MELI vs PAGS Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
MELI (MercadoLibre) and PAGS (PagSeguro) are both Latin American fintech companies with Brazilian payment processing at their core — but MELI is a much larger, multi-country commerce-and-fintech conglomerate, while PAGS is a Brazil-focused merchant payments and digital banking specialist. MercadoLibre offers scale and ecosystem breadth; PagSeguro offers Brazilian market depth.
MELI vs PAGS is Latin American fintech conglomerate (MercadoLibre's commerce+fintech flywheel across 18 countries) versus Brazilian merchant payments and digital banking specialist (PagSeguro's focused SMB-to-bank expansion) — very different scale but both exposed to Brazil's large digital financial opportunity.
PAGS holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. PAGS leads on both 1-year return (-8.21%) and forward P/E quality (5.32x vs 34.60x for MELI), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, MELI is growing revenue faster (49.80%), while PAGS maintains the higher operating margin (36.20%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for PAGS (+20.14%) than for MELI (+14.76%).
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
- Want the dominant Latin American commerce and fintech ecosystem with Mercado Libre marketplace, Mercado Pago payments, Mercado Credito lending, and logistics across 18 countries
- Value MercadoLibre's flywheel between commerce data and credit underwriting as a durable competitive advantage that deepens over time
- Are comfortable with multi-country Latin American exposure (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina) and the macroeconomic complexity of operating across diverse economies
- Want Brazil-focused merchant payment processing and digital banking exposure at a smaller scale and potentially better valuation than MercadoLibre
- Value PagSeguro's SMB merchant payment leadership and the expansion opportunity from transaction processing into banking services for the same customer base
- See Brazil's large underbanked SMB population as an addressable market for digital financial services that PagSeguro is uniquely positioned to serve
| Metric | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 63.8 | 24.3 |
| AI ranki | #99 | #3320 |
| Latest closei | $1,787.39 | $9.26 |
| 1M returni | -6.35% | +11.03% |
| 6M returni | +7.23% | +4.01% |
| 1Y returni | -27.82% | -8.21% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $7.22K (-27.8%) started 2025-09-18 | $9.69K (-3.1%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $9.82K (-1.8%) started 2021-09-20 | $1.97K (-80.3%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $99.9K (+899.0%) started 2016-09-19 | $3.76K (-62.4%) started 2018-01-24 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $99.68B | $2.71B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 53.47 | 6.83 |
| Forward P/Ei | 34.60 | 5.32 |
| Price/Salesi | 5.62 | N/A |
| EV/Revenuei | 3.04 | 0.15 |
| Analyst targeti | $2,256.54 | $11.82 |
| Target upsidei | +14.76% | +20.14% |
| Metric | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 49.80% | -0.20% |
| Earnings growthi | -10.90% | 10.10% |
| EPS growthi | -10.90% | +10.10% |
| FCF margini | +1.00% | -9.37% |
| Operating margini | 6.72% | 36.20% |
| Profit margini | 5.30% | 10.86% |
| ROIC proxyi | 27.50% | 14.54% |
| Return on equityi | 27.50% | 14.54% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | 12.25% |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 17.40% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | No increase yet |
| Betai | 1.31 | 1.28 |
| Debt/equityi | 168.59 | 11.82 |
| Current ratioi | 1.12 | 1.55 |
| Quick ratioi | 0.40 | 1.44 |
Over the past year, MELI and PAGS have moved moderately in the same direction (correlation of 0.46), based on daily returns.
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | -27.82% | -8.21% |
| CAGRi | -27.84% | -8.21% | |
| Volatilityi | 41.30% | 43.06% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | -0.69 | -0.09 | |
| Sortino ratioi | -0.89 | -0.12 | |
| Max drawdowni | 38.40% | 27.98% | |
| Current drawdowni | 28.82% | 18.61% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 23.37% | 14.57% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 24.93% | 16.19% | |
| Max daily dropi | 12.70% | 11.76% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 15.16% | 17.10% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | -1.83% | -81.89% |
| CAGRi | -0.37% | -28.98% | |
| Volatilityi | 49.52% | 61.18% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.15 | -0.33 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.21 | -0.47 | |
| Max drawdowni | 67.52% | 89.20% | |
| Current drawdowni | 31.61% | 82.44% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 26.58% | 78.52% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 31.50% | 79.42% | |
| Max daily dropi | 16.88% | 23.78% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 33.57% | 34.51% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +899.04% | -65.53% |
| CAGRi | +25.89% | -11.59% | |
| Volatilityi | 48.82% | 60.39% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.62 | 0.02 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.92 | 0.03 | |
| Max drawdowni | 69.12% | 90.00% | |
| Current drawdowni | 31.61% | 83.75% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 20.20% | 56.39% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 25.97% | 64.19% | |
| Max daily dropi | 16.88% | 23.78% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 33.57% | 39.44% |
| Category | MELI | PAGS |
|---|---|---|
| Company | MercadoLibre, Inc. | PagSeguro Digital Ltd. |
| Sector | Consumer Cyclical | Technology |
| Industry | Internet Retail | Software - Infrastructure |
| Core business | MercadoLibre operates Latin America's largest e-commerce marketplace (Mercado Libre) and financial services platform (Mercado Pago) — offering digital payments, peer-to-peer transfers, merchant acquiring, consumer and SMB lending, insurance, and investment products across 18 Latin American countries. | PagSeguro Digital is a Brazilian fintech providing payment processing solutions for merchants (POS terminals, payment links, e-commerce gateway), digital banking (PagBank account with debit, prepaid card, and investment features), and business credit products — primarily serving Brazilian small and medium businesses and self-employed individuals. |
| Investor focus | Investors track MercadoLibre's total payment volume (TPV) for Mercado Pago, credit portfolio growth and quality, GMV on the marketplace, and revenue growth across Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico as the three primary markets. | Investors track PagSeguro's total payment volume (TPV), revenue, take rate per transaction, active merchants, and PagBank financial services penetration as the company evolves from pure payment processor to digital bank. |
- Mercado Pago has expanded beyond marketplace payments to become a standalone digital financial services platform for consumers and merchants not using Mercado Libre's marketplace
- Commerce + fintech flywheel — Mercado Libre transaction data informs Mercado Credito credit underwriting, and credit availability drives more marketplace purchases, creating a self-reinforcing ecosystem
- Scale across 18 countries provides geographic diversification within Latin America beyond any single country's economic cycle
- Brazilian SMB and micro-merchant payment processing leadership — PagSeguro pioneered accessible payment technology for small Brazilian businesses with its mPOS (mobile point of sale) dongle
- PagBank digital bank account expands revenue beyond transaction fees into banking services (deposits, investments, credit) for the same merchant and consumer customer base
- No-fee banking value proposition for underbanked Brazilian consumers attracts accounts that traditional banks charge fees to serve
- MercadoLibre's geographic breadth includes Argentina — Argentina's severe economic instability (high inflation, currency controls, peso devaluation) creates significant accounting and operational complexity
- Fintech credit operations require sophisticated risk management — rapid credit portfolio growth can outpace underwriting quality, creating potential NPL risk in economic downturns
- Competition from Nubank, Mercado Pago, and other fintechs is intensifying across Latin American markets — each player is seeking to build the widest financial services ecosystem
- Brazilian fintech competition is intense — Nubank, MercadoPago, Stone Co (STNE), Cielo, and others all compete for Brazilian merchants and consumers in payment processing and digital banking
- Interest rate sensitive business — PagBank's digital bank faces higher deposit competition when Brazilian interest rates are high, as consumers seek higher-yielding alternatives
- Take rates in Brazilian payment processing have compressed over time as competition increased — sustaining revenue per transaction requires expansion into higher-margin financial services
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