PAYO vs FLYW Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
Payoneer and Flywire both provide cross-border payment infrastructure, but Payoneer focuses on high-volume, smaller-value transactions for small businesses, freelancers, and marketplace sellers, while Flywire focuses on complex, high-value payment flows within specific verticals like education, healthcare, and travel.
PAYO offers exposure to high-volume, small-transaction cross-border payments for small businesses and freelancers, while FLYW offers exposure to complex, high-value vertical payment processing. The decision depends on whether you prefer broad small-business payment volume or specialized, high-value vertical payment flows.
FLYW holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. FLYW leads on both 1-year return (+42.59%) and forward P/E quality (14.25x vs 15.47x for PAYO), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, FLYW is growing revenue faster (27.20%), while PAYO maintains the higher operating margin (6.17%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for FLYW (+8.62%) than for PAYO (+3.93%).
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 exposure to cross-border payments for small businesses, freelancers, and marketplace sellers
- Value established relationships with global marketplaces and freelance platforms
- Believe expansion into working capital and value-added financial services will support revenue diversification
- Are comfortable with revenue sensitivity to global interest rate levels
- Want exposure to specialized, high-value payment processing in education, healthcare, and travel
- Value a global payment infrastructure that simplifies complex cross-border transactions
- Believe diversification across multiple verticals reduces reliance on any single end market
- Are comfortable with exposure to seasonal education-related payment volume patterns
| Metric | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 24.3 | 25.0 |
| AI ranki | #3174 | #2838 |
| Latest closei | $7.16 | $19.15 |
| 1M returni | +0.14% | +8.93% |
| 3M returni | +0.42% | +10.95% |
| 6M returni | +45.82% | +31.80% |
| 1Y returni | +24.96% | +42.59% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $12.5K (+25.0%) started 2025-11-03 | $14.26K (+42.6%) started 2025-11-03 |
| 5Y ago | $9.19K (-8.1%) started 2021-11-04 | $4.45K (-55.5%) started 2021-11-04 |
| 10Y ago | $7.4K (-26.0%) started 2020-10-16 | $5.46K (-45.4%) started 2021-05-26 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $2.41B | $2.4B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 50.86 | 74.62 |
| Forward P/Ei | 15.47 | 14.25 |
| Price/Salesi | N/A | N/A |
| EV/Revenuei | 1.98 | 2.90 |
| Analyst targeti | $7.40 | $21.07 |
| Target upsidei | +3.93% | +8.62% |
| Metric | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 5.20% | 27.20% |
| Earnings growthi | N/A | N/A |
| EPS growthi | N/A | N/A |
| FCF margini | -6.39% | +23.54% |
| Operating margini | 6.17% | -1.35% |
| Profit margini | 4.65% | 4.77% |
| ROIC proxyi | 7.06% | 4.23% |
| Return on equityi | 7.06% | 4.23% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | 0.00% |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | N/A |
| Betai | 0.95 | 1.35 |
| Debt/equityi | 13.18 | 0.18 |
| Current ratioi | 1.00 | 1.52 |
| Quick ratioi | 0.99 | 1.40 |
Over the past year, PAYO and FLYW have moved weakly in the same direction (correlation of 0.25), 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 | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | +24.96% | +42.59% |
| CAGRi | +24.98% | +42.63% | |
| Volatilityi | 45.89% | 46.46% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.62 | 0.90 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.95 | 1.48 | |
| Max drawdowni | 33.59% | 28.16% | |
| Current drawdowni | 0.28% | 2.74% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 8.78% | 8.81% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 13.64% | 11.38% | |
| Max daily dropi | 18.51% | 10.25% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 21.22% | 16.44% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | -8.09% | -55.48% |
| CAGRi | -1.67% | -14.95% | |
| Volatilityi | 54.98% | 56.30% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.16 | -0.08 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.24 | -0.11 | |
| Max drawdowni | 62.78% | 81.44% | |
| Current drawdowni | 35.20% | 57.78% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 37.91% | 53.80% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 40.18% | 56.19% | |
| Max daily dropi | 19.60% | 37.36% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 25.81% | 41.87% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | -26.03% | -45.44% |
| CAGRi | -4.86% | -10.54% | |
| Volatilityi | 54.17% | 56.27% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.09 | 0.01 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.14 | 0.01 | |
| Max drawdowni | 76.04% | 84.40% | |
| Current drawdowni | 50.28% | 64.51% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 50.87% | 56.85% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 53.75% | 60.11% | |
| Max daily dropi | 19.60% | 37.36% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 25.81% | 41.87% |
| Category | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Payoneer Global Inc. | Flywire Corporation |
| Sector | Technology | Technology |
| Industry | Software - Infrastructure | Software - Infrastructure |
| Core business | A financial technology company providing cross-border payment and working capital solutions primarily for small and medium-sized businesses, freelancers, and marketplace sellers around the world. | A global payments company specializing in complex, high-value payment processing for vertical markets including education, healthcare, and travel, enabling cross-border and domestic payment flows. |
| Investor focus | Transaction volume growth across its small business and marketplace customer base, interest income sensitivity to global interest rates, and expansion of value-added financial services. | Payment volume growth across its education, healthcare, and travel verticals, expansion into new client relationships and geographies, and take rate trends on processed payment volume. |
- Established relationships with global marketplaces and freelance platforms provide a recurring source of cross-border payment volume
- Broad geographic reach across emerging and developed markets supports diversified customer acquisition opportunities
- Expansion into working capital and other value-added financial services creates additional revenue streams beyond core payment processing
- Vertical-specific specialization in education, healthcare, and travel payments addresses complex, high-value payment flows that generic payment processors handle less effectively
- Global payment infrastructure supports cross-border transactions that are often difficult for customers to process independently
- Diversification across multiple verticals reduces reliance on any single end market for overall payment volume growth
- A portion of revenue has historically been sensitive to global interest rate levels through interest earned on customer balances
- Faces competition from both traditional cross-border payment providers and newer fintech entrants targeting small businesses and freelancers
- Serving small businesses and individual freelancers across many countries exposes the business to varied regulatory and currency risk
- Education-related payment volume can be seasonal, tied to academic enrollment and tuition payment cycles
- Faces competition from both vertical-specific payment specialists and broader global payment processing platforms
- International expansion requires navigating varied regulatory and payment infrastructure requirements across geographies
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