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 (+27.88%) and forward P/E quality (13.79x 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 (+14.04%) 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 | 24.1 | 24.9 |
| AI ranki | #3415 | #3058 |
| Latest closei | $7.13 | $17.34 |
| 1M returni | +0.42% | -7.91% |
| 6M returni | +59.51% | +45.59% |
| 1Y returni | +7.38% | +27.88% |
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 | $10.74K (+7.4%) started 2025-09-18 | $12.79K (+27.9%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $8K (-20.0%) started 2021-09-20 | $3.92K (-60.8%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $7.37K (-26.3%) started 2020-10-16 | $4.94K (-50.6%) started 2021-05-26 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | PAYO | FLYW |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $2.41B | $2.26B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 50.86 | 68.70 |
| Forward P/Ei | 15.47 | 13.79 |
| Price/Salesi | N/A | N/A |
| EV/Revenuei | 1.98 | 2.75 |
| Analyst targeti | $7.40 | $21.15 |
| Target upsidei | +3.93% | +14.04% |
| 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 | N/A |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | N/A |
| Betai | 0.95 | 1.31 |
| 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 0.27), 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 | +7.38% | +27.88% |
| CAGRi | +7.38% | +27.90% | |
| Volatilityi | 47.00% | 46.55% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.29 | 0.66 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.44 | 1.06 | |
| Max drawdowni | 36.46% | 28.16% | |
| Current drawdowni | 0.70% | 11.26% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 13.81% | 8.40% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 17.54% | 11.14% | |
| Max daily dropi | 18.51% | 10.25% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 21.22% | 16.44% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | -19.98% | -60.85% |
| CAGRi | -4.36% | -17.12% | |
| Volatilityi | 55.37% | 56.82% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.11 | -0.12 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.17 | -0.17 | |
| Max drawdowni | 64.10% | 84.40% | |
| Current drawdowni | 35.48% | 67.87% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 38.66% | 59.61% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 41.05% | 61.76% | |
| Max daily dropi | 19.60% | 37.36% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 25.81% | 41.87% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | -26.34% | -50.60% |
| CAGRi | -5.03% | -12.43% | |
| Volatilityi | 54.75% | 56.70% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.09 | -0.02 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.14 | -0.03 | |
| Max drawdowni | 76.04% | 84.40% | |
| Current drawdowni | 50.49% | 67.87% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 50.89% | 56.63% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 53.82% | 59.95% | |
| 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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