How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Paycom Software (PAYC) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to PAYC for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Paycom Software's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Paycom Software's main business drivers.
Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Paycom Software, Inc. is a provider of cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software as a service solution for integrated software for both employee records and talent management processes.
Founded in 1998, the company offers analytics that manages the complete employment life cycle from recruitment to retirement.
Paycom serves nearly 39,200 clients or nearly 20,300 customers based on Parent Company Grouping. Its human resource services include retirement services administration, workers’ compensation administration, employee benefit solutions, professional employer organization and other administrative services for businesses.
Paycom’s HCM solution offers a full suite of applications that generally falls within the following categories, namely talent acquisition, time and labor management, payroll, talent management and HR management.
Its HCM software streamlines and automates many of the day-to-day record-keeping processes and provides a framework for HR staff to manage benefits administration and payroll, map out succession planning and document such things as personnel actions and compliance with industry and/or government regulations. The cloud-based HCM reduces the administrative burden on employers and increases employee productivity.
In 2025, Paycom reported revenues of $2.05 billion, representing growth of 9% year over year. Recurring revenues of $1.94 billion grew 10.3% from the prior year and constituted 94.5% of total revenues.
Paycom talent acquisition and talent management applications compete primarily with Cornerstone OnDemand, Oracle, SAP and Workday. Its payroll applications including payroll processing rival primarily with Automatic Data Processing, Ceridian, Paychex, Paylocity and The Ultimate Software. Its HR management applications contend mainly with ADP, Ceridian, Oracle, Paychex, Paylocity, SAP and Workday. The company’s time and labor management applications compete primarily with ADP, Ceridian, Kronos, Paylocity and The Ultimate Software Group.
As of Dec. 31, 2025, the company had 5,770 employees across the United States.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Paycom Software, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in August 2016 would be worth $4,295.59, or a gain of 329.56%, as of August 17, 2026, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.
In comparison, the S&P 500's gained 256.48% and the price of gold went up 212.44% over the same time frame.
Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for PAYC.
Paycom is benefiting from an employee-first, single-database HCM platform that is pushing automation deeper into payroll and HR workflows. Rising adoption of IWant, Project Arc and new products such as Career and Succession Planning and Asset Management broadens the platform and supports cross-selling. Revenue growth accelerated in the second quarter, while automation-driven efficiencies lifted margins and management raised its full-year outlook. Sales capacity expansion and faster rep productivity add to the longer-term opportunity. Aggressive buybacks also support per-share value creation. Risks remain from client employment sensitivity, slower client additions, intense HCM competition and cybersecurity exposure. Higher borrowings used for repurchases increase leverage, but operating cash generation remains healthy.
Shares have gained 47.44% over the past four weeks and there have been 7 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2026 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
Zacks' Research Chief Names "Stock Most Likely to Double"
Our team of experts has just released the 5 stocks with the greatest probability of gaining +100% or more in the coming months. Of those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian highlights the one stock set to climb highest.
This top pick is a little-known satellite-based communications firm. Space is projected to become a trillion dollar industry, and this company's customer base is growing fast. Analysts have forecasted a major revenue breakout in 2025. Of course, all our elite picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks' Stocks Set to Double like Hims & Hers Health, which shot up +209%.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Â
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.