Head to Head Contrast: LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) and Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE)

Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) and LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Braze and LivePerson, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Braze	0	1	16	0	2.94
LivePerson	1	6	1	0	2.00

Braze currently has a consensus price target of $60.88, indicating a potential upside of 71.48%. LivePerson has a consensus price target of $1.38, indicating a potential upside of 119.47%. Given LivePerson’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe LivePerson is more favorable than Braze.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.5% of Braze shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.8% of LivePerson shares are held by institutional investors. 24.0% of Braze shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.0% of LivePerson shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Braze and LivePerson’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Braze	$471.80 million	7.65	-$129.17 million	($1.28)	-27.73
LivePerson	$401.98 million	0.14	-$100.43 million	($1.44)	-0.44

LivePerson has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Braze. Braze is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LivePerson, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Braze and LivePerson’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Braze	-25.06%	-27.85%	-15.66%
LivePerson	-31.27%	-56.82%	-3.45%

Volatility and Risk

Braze has a beta of 1.06, meaning that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LivePerson has a beta of 1.74, meaning that its share price is 74% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Braze beats LivePerson on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Braze

Braze, Inc. operates a customer engagement platform that provides interactions between consumers and brands worldwide. The company offers Braze software development kits that automatically manage data ingestion and deliver mobile and web notifications, in-application/in-browser interstitial messages, and content cards; REST API that can be used to import or export data or to trigger workflows between Braze and brands' existing technology stacks; Partner Data Integrations, which allow brands to sync user cohorts from partners; Data Transformation, in which brands can programmatically sync and transform user data; and Braze Cloud Data Ingestion that enables brands to harness their customer data. It also offers classification products, including segmentation that can define reusable segments of consumers based upon attributes, events, or predictive propensity scores; segment insights, which allows customers to analyze how segments are performing relative to each other across a set of pre-selected key performance indicators; and predictive suite that allows customers to identify groups of consumers that are of critical business value. In addition, the company provides Canvas, an orchestration tool that allows customers to create journeys, mapping out multi-steps, and cross-channel messaging experiences; campaigns, which allows customers to send one set of single-channel or multi-channel messages to be delivered to customers in a particular user segment; event and API triggering; marketing pressure management; and reporting and analytics. Further, it offers personalization products, such as liquid templating platform, connected content platform, content blocks, intelligent timing and channel, personalized variant, and AI item recommendations, and catalogs; and action products. The company was formerly known as Appboy, Inc. and changed its name to Braze, Inc. in November 2017. Braze, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About LivePerson

LivePerson, Inc. engages in conversational artificial intelligence. It enables brands to leverage the Conversational Cloud's intelligence engine to connect with consumers through an integrated suite of mobile and online business messaging technologies. The company offers the Conversational Cloud, an enterprise-class digital customer conversation platform, which enables businesses and consumers to connect through conversational channels, such as voice, in-app, and mobile messaging. It also provides professional services; LivePerson's Conversational AI, including conversation builder, manager, and intelligence, and intent manager. In addition, it provides Voice AI, conversational intelligence and insights, and integration services. The company sells its products to Fortune 500 companies, Internet businesses, online merchants, automotive dealers, educational institution, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations. It operates in the United States, Canada, Latin America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific. LivePerson, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in New York, New York.