Head-To-Head Review: Consensus Cloud Solutions (NASDAQ:CCSI) vs. Agora (NASDAQ:API)

Agora (NASDAQ:API) and Consensus Cloud Solutions (NASDAQ:CCSI) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, risk, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Agora and Consensus Cloud Solutions’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Agora	7.23%	1.96%	1.52%
Consensus Cloud Solutions	26.69%	502.63%	13.83%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

40.4% of Agora shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.9% of Consensus Cloud Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. 14.6% of Agora shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.6% of Consensus Cloud Solutions shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Agora and Consensus Cloud Solutions”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Agora	$141.06 million	2.50	$9.53 million	$0.11	36.73
Consensus Cloud Solutions	$349.70 million	1.92	$84.53 million	$4.94	7.41

Consensus Cloud Solutions has higher revenue and earnings than Agora. Consensus Cloud Solutions is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agora, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Agora has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Consensus Cloud Solutions has a beta of 1.58, indicating that its share price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Agora and Consensus Cloud Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Agora	0	2	1	0	2.33
Consensus Cloud Solutions	0	1	3	0	2.75

Agora presently has a consensus price target of $6.80, indicating a potential upside of 68.32%. Consensus Cloud Solutions has a consensus price target of $41.67, indicating a potential upside of 13.78%. Given Agora’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Agora is more favorable than Consensus Cloud Solutions.

Summary

Consensus Cloud Solutions beats Agora on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Agora

Agora, Inc. operates in real-time engagement technology business in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers real-time engagement platform-as-a-services providing developers with application programming interfaces to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. It also provides video and voice calling, interactive live and broadcast streaming, chat, signaling, and interactive whiteboard products; and extensions, such as analytics, recording, AI noise suppression, 3D spatial audio, real-time transcription, and extensions marketplace. In addition, the company offers Application Platforms, including Flexible Classroom, a low-code application Platform as a Service, which combines video, voice, chat, signaling, whiteboard and recording functionalities into an integrated cloud-based solution for education providers; and App Builder, a no-code application platform, designed for developers with little or no coding experience to build their own applications with video conference and live streaming functionalities. It operates through Agora and Shengwang brands. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

About Consensus Cloud Solutions

Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information delivery services with a software-as-a-service platform worldwide. The company offers eFax Corporate, a digital cloud-fax technology; Unite, a single platform that allows the user to choose between various protocols to send and receive healthcare information and can integrate into an existing electronic health record system or stand-alone if no EHR is present. It also offers jsign, an electronic and digital signature solution; Conductor, an interface engine and interoperability platform that provides integration technology; Clarity that transforms unstructured documents into structured actionable data; and eFax, an online faxing solution, as well as other products under the MyFax, MetroFax, Sfax, and SRfax brands. In addition, the company provides ECFax, an Corporate eFax. It serves healthcare, government, financial services, law, and education sectors. Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc. was incorporated in 2021 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.