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Paylocity Holding

PCTY on Nasdaq. Paylocity Holding sells payroll, human resources and finance software to US businesses. Market value $7.8bn.

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Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to June 2026.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Nothing stood out in the numbers we check.

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
5.5%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $5.47 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
19.8×full

You pay 19.8 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to June 2026
29.6%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 30 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 100 of 100. Price score: 68 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$147.39 a share, 59% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $92.99 to $161.93.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.3
0.4
20222023202420252026
Revenue
$853m$1.2bn$1.4bn$1.6bn$1.8bn
Operating margin
9.9%13.2%18.5%19.1%21.8%
Debt to equity
n/an/a0.000.130.07
Shares outstanding
0.06bn0.06bn0.06bn0.05bn0.05bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.07× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 22.8% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 5% fewer since 2022

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $445 million last quarter, up 11% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $60 million, up 24% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 22 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 19 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $428 million, up from $343 million.
  • It has $191 million more cash than debt, down from $236 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$363m
December 2024$377m
March 2025$455m
June 2025$401m
September 2025$408m
December 2025$416m
March 2026$502m
June 2026$445m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$50m
December 2024$37m
March 2025$91m
June 2025$49m
September 2025$48m
December 2025$50m
March 2026$111m
June 2026$60m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
5 August 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
7 August 2026

Who owns it

2 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 2 last quarter. 468 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

2 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 9 sold $26m, $26m of it under preset trading plans.

  • Beauchamp Steven R
    Executive Chairman, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    15 September 2026
    Shares
    15,000
    Price
    $147.18
    Value
    $2m
  • Cappotelli Andrew
    Sr Vice President Operations
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    4 September 2026
    Shares
    69
    Price
    $152.37
    Value
    $10,514
  • Sarowitz Steven I
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    28 August 2026
    Shares
    5,100
    Price
    $158.56
    Value
    $808,633
  • Robinson Kenneth B.
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    27 August 2026
    Shares
    800
    Price
    $158.41
    Value
    $126,728
  • Sarowitz Steven I
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    27 August 2026
    Shares
    19,459
    Price
    $157.78
    Value
    $3m
  • Conway Craig
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    27 August 2026
    Shares
    3,145
    Price
    $156.80
    Value
    $493,136
  • Sarowitz Steven I
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    24 August 2026
    Shares
    441
    Price
    $155.00
    Value
    $68,355
  • Sarowitz Steven I
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    20 August 2026
    Shares
    6,660
    Price
    $152.42
    Value
    $1m
  • Sarowitz Steven I
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    8,539
    Price
    $150.20
    Value
    $1m
  • Scutt Joshua
    SVP Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    4,730
    Price
    $149.82
    Value
    $708,636

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 5 Aug 2026, plus 2 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Create a free account to run it

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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.