Upwork (NASDAQ:UPWK – Get Free Report) and Bridgeline Digital (NASDAQ:BLIN – Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, risk and analyst recommendations.
Insider and Institutional Ownership
77.7% of Upwork shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.1% of Bridgeline Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.5% of Upwork shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 23.5% of Bridgeline Digital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares Upwork and Bridgeline Digital”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Upwork | $769.33 million | 2.74 | $215.59 million | $1.74 | 9.14 |
| Bridgeline Digital | $15.36 million | 1.06 | -$1.96 million | ($0.27) | -5.00 |
Upwork has higher revenue and earnings than Bridgeline Digital. Bridgeline Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Upwork, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Upwork and Bridgeline Digital, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Upwork | 0 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 2.67 |
| Bridgeline Digital | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3.00 |
Upwork currently has a consensus price target of $18.67, suggesting a potential upside of 17.33%. Bridgeline Digital has a consensus price target of $4.62, suggesting a potential upside of 242.22%. Given Bridgeline Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Bridgeline Digital is more favorable than Upwork.
Profitability
This table compares Upwork and Bridgeline Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Upwork | 31.75% | 44.83% | 20.55% |
| Bridgeline Digital | -16.81% | -25.79% | -16.08% |
Risk & Volatility
Upwork has a beta of 1.43, suggesting that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bridgeline Digital has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Upwork beats Bridgeline Digital on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Upwork
Upwork Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a work marketplace that connects businesses with various independent professionals and agencies in the United States, India, the Philippines, and internationally. The company’s work marketplace provides access to talent with various skills across a range of categories, including administrative support, sales and marketing, design and creative, and customer service, as well as web, mobile, and software development. Its work marketplace also enables clients to streamline workflows, such as talent sourcing, outreach, and contracting. The company’s work marketplace offers access to various functionalities for remote engagements with talent, including communication and collaboration, ability to receive talent invoices through their work marketplace, and payment protection. Its marketplace offerings include Upwork Payroll and Upwork Enterprise, as well as managed and escrow services. The company was formerly known as Elance-oDesk, Inc. and changed its name to Upwork Inc. in May 2015. Upwork Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
About Bridgeline Digital
Bridgeline Digital, Inc. operates as a marketing technology company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company offers HawkSearch, a site search, recommendation, and personalization application for marketers, merchandisers, and developers; Celebros Search, a commerce-oriented site search product that provides natural language processing with artificial intelligence; and Woorank, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit tool that generates an instant performance audit of the site's technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. It also provides Bridgeline TruPresence, a web content management and eCommerce platform to support the needs of multi-unit organizations and franchises; Bridgeline Unbound, a technology suite that empower marketers to easily manage their digital experiences and create personalized customer journeys; and OrchestraCMS, a digital experience platform that enables development of custom solutions, third-party integrations, and delivery of digital transformation initiatives on the Salesforce platform. In addition, the company offers digital engagement services comprising digital strategy, web design and web development, usability engineering, information architecture, and SEO, as well as hosting services. It serves vertical markets, such as industrial distributors and wholesalers, franchises and enterprises, manufacturers, eCommerce retailers, health services and life sciences, technology, credit unions and banks, and associations and foundations through its direct sales force. The company was formerly known as Bridgeline Software, Inc. Bridgeline Digital, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Woburn, Massachusetts.
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