American Expressvs.Mastercard
AXP vs MA · both in Payment rails & networks, part of the Banks, payments & capital markets value chain: The networks and processors that take a fee every time a card is swiped, the fee engine.
Mastercard is about 2.1× larger than American Express by market cap; American Express trades at the lower P/E (20.1 vs 30.2); year to date, Mastercard leads (+5.0% vs −9.2%).
Side by side
| AXP | MA | |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $230B | $491B |
| Price | $336.15 | $598.47 |
| Today | +0.1% | −0.2% |
| Return YTD | −9.2% | +5.0% |
| Return 1Y | +6.4% | +1.0% |
| P/E | 20.1 | 30.2 |
| P/S | 2.8 | 14.0 |
| P/B | 6.7 | 87.5 |
Data as of 2026-08-27 · updates daily after U.S. close
The two companies
American ExpressAXP
Network and issuer are the same company here, so American Express collects merchant fees and cardholder interest both, and keeps the customer relationship from end to end. Its cardholders skew affluent.
Full AXP profile →MastercardMA
The second card network, in a near-duopoly with Visa. Capital-light and fee-based.
Full MA profile →More AXP & MA comparisons
Other head-to-heads in the Payment rails & networks segment.