American Expressvs.PayPal
AXP vs PYPL · 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.
American Express is about 4.4× larger than PayPal by market cap; PayPal trades at the lower P/E (9.7 vs 18.1); year to date, PayPal leads (−5.8% vs −17.8%).
Side by side
| AXP | PYPL | |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $207B | $47.5B |
| Price | $308.17 | $55.53 |
| Today | +0.0% | +0.9% |
| Return YTD | −17.8% | −5.8% |
| Return 1Y | −7.2% | −27.7% |
| Since July 13, 2026 | −13.1% | +16.5% |
| P/E | 18.1 | 9.7 |
| P/S | 2.5 | 1.4 |
| P/B | 6.0 | 2.4 |
Data as of 2026-10-09 · updates daily after U.S. close
Since July 13, 2026: the change in the closing price from the first session with a close for both companies. Sectivia records these closes itself, starting June 26, 2026.
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 →PayPalPYPL
Online checkout is the core, with Venmo for peer-to-peer transfers and Braintree processing behind other companies' payments. Growth has matured and rivals have crowded in.
Full PYPL profile →More AXP & PYPL comparisons
Other head-to-heads in the Payment rails & networks segment.