Mastercardvs.PayPal
MA 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.
Mastercard is about 9.6× larger than PayPal by market cap; PayPal trades at the lower P/E (10.4 vs 30.2).
Supply-chain link: Mastercard supplies PayPal.
Side by side
| MA | PYPL | |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $491B | $51.2B |
| Price | $598.47 | $61.81 |
| Today | −0.2% | −0.7% |
| Return YTD | +5.0% | +6.7% |
| Return 1Y | +1.0% | −10.4% |
| P/E | 30.2 | 10.4 |
| P/S | 14.0 | 1.5 |
| P/B | 87.5 | 2.6 |
Data as of 2026-08-27 · updates daily after U.S. close
The two companies
MastercardMA
The second card network, in a near-duopoly with Visa. Capital-light and fee-based.
Full MA 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 MA & PYPL comparisons
Other head-to-heads in the Payment rails & networks segment.
See where MA and PYPL sit in the full Banks, payments & capital markets map: every segment from suppliers to end markets.Open the Finance value chain →