Who are PayPal's competitors?
PayPal's fiscal 2025 Form 10-K, filed February 3, 2026, names no rival companies. It says PayPal competes with banks, payment networks, card processors, digital wallets, buy now, pay later providers, real-time payment systems, P2P and remittance services, and cash and checks, and warns that generative AI and autonomous AI agents may render its technologies obsolete. The names come from rivals' filings and the press. In branded checkout, the Associated Press (May 2026) called Apple Pay the biggest threat to PayPal and named Shopify, Affirm, Klarna, Cash App and Zelle among rivals that took its ground; in October 2026 KBW's Sanjay Sakhrani said PayPal's checkout advantage had eroded against Apple Pay and Shop Pay. In unbranded processing, Payoneer's 2025 10-K lists Adyen, Braintree and Stripe together as merchant service providers; Stripe, which files no 10-K, says businesses on it generated $1.9 trillion of volume in 2025, and with Advent offered about $53.4 billion for PayPal in July 2026 before ending the pursuit in August. In pay-over-time, Affirm's fiscal 2026 10-K lists PayPal, Block and Klarna as competitors, and Klarna's 2025 20-F lists Affirm, Block and PayPal. In P2P, American Banker (July 2026) described PayPal, Venmo and Cash App as a threat to bank-owned Zelle, which moved more than $1.2 trillion in 2025. In cross-border transfers, Wise's fiscal 2026 20-F names PayPal among its competitors. PayPal processed $1.79 trillion of payment volume in 2025.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
Data as of Nov 2, 2026 · PayPal profile updated Oct 22, 2026 · 24 sources cited on this page · 56 fintechs profiled on this site · Markdown
What does PayPal's 10-K say about its competitors?
The "Competition" section of PayPal's fiscal 2025 10-K describes categories, not companies: "We face competition from banks and financial institutions, which provide traditional payment methods", from payment networks, payment card processors and card-on-file services. It adds providers of digital wallets, buy now, pay later, real-time payment systems, P2P payments and money remittance, point-of-sale devices, virtual currencies and stablecoins, and "tools that simplify and personalize shopping experiences". PayPal says it differentiates with broad acceptance, paying without sharing financial information with the merchant, purchase and seller protection, and fee transparency.[1]
The risk factor "We face substantial and increasingly intense competition worldwide in the global payments industry" warns that some competitors "are or may be larger than we are" with larger customer bases and resources, while others are "smaller or younger companies that may be more agile", and that "competition for relationships with these partners is intense". A separate risk factor notes that certain card networks "have also imposed special fees or assessments for transactions that are executed through digital wallets such as those PayPal offers", so the networks it depends on are also a source of competitive pressure.[1]
On AI, the 10-K says new technologies "including the development, adoption, and use of generative AI technologies and autonomous AI agents, will continue to emerge and may be superior to, or render obsolete, the technologies we currently use", that "third parties may deploy AI technologies in a manner that reduces customer demand for our products and services", and that PayPal relies "in part on third parties, including some of our competitors" for access to new technologies. Its growth strategy commits PayPal to letting consumers pay "online, in-person and through artificial intelligence ("AI") agents".[1]
Which companies compete with PayPal, and how big are they?
One row per competitor, with where it meets PayPal according to the cited filing or report, one dated scale figure from its own disclosures, and its own dated AI claim. PayPal's 10-K names none of them; several name PayPal. Figures use different metrics and periods and are not comparable with each other.
| Competitor | Where they compete | Dated scale figure | How they compare on AI | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple (Apple Pay) | Branded online checkout and in-store wallet. The AP called Apple Pay "the biggest threat to PayPal's dominance" (May 2026); Payments Dive (February 2026) listed Apple Pay with Klarna and Affirm as competitors PayPal suffers against at checkout | About 2.5 billion active devices, a record Apple reported in 2026 (per Payments Dive, June 2026) | At WWDC in June 2026 Apple showed an AI-driven bill-splitting feature and a "tap to share" function for passing billing and shipping details to merchants; Siri was reconfigured with Google's Gemini model | AP via Yahoo Finance, May 2026; Payments Dive, Feb and Jun 2026[2][12][13] |
| Shopify (Shop Pay) | Checkout: the AP named Shopify among rivals that took PayPal's territory, and KBW's Sanjay Sakhrani said in October 2026 that PayPal's checkout advantage had "eroded against Apple Pay, ShopPay, and other alternatives". Also a partner: Shopify's 10-K names Stripe and PayPal as the payment service providers behind Shopify Payments | $378.4 billion gross merchandise volume, 2025 | Sidekick, an AI-enabled commerce assistant, and Agentic Storefronts for agent-assisted product discovery and checkout across AI platforms (FY2025 10-K) | AP, May 2026; American Banker, Oct 2026; Shopify 10-K FY2025[2][3][14] |
| Stripe | Unbranded payment processing against Braintree: Payoneer's 2025 10-K lists "merchant service providers like Adyen, Braintree and Stripe". Stripe and Advent offered $60.50 a share, about $53.4 billion, for PayPal in July 2026 and ended the pursuit in August, American Banker reported | $1.9 trillion total volume generated by businesses on Stripe, 2025 (private; files no 10-K) | Co-developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol with OpenAI and powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT (September 29, 2025); PayPal adopted the same protocol for ChatGPT in October 2025 | Payoneer 10-K 2025; CNBC, Jul 2026; American Banker, Aug 2026; Stripe, Sep 2025 and Feb 2026[4][6][7][5][15][16] |
| Adyen | Enterprise payment processing against Braintree: Payments Dive (August 2023) quoted Mizuho analysts on Braintree's "aggressive land-grab strategy in the US" against Adyen; Payoneer's 10-K lists Adyen with Braintree and Stripe | €803.8 billion processed volume, H1 2026 (half year to June 30, 2026) | Adyen Uplift, an AI payment-optimization suite launched January 9, 2025; Adyen says Uplift and Dynamic Identification raised customer conversion by 0.9 percentage points on average by the end of H1 2026, when it also launched Adyen Agentic | Payments Dive, Aug 2023; Payoneer 10-K 2025; Adyen, Jan 2025 and Aug 2026[17][4][18][19] |
| Affirm | Pay-over-time at checkout: Affirm's fiscal 2026 10-K lists "mobile wallets and other pay-over-time solutions offered by companies such as PayPal, Block and Klarna" among its primary competition | $50.2 billion GMV, fiscal year to June 30, 2026 | Machine-learning risk models calibrated on data from over 553 million loans, and a generative AI customer service chatbot (FY2026 10-K) | Affirm 10-K FY2026; Payments Dive, Feb 2026[8][12] |
| Klarna | Pay-over-time and shopping: Klarna's 2025 20-F lists "payment networks such as Affirm, Block or PayPal" among the alternatives its network competes with; the AP named Klarna among rivals squeezing PayPal's checkout | $128 billion GMV and about 118 million active consumers, 2025 | AI assistant launched with OpenAI in February 2024; Klarna says it handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025 | Klarna 20-F FY2025; AP, May 2026[9][2] |
| Block (Cash App) | P2P and consumer wallet against Venmo: Affirm's and Klarna's filings list Block beside PayPal, the AP names Cash App, and Payments Dive notes Venmo and Cash App offer the same bill-splitting features | 59 million Cash App monthly transacting actives, June 2026 | Moneybot generally available with over 1 million weekly engaged accounts; Block says agentic AI helped write and review nearly all its production code changes in June 2026 | Block Q2 2026 letter; Affirm 10-K FY2026; Klarna 20-F FY2025; Payments Dive, Jun 2026[20][8][9][2][13] |
| Zelle (Early Warning Services) | P2P: American Banker (July 2026) says "Transfer apps PayPal, Venmo and Cash App pose a competitive threat to the bank-led Zelle", and that low bank-set Zelle limits send some users to Venmo or PayPal | More than $1.2 trillion sent and 4.2 billion transactions, 2025 | — (no AI product in the sources read) | American Banker, Jul 2026; AP, May 2026[10][2] |
| Wise | Cross-border money transfer, where PayPal runs Xoom: Wise's fiscal 2026 20-F names PayPal among "newer financial institutions or platforms" it competes with; Payoneer's 10-K lists PayPal and Wise as global digital payment platforms | $243.5 billion cross-border volume, fiscal year to March 31, 2026 | Uses AI and machine-learning models in financial crime detection, transaction monitoring and currency flow prediction (FY2026 20-F) | Wise 20-F FY2026; Payoneer 10-K 2025; PayPal 10-K FY2025[11][4][1] |
What companies are similar to PayPal?
Close alternatives to one PayPal product each. No single company matches PayPal's mix of a consumer wallet, merchant processing, Venmo, pay-over-time and remittances.
| Company | Why it is similar | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe | Processes cards and wallets for merchants, as PayPal's Braintree does; Payoneer's 10-K lists Stripe and Braintree together as merchant service providers | Businesses selling inside ChatGPT: Stripe powers Instant Checkout for US Etsy sellers, with over a million Shopify merchants announced as coming soon (September 2025)[4][15] |
| Adyen | Payment processing online and in person for merchants; Payments Dive notes that PayPal and Stripe provide similar processing services | Large enterprises such as Uber, McDonald's and Gap, which Payments Dive cited as Adyen clients, and merchants wanting AI payment optimization through Uplift[17][18] |
| Apple Pay | A wallet that stores virtual credit and debit cards on Apple devices to pay online, and with tap-to-pay on iPhone and Apple Watch in stores | iPhone and Apple Watch users paying in person and online[2] |
| Cash App | A P2P and consumer money app like Venmo; Payments Dive notes both offer bill splitting | Users who want P2P alongside Cash App's other products; it had 59 million monthly transacting actives in June 2026[13][20] |
| Zelle | Bank-to-bank P2P transfers; unlike PayPal or Venmo, Zelle does not hold a user's money in a separate wallet, and a transfer is final almost immediately | Bank customers paying people they know from existing accounts; bank-set limits are often $500 to $3,500 a day[10] |
| Affirm | Pay-over-time at checkout, as PayPal's buy now, pay later options are embedded in its branded checkout | Shoppers wanting installment plans; Affirm had about 27.8 million active consumers as of June 30, 2026[8][1] |
Where is PayPal losing or defending ground against competitors in 2026?
Branded checkout is the pressure point. The AP reported that branded checkout, PayPal's most profitable business by margin, grew just 2% in the first quarter of 2026. In February 2026 CFO and COO Jamie Miller said large merchants "require much more hands-on integration support than we anticipated"; Payments Dive reported that PayPal suffers at checkout against BNPL providers such as Klarna and Affirm and against Apple Pay, partly because it could not offer updated biometric features.[2][12]
In processing, PayPal's 10-K says that its "stronger focus on profitable growth" and merchant negotiations lowered Braintree volume and transaction revenue in the first half of 2025, followed by revenue and TPV growth in the second half. Payments Dive reported in August 2023 that Adyen and Stripe were each approximately twice the size of Braintree, based on public information on their payments volume.[1][17]
Agentic commerce is the newest front, and the rivals use shared standards. Stripe co-developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol with OpenAI in September 2025, and PayPal adopted it for ChatGPT in October 2025; Adyen launched Adyen Agentic in the first half of 2026, and Shopify's 10-K describes Agentic Storefronts for checkout across AI platforms.[15][16][19][14]
After the third quarter of 2026, American Banker reported transaction margin up 2% to $4 billion and about $700 million of run-rate savings expected by year-end from increased AI adoption, vendor consolidation and more than 2,000 job cuts. KBW's Sanjay Sakhrani said: "Agentic commerce could be PayPal's chance to become more relevant."[3]
What does the PayPal profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the PayPal AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 22, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 16 dated moves, 10 use cases and 21 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkout support for Meta's Muse | PayPal added support for Muse, Meta's personal AI agent, so Muse can search for products and execute transactions on a consumer's behalf at PayPal's merchants. | Announced | [21] |
| Native checkout inside Glance | PayPal's agentic commerce services power native in-app checkout on Glance, an AI shopping platform on more than 60 million devices, letting consumers discover, visualize and buy products with PayPal without leaving the app. | In production | [22] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 15, 2026 | PayPal agentic commerce reaches Glance | PayPal brought real-time product data and native checkout to Glance, an AI-powered personal shopping platform backed by InMobi and pre-installed on more than 60 million mobile and CTV devices; shoppers can use an AI avatar to virtually try on clothes and complete purchases with PayPal without leaving the app, PayPal's VP of Agentic Commerce Mike Edmonds said. | [22] |
| Sep 23, 2026 | PayPal adds support for Meta's Muse | PayPal said it would support Muse, Meta's personal AI agent, enabling Muse to search and execute transactions on behalf of consumers; PayPal said in a social media post that its hundreds of millions of consumers would be able to shop and check out with Muse across PayPal's merchants worldwide. | [21] |
| Aug 28, 2026 | Stripe-Advent pursuit ends; job cuts follow | American Banker, citing Bloomberg, reported that Stripe and Advent had ended their pursuit; days later Payments Dive reported PayPal job cuts that a spokesperson tied to the previously announced multi-year transformation. | [7][23] |
| Jul 15, 2026 | Stripe and Advent offer $53.4 billion | CNBC confirmed a joint $60.50-a-share cash offer from Stripe and Advent International for PayPal. | [6] |
| Jan 8, 2026 | PayPal powers Microsoft's Copilot Checkout | PayPal supplies merchant inventory via store sync, branded and guest checkout and card payments inside Copilot, starting with Copilot.com. | [24] |
| Oct 28, 2025 | PayPal adopts the Agentic Commerce Protocol with OpenAI | PayPal said ChatGPT users will be able to check out with PayPal, it will process card payments for merchants using Instant Checkout, and its merchant catalogs will reach ChatGPT in 2026; the deal also scales ChatGPT Enterprise to 24,000+ employees and Codex for engineers. | [16] |
Who are PayPal's biggest competitors?
PayPal's own 10-K names no companies. Rivals' filings and the press point to Apple Pay and Shopify's Shop Pay at checkout, Stripe and Adyen against Braintree in processing, Affirm and Klarna in pay-over-time, Cash App and Zelle in P2P payments, and Wise in cross-border transfers. The AP called Apple Pay the biggest threat to PayPal in May 2026.
What companies are similar to PayPal?
No single company matches PayPal's mix, so alternatives cover one product each: Stripe and Adyen for merchant payment processing like Braintree, Apple Pay for a digital wallet, Cash App and Zelle for P2P transfers like Venmo, Affirm and Klarna for pay-over-time, and Wise for international transfers like Xoom.
PayPal vs Stripe: how do they compete?
Payoneer's 2025 10-K lists Stripe with Braintree and Adyen as merchant service providers. Stripe is private and files no 10-K; it says businesses on Stripe generated $1.9 trillion of volume in 2025, while PayPal processed $1.79 trillion. Stripe and Advent offered about $53.4 billion for PayPal in July 2026 and ended the pursuit in August.
Is Zelle a competitor of PayPal?
Yes, in person-to-person payments. American Banker reported in July 2026 that PayPal, Venmo and Cash App pose a competitive threat to the bank-led Zelle, and that low bank-set Zelle limits push some users to Venmo or PayPal. Zelle moved more than $1.2 trillion in 2025 across 4.2 billion transactions.
Is Apple Pay a competitor of PayPal?
Yes. The AP wrote in May 2026 that the biggest threat to PayPal's dominance has been Apple and its Apple Pay service, and in October 2026 KBW's Sanjay Sakhrani said PayPal's traditional checkout advantage had eroded against Apple Pay, Shop Pay and other alternatives, as American Banker reported.
Does PayPal name its competitors in its 10-K?
No. The Competition section of the fiscal 2025 10-K lists categories such as banks, payment networks, card processors, digital wallets, buy now, pay later providers, real-time payment systems and P2P services, and warns that generative AI and autonomous AI agents may render its technologies obsolete.
- PayPal Holdings, Inc. Annual Report (Form 10-K) for fiscal year 2025
- PayPal's online checkout empire is under siege as rivals squeeze its core business (Associated Press)
- PayPal counts on growing its business beyond payments
- Payoneer Global Inc. Annual Report (Form 10-K) for fiscal year 2025
- Stripe publishes 2025 annual letter and announces tender offer to provide liquidity to current and former employees
- Stripe, Advent make $53 billion takeover offer for PayPal, sending stock soaring
- Stripe, Advent suspend their pursuit of PayPal
- Affirm Holdings, Inc. Annual Report (Form 10-K) for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026
- Klarna Group plc Annual Report (Form 20-F) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- How banks' Zelle limits push consumers to other options
- Wise Group plc Annual Report (Form 20-F) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026
- What went wrong at PayPal
- Apple delves deeper into payments
- Shopify Inc. Annual Report (Form 10-K) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Stripe powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and releases Agentic Commerce Protocol codeveloped with OpenAI
- OpenAI and PayPal Team Up to Power Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce in ChatGPT
- Adyen, Braintree and Stripe face off
- Introducing Adyen Uplift: The payment solution optimizing every transaction with AI
- Adyen publishes H1 2026 financial results
- Block, Inc. Q2 2026 Shareholder Letter (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K)
- PayPal partners with Meta's Muse AI assistant
- Glance and PayPal Bring AI-Powered Shopping and Checkout to Tens of Millions of U.S. Consumers
- PayPal makes job cuts
- PayPal Powers Microsoft's Launch of Copilot Checkout
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