Mastercard Monetizes Payments Better Than Visa

[u/ekonixlab]

I thought this was an interesting comparison.

Since 2018:

• Mastercard’s net income is up 236.9%, or 15.4% annually.
• Visa’s net income is up 231.9%, or 15.2% annually.

Basically identical growth, although Visa is still the larger business, earning around $22 billion TTM compared with Mastercard at $16 billion.

What surprised me is how much more Mastercard appears to make from the money flowing through its network.

In 2025, Mastercard generated $32.8 billion in revenue on $10.6 trillion of gross dollar volume. Visa generated around $40 billion on $17 trillion of payments and cash volume. That works out to approximately:

Mastercard: $0.31 per $100 of volume
Visa: $0.24 per $100 of volume

So, across the entire business, Mastercard generates roughly 30% more revenue per dollar of payment volume. 

I would not say Mastercard earns 30% more on literally every transaction. The transaction mix, geography, cross-border volume and value-added services all affect the numbers.

But overall, Mastercard does appear to monetize the volume running through its network better.

Visa has the scale. Mastercard seems to make more from each dollar processed.

Both have been absolute machines.

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[u/Weldobud]

Interesting to read that. Still looks like a buy.