One-glance verdict
$100.56 our estimate vs market $57.87
Wall Street consensus: $58.31 (-42.0% lower than our fair-value estimate)
42% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
PYPL · NMS · Financial Services · Credit Services
Current price
$57.87
52-week range
$38.46 - $79.22
Market cap
$49.51B
One-glance verdict
Wall Street consensus: $58.31 (-42.0% lower than our fair-value estimate)
42% below our estimate, below the bear case
Balance sheet
Net debt $2.96B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
What this company does
PayPal is a technology company that allows people and businesses to send and receive money digitally through popular apps like PayPal and Venmo. It makes money primarily by charging a small fee on these transactions, so its success depends on how many people use its services and the total amount of money they move. The company's value comes from its large, trusted network that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world.
Founded in 1998 as Confinity, the company we now know as PayPal started with the goal of creating a digital payment platform. It merged with Elon Musk's online bank X.com in 2000 and went public in early 2002. Later that year, online auction giant eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, making it the site's official payment provider and fueling its massive growth. In 2015, PayPal spun off from eBay to become an independent company again, acquiring other payment platforms like Venmo and Braintree over the years to expand its reach.
PayPal operates a global technology platform that allows people and businesses to make and receive digital payments. You can think of it as a digital wallet that connects to your bank account or credit card, letting you pay for things online without sharing your financial details with every merchant. The company also owns other popular payment services you might recognize, such as the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo and the international money transfer service Xoom. In addition to online payments, PayPal offers in-store payment solutions, credit products, and even allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
This is PayPal's main way of making money, accounting for the vast majority of its income. The company charges merchants a small percentage fee, plus a fixed amount, for each payment they process through its platform. These fees apply whether you're paying with your PayPal balance, a linked bank account, or a credit card. PayPal also earns transaction fees when users send money internationally, convert currencies, or make instant transfers to their bank accounts.
This is a smaller but growing part of PayPal's business. It includes revenue from a variety of other services beyond simple payment processing. For example, PayPal earns interest on the balances that users hold in their accounts, similar to how a bank earns interest on deposits. This segment also includes fees from partnerships, subscription fees for business tools, and interest and fees from its credit products, like business loans and a 'buy now, pay later' option for consumers.
Under its new leadership, PayPal is focused on accelerating its growth and becoming a technology-focused company again. A key priority is to improve the experience for consumers, believing that more engaged users will lead to better results for merchants. The company is also investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize the shopping experience and create new services, such as 'agentic commerce,' where AI assistants could make purchases on a user's behalf. Finally, management is reorganizing the company into three distinct business units—Checkout, Consumer Financial Services (including Venmo), and Payment Services—to simplify operations and increase accountability.
Price history
Earnings history
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
Is it cheap or expensive?
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $58.31 (-42.0% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $100.56 a share — about 73.8% above today's price of $57.87, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Net debt $3.0B. Interest coverage 14.5x.
PayPal Holdings, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 14.5 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Total debt $14.22B Interest coverage 14.50x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $23.86B Interest coverage 45.09x +211% vs PYPL Carries about 3.1x more debt cushion than PYPL.
Total debt $24.64B Interest coverage 27.03x +86% vs PYPL Carries about 1.9x more debt cushion than PYPL.
Total debt $23.59B Interest coverage 2.27x -84% vs PYPL Carries about 6.4x less debt cushion than PYPL.
What you should know
The numbers
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
Profitability
Health
Growth
Cash flow
Dividend
Metric explainer
Debt comparison
What you should know