The full story
Which one surprised you?
Operating profit from every $1 of sales, latest full year: • Visa: 61¢ • Nvidia: 60¢ • Mastercard: 58¢ • PayPal: 18¢
Why so different? Visa and Mastercard only run the network your card payment travels on. They don't lend money or hold your balance, and one more payment costs them almost nothing.
PayPal sits on top of that network. Its biggest cost is the fees it pays banks and card networks to move your money, so a lot of each dollar leaves again.
The catches: • This is profit per dollar, not total profit. In dollars, Nvidia's operating profit is more than four times Visa's ($130B vs $28B). • The years end in different months: Visa in September 2026, Nvidia in January 2026, Mastercard and PayPal in December 2025. • Visa and Nvidia are less than one cent apart, so the top spot can swap from quarter to quarter.
