TSG published new rankings for payments companies based on processing volume, transactions, and merchant count
TSG (The Strawhecker Group), a globally recognized analytics, intelligence, and solutions-focused firm in the payments industry, worked with payments companies to compile the industry’s most comprehensive resource on merchant acquirers. Collectively, the companies highlighted process over 95% of all card payment volume in the U.S.
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The top five processed nearly $9 trillion in card volume in 2025, representing about two-thirds of the total card volume tracked in TSG’s Directory.
Looking at the top-ranked companies, Global Payments moves into the top spot after acquiring Worldpay. It processed nearly $2.8 trillion in U.S. volume across over 53 billion transactions. Additionally, Stripe joins the top 5 (ranked #4) for the first time, with over $900 billion in U.S. processing volume, up 45% YoY. Access the entire top ten here.
This data is highlighted in TSG’s 2026 Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers, sponsored by Deluxe Merchant Services, which features over 11,700 data points on more than 300 companies, covering national leaders to regional ISOs. The directory has been a reference tool and buyer’s guide for executives, analysts, and major media across the industry for over fifteen years. In total, the companies featured represent:
- 300+ merchant acquirers
- $13.5T+ in represented processing volume
- 550+ sponsor bank relationships
- 940+ total front/back-end processing relationships
- 55+ total in-house processing platforms
This report is exclusive to eReports subscribers. TSG eReports provide direct insights into the merchant acceptance space. Create an account at TSG Portal to preview reports and trial products.
Using the 2026 edition, TSG has published new insights on the merchant acquiring landscape. The findings below, and more, are available on our website.
- The top five players processed nearly $9 trillion in card volume in 2025, representing about two-thirds of the total card volume tracked in the Directory. Looking more broadly, over 90% of the Directory’s volume is processed by the top 25 players.
- Authorize.net (a Visa solution) is the payment gateway with the most partnerships among the acquirers listed, partnering with 38% of these players
- 40% of the players listed sell Fiserv’s Clover point-of-sale products, with PAX the next most common, affiliated with 21% of the entities listed
- Only Global Payments, Block, Stripe, and QuickBooks Payments (Intuit) have over a million domestic clients
- With its predominant focus on restaurants, Toast continues to amass considerable market share, ranking as the 13th largest provider by processing volume and growing its U.S. processing volume by ~24% YoY
- The world is moving to embedded payments: 82% of the top 50 listings, by volume, used the ISV sales channel. This is up from 72% last year.
- 61% of all providers directly marketed the existence of a surcharging or cash discounting/dual pricing program – an increase from 51% last year and 43% in 2023
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