Apple Pay
Ranked 2 of 17 mobile payment apps by recommenders
Recommended for fast, secure tap and online checkout that works almost everywhere. Common caveat: it needs a phone and fails at some merchants.
Recommended for fast, secure tap and online checkout that works almost everywhere. Common caveat: it needs a phone and fails at some merchants.
121 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 73
- criticize it
- 48
- approval share
- 60%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 73 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast checkout with no PIN or unlocking
“it's so much better for efficiency of payment, especially with things like Apple Pay where you don't even have to enter a PIN”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “The Preemptive Draw and Preemptive Grip in the Cash-in-Transit Sector” “Apple Pay as the first payment mechanism I've used that reliably fulfills the promise of being faster/easier than cash”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Why doesn't Apple make a standalone Touch ID?” “Apple's transit functionality means you don't have to do anything other than tap your device without even unlocking”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Phosh 0.56.0” - Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Why Walmart still doesn't support Apple Pay”
- Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Pixel Watch 5”
- Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Migrating the American Express Payment Network, Twice”
- Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
Works in most countries and stores
“I used it in four countries last year outside of the US - Costa Rica, Canada, UK and France without a problem.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: What's your preferred digital payment method?” “iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card” “Google/Apple Pay works really, really well everywhere on the planet.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Wero – Digital payment wallet, Made in Europe” - Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “Epic Games announces Lore version control system”
- Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Banks and Credit Unions to Team Up Against Apple Pay Fees”
- Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Stripe said to abandon $50B pursuit of PayPal”
- Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card”
Fewer fraudulent and unauthorized charges
“Ever since I switched to nearly exclusively using Apple Pay for physical shopping I’ve had no unauthorized charges”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Banks and Credit Unions to Team Up Against Apple Pay Fees” “Apple Pay is better since using it leads to fewer disputes in the first place”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over 'anticompetitive' fees” “Apple Pay was a huge leap forward in preventing credit card info theft”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Apple's slow AI pace becomes a strength as market grows weary of spending” Easier than typing card details online
“It knows address, only requires face id check. Adds shipping tracking. Works on every device I use.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: What's your preferred digital payment method?” “Apple Pay is less friction for online purchases than entering my credit card info is”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “Today's PHP security release, and how we're strengthening security” “adding a card from a different bank to Apple Pay was quick and painless”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Google Cloud outage affects almost all banking and other operations in Europe”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Declined at some merchants and banks
“I've no problem using Apple Pay basically everywhere except Walmart.”
Comment from 17 Jun 2026 in “Epic Games announces Lore version control system” “the system wouldn't accept any of the credit cards or her debit card that she had registered with Apple Pay”
Comment from 26 May 2026 in “Founder of 7/11 Japan, Toshifumi Suzuki, has died at age 93” “I've been to many places where the iPhone's contactless payment doesn't work but normal cards do.”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Chase to become new issuer of Apple Card” Apple controls access and blocks rivals
“EU should have forced Google and Apple to allow people to use NFC pay without having Google or Apple accounts”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “European digital ID wallets are a gift to Google and Apple” “Apple refuses to implement Pix on Apple Pay, and regulatory agencies are trying to change that...”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard” “Trading a dependency on MasterCard and Visa for one on Google and Apple is at best a sidegrade.”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment” - Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Apple to Soon Take Up to 30% Cut from All Patreon Creators in iOS App”
Tracks and monetizes users
“The purpose of Apple Pay from a privacy perspective is to prevent credit card theft by using tokens. In reality it's used to track you and monetize you.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet” “They want our valuable transactional data, and location when those are made.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun” Breaks on names, phone numbers, missing fields
“it replaces the phone number with a 1 at the beginning and drops the last number, then I get an error that something is wrong”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Bugs Apple Loves” “if you put an emoji in your name, you'll need to manually edit it every time you use Apple pay or it breaks the transaction”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10” “your payments using Apple Pay will fail unless you fill all the information in manually”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “It's hard to justify Tahoe icons”
Other mobile payment apps people recommend
The four most recommended other mobile payment apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wero | 84 | 96 | 47% | 11 | — | — |
| Apple PayThis page | 73 | 48 | 60% | 12 | — | — |
| Apple Wallet | 58 | 63 | 48% | 10 | — | — |
| Google Pay | 26 | 33 | 44% | 11 | — | — |
| Google Wallet | 22 | 34 | 39% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 124 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Things like Apple Pay feel like the right abstraction, removing the need for manual input of the basics while tying the actual transaction to an intentional signal.”
“Apple Pay is less friction for online purchases than entering my credit card info is”
“adding a card from a different bank to Apple Pay was quick and painless”
“Apple Pay is better since using it leads to fewer disputes in the first place”
“It's still kind of mess but it generally works almost everywhere.”
“Ever since I switched to nearly exclusively using Apple Pay for physical shopping I’ve had no unauthorized charges”
“I had no problem topping it up with apple pay while in Japan.”
“an increasing amount of places supporting Apple Pay (thankfully)”
“iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.”
“merchants who skip it are really just choosing to lose customers to competitors who value user time”
“just a great feature that's seamless and doesn't require pulling out my phone”
“One very nice use case of Google/Apple Pay is being able to pay with a virtual card in-person.”
“the proliferation now of Apple/Google/Samsung Pay, Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, et al., will stave off any large-scale gouging”
“Apple's transit functionality means you don't have to do anything other than tap your device without even unlocking”
“it's so much better for efficiency of payment, especially with things like Apple Pay where you don't even have to enter a PIN”
“EU should have forced Google and Apple to allow people to use NFC pay without having Google or Apple accounts”
“fingerprint checkout and the ability to reverse the charge with Amex is all I really need”
“It's generally completely open on the acceptance side at this point”
“I've no problem using Apple Pay basically everywhere except Walmart.”
“the system wouldn't accept any of the credit cards or her debit card that she had registered with Apple Pay”
“Trading a dependency on MasterCard and Visa for one on Google and Apple is at best a sidegrade.”
“Well, this is useful for many things, one of them being adding your credit card to your kid's (teenager) phone”
“Apple refuses to implement Pix on Apple Pay, and regulatory agencies are trying to change that...”
“Apple Pay is extremely fast from my experience (at least the web version).”
“Google/Apple Pay works really, really well everywhere on the planet.”
“They want our valuable transactional data, and location when those are made.”
“They do with Apple Pay, and don't allow Banks to roll with their own system like on Android”
“it replaces the phone number with a 1 at the beginning and drops the last number, then I get an error that something is wrong”
“Apple Pay is making my payment experience better, and why I use it all the time.”
“I used it in four countries last year outside of the US - Costa Rica, Canada, UK and France without a problem.”
“It knows address, only requires face id check. Adds shipping tracking. Works on every device I use.”
“I've been to many places where the iPhone's contactless payment doesn't work but normal cards do.”
“The biggest flaw is that it requires waving your expensive phone in the vicinity of the reader.”
“Apple Pay works like a normal card payment and any good payment processor should offer easy-to-use scripts to support this.”
“your payments using Apple Pay will fail unless you fill all the information in manually”
“Apple Pay was a huge leap forward in preventing credit card info theft”
“Apple Pay as the first payment mechanism I've used that reliably fulfills the promise of being faster/easier than cash”
“if you put an emoji in your name, you'll need to manually edit it every time you use Apple pay or it breaks the transaction”
“The purpose of Apple Pay from a privacy perspective is to prevent credit card theft by using tokens. In reality it's used to track you and monetize you.”
“I often complete purchases via mobile because the experience is better.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.