Payments Used by UK B2C Companies: Market Share (2026)
Detected payments usage is visible at 10,660 of 84,728 trading UK B2C companies, with PayU ahead at 34.1% of detected companies.
Payments usage is detectable for 10,660 of 84,728 trading UK B2C companies, spanning 19 systems. The directory is weighted towards small employers: 7,002 detected companies sit in the under-10 employee band, compared with 3,376 in 10–50 employees and 282 over 50 employees.
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PayU has the largest detected footprint at 34.1% (3,640), ahead of Stripe at 26.7% (2,850) and PayPal at 25.2% (2,691). The size split changes the order: PayU ranks first under 10 employees with 38.2%, while Stripe ranks first in 10–50 employees with 29.1% and over 50 employees with 38.3%.
The long tail is fragmented rather than empty. Klarna appears on 4.1% (433), Square on 4.0% (425), Codeweavers on 3.7% (394), GoCardless on 1.8% (187) and Worldpay on 1.6% (169), while 11 further systems cover 864 companies.
10,660
B2C with detected Payments
Of 84,728 UK B2C
12.6%
Detection rate
2026
19
Systems detected
In this category
34.1%
Leader share
PayU
UK B2C Payments market share
Share of the 10,660 UK B2C with a detectable system. As of June 2026.
Payments compared
| System | UK B2C | Share | Median headcount | London share | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PayU | 3,640 | 34.1% | 6 | 11.9% | Micro merchants, lower London concentration |
| Stripe | 2,850 | 26.7% | 7 | 18.7% | Small merchants, London-weighted adoption |
| PayPal | 2,691 | 25.2% | 7 | 17.6% | Small merchants, London-weighted checkout |
| Klarna | 433 | 4.1% | 7 | 14.8% | Small merchants, moderate London skew |
| Square | 425 | 4% | 10 | 16.9% | Ten-person merchants, London-weighted usage |
| Codeweavers | 394 | 3.7% | 5 | 7.6% | Micro merchants, low London concentration |
| GoCardless | 187 | 1.8% | 8 | 16% | Small merchants, London-weighted usage |
| Worldpay | 169 | 1.6% | 8 | 16.6% | Small merchants, London-weighted usage |
| Ideal4Finance | 168 | 1.6% | 7 | 7.1% | Small merchants, low London concentration |
| Tabeo | 159 | 1.5% | 10 | 23.9% | Ten-person merchants, London-heavy uptake |
| Authorize.net | 156 | 1.5% | 7 | 21.8% | Small merchants, London-heavy uptake |
| Recharge | 95 | 0.9% | 8 | 43.2% | Small merchants, London-dense uptake |
| Denplan | 90 | 0.8% | 10 | 10% | Ten-person merchants, lower London concentration |
| Chrysalis Finance | 86 | 0.8% | 8 | 24.4% | Small merchants, London-heavy finance |
| Afterpay | 75 | 0.7% | 7 | 26.7% | Small merchants, London-heavy uptake |
| Google Pay | 70 | 0.7% | 9 | 11.4% | Nine-person merchants, lower London concentration |
| Plaid | 61 | 0.6% | 6 | 23% | Micro merchants, London-heavy uptake |
| PFP | 61 | 0.6% | 7 | 11.5% | Small merchants, lower London concentration |
| Opayo | 60 | 0.6% | 8 | 16.7% | Small merchants, London-weighted usage |
Systems detected below the page threshold appear with counts only; their full lists are available in the Firmbase app.
Market leader by size
The leading Payments system shifts with company size: among UK B2C with under 10 employees, PayU leads at 38.2% of the 7,002 with a detectable system; among UK B2C with 10–50 employees, Stripe leads at 29.1% of the 3,376 with a detectable system; and among UK B2C with over 50 employees, Stripe leads at 38.3% of the 282 with a detectable system.
Under 10 employees
38.2% of band
Under 10 employees contains 7,002 companies, making it the largest Payments band here. PayU ranks first at 38.2%, ahead of a field that still spans 19 systems overall.
10–50 employees
29.1% of band
10–50 employees contains 3,376 companies, with Stripe first at 29.1%. PayU at 34.1% and PayPal at 25.2% across detected UK B2C companies remain the main overall counterweights.
Over 50 employees
38.3% of band
Over 50 employees is a much smaller band at 282 companies, and Stripe ranks first with 38.3%. The same system also ranks first in 10–50 employees, but its share is higher among the over-50 group.
How Payments usage is detected
Company data
Detected companies are joined to UK Companies House records and XBRL accounts data. Revenue and headcount figures come from the most recent filed accounts; where the company has not filed, values are estimated using a model trained on filed history and peer benchmarks and are labelled as estimates.
Detection
Firmbase crawls the public website of actively-trading UK companies and fingerprints the technologies present: tracking scripts, embedded forms, chat widgets, CMS markers and similar signatures. A company is included in this list when one or more of the technology's signatures are found on its site; closely-related variants of the same product are grouped under one name. Detection covers what is visible on the public web — a company using the technology purely internally, with no website footprint, will not appear. Counts are therefore a conservative floor, not a ceiling.
Freshness
Websites are re-crawled on a rolling basis and the underlying company data is refreshed from Companies House continuously; filings appear within days of submission. The list and its statistics are regenerated when the detected cohort moves meaningfully. You can see the last-updated timestamp near the top of the page.
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UK B2C by Payments
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Frequently asked questions
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