Payment Processors · reliability comparison
PayPal vs Shift4 Payments: which is more reliable? (2026)
PayPal is more reliable than Shift4 Payments, scoring 80.0 vs 57.8 out of 100. Over the last 90 days PayPal reported 3 incidents and Shift4 Payments reported 5, with effective uptime of 99.92% and 99.36% respectively. PayPal resolves incidents faster on average (3h 3m).
Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | PayPal | Shift4 Payments |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 80.0 | 57.8 |
| Rank (payment processors) | #7 | #8 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.92% | 99.36% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 3 | 5 |
| Partial / major outages | 0 | 2 |
| Avg time to resolve | 3h 3m | 19h 29m |
| Outages we detected | 1 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 50/100 | 100/100 |
Where PayPal and Shift4 Payments differ
- Shift4 Payments reported 67% more incidents than PayPal over the last 90 days (5 vs 3).
- Shift4 Payments had 2 partial or major outages, compared with 0 for PayPal.
- PayPal fixes problems faster: 3h 3m on average, against 19h 29m for Shift4 Payments (6.4× quicker).
- PayPal's longest incident on record lasted 4h 20m (Oct 22, 2026); Shift4 Payments's lasted 3h 24m (Aug 24, 2026).
- Our own probes detected 1 outage at PayPal and 0 at Shift4 Payments, of which 0 and 0 respectively were acknowledged on their status pages.
90-day uptime
PayPal
Shift4 Payments
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent PayPal incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 4h 20m
Detected Resolved: Impact to Online Checkout (PP-LIVE-110330)
Affected: Online Checkout
- MaintenanceOct 16, 2026 · resolved in 3h
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-110012)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
- Degraded performanceOct 11, 2026 · resolved in 3h 39m
Impact to BNPL (Pay Later) authorizations (PP-LIVE-110179)
Affected: REST APIs > Orders, Online Checkout > PayPal Complete Payments (PPCP) - Payment Service
- MaintenanceOct 9, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-110005)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Homepage > PayPal Homepage, Account > Seller Onboarding +1 more
- MaintenanceOct 2, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-109883)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
- MaintenanceSep 25, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
Recent Shift4 Payments incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 7d 4h
Affected: Merchant Funding USA, Card Processing
- Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 1h 29m
Timeouts for US processing 10/22/26
Affected: TSYS, Shift4 Dine POS - US, eCommerce, Shift4 One, Shift4 Venue Payments (US)
- InformationalSep 11, 2026 · resolved in 53m
Affected: Shift4 Dine POS - US, Shift4 Dine POS - Canada, Shift4 Dine POS - UK/EU, Shift4 Dine Mobile, Shift4 Dine Online Ordering, Shift4 Dine Kiosk
- Major outageSep 10, 2026 · resolved in 1h 1m
Eigen Processing Disruptionofficial update ↗
Affected: Eigen Gateway
- Partial outageAug 24, 2026 · resolved in 3h 24m
Partial Funding Delay - 8-24-2026official update ↗
Affected: Merchant Funding USA