As a business owner, one of your most important strategic goals is to make completing payments as easy as possible for customers. Even if you create exceptional products and services and develop deep brand loyalty, you risk losing customers if your checkout process seems inconvenient.

Apple Pay, the most widely used digital wallet payment method, can help businesses meet the demand for a smooth checkout experience. In 2024, at the Apple Pay 10th anniversary, Apple stated that the Wallet is used by hundreds of millions of customers. While no official numbers exist, Apple Pay was often estimated to have between 700 and 800 million users in 2025. As Apple Pay rapidly becomes a preferred payment method for many consumers, businesses are mobilizing to accept it. Here’s what you should know to get set up with Apple Pay.

What’s in this article?

• What is Apple Pay?
  
• How does Apple Pay work?
  
• Is Apple Pay secure?
  
• What are the business benefits of accepting Apple Pay?
  
• How to accept Apple Pay as a business
  
• How much does Apple Pay cost per transaction?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What is Apple Pay?

Apple Pay is Apple’s digital wallet product. It’s compatible with Apple devices, such as iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch. Apple Pay allows users to digitally store credit and debit cards on their devices and use them to make card payments. Users take pictures of their credit and debit cards, or enter card details manually, and Apple Pay stores the information.

Apple Pay also stores shipping and contact information, making it easier for businesses to ship physical goods, set up subscriptions, and send receipts and shipment tracking details.

Apple Pay is one of the fastest-growing payment methods in the world, with over half a billion global users. Over 85% of retailers in the US accept Apple Pay, a figure that is expected to grow significantly over the next few years.

How does Apple Pay work?

Apple Pay transactions can take place in person or online:

In person payments

For in-person purchases, Apple Pay users click to engage the Apple Pay function on their iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch and then hold the device near a payment reader that’s equipped to accept Apple Pay payments. This contactless payment doesn’t require a WiFi connection. Apple Pay, like most other digital wallets, uses near-field communication (NFC) technology, which enables two devices in close proximity to wirelessly communicate with each other and complete a transaction.

Online payments

When customers shop online with a business that accepts Apple Pay, they click a “Buy with Apple Pay” button on the web page and confirm the payment method on their Apple device.

Is Apple Pay secure?

Apple Pay and other digital wallets are generally considered to be secure payment methods. Because digital wallets use NFC, the risk of fraud is significantly reduced compared to other mechanisms of credit, debit, or prepaid card payment methods, like swiping a magnetic stripe or inserting an EMV chip.

Apple Pay securely processes transactions using a process called “tokenization,” in which credit card numbers are replaced by an algorithmically generated number, or “token.” Apple Pay transfers this token to the receiving payment processor via NFC.

For both in-person and online transactions, users are required to authenticate the transaction on their device, using fingerprint identification, face recognition, or their device’s security PIN.

What are the business benefits of accepting Apple Pay?

The widespread adoption of Apple Pay around the world reflects how important it is for businesses to accept popular payment methods as dictated by their key markets. There are substantial benefits for staying on top of the payment method trends in the global markets where you do business.

Here are some of the benefits of accepting Apple Pay, for businesses that operate in the US or other global markets where Apple Pay is a preferred payment method:

Faster flow

In markets with high card penetration, such as the US and the UK, accepting digital wallets is a way to meet consumer expectations around fast transactions. Apple Pay transactions are faster than paying with a physical credit and debit card, because contactless payments are processed more quickly than magnetic stripe and chip card payments.

Faster transactions can lead to shorter customer wait times and quicker turnover, all while increasing customer satisfaction.

Secure transactions

Digital wallets are safe, protected payment methods for both customers and businesses. Tokens keep credit card information secure, protected transactions from breaches and fraud. Apple Pay also reduces fraud risk by requiring user authentication before approving each transaction and confirming the validity of the credit and debit cards on file.

Reduced friction

The moment of purchase is a critical point in the customer journey. If a customer encounters any barriers or friction during checkout, they might drop off and not complete the transaction: up to 81% of shoppers abandon their cart if their preferred payment option isn’t available.

A well-engineered checkout process is a powerful way to prevent abandoned carts. Given how many consumers around the world prefer to use Apple Pay, making it available as a payment option can help reduce customer drop-off at checkout.

Higher conversion rates

Apple Pay’s “click and go” payment mechanism removes friction from the checkout process, elevating the customer experience and increasing conversion rates.

• Indiegogo saw conversions increase up to 250% when customers used Apple Pay to fund campaigns.
  
• Instacart customers completed checkout 58% faster with Apple Pay than with other payment methods. Since Stripe started supporting Apple Pay, apps that accept Stripe have seen checkout conversion rates increase up to 250%.
  

High wallet adoption

Consumers are embracing Apple Pay, and 85% of businesses already accept it. In 2024, a study found that 20% of digital wallet users report regularly leaving their physical wallets at home, up from 15% in 2021. For online and in-app transactions, the ease of Apple Pay is just as appealing. Businesses can’t afford to ignore this trend if they want to remain competitive.

How to accept Apple Pay as a business

In most cases, it’s easy to get your business set up to accept Apple Pay. The steps vary slightly based on whether you do most of your business online, in person, or a mix of both, but it’s likely that you already have most of what you need.

In-person payments

Step 1: Get an NFC-enabled payment terminal. Many newer card readers support contactless payments out of the box. If you'd rather skip dedicated hardware altogether, Tap to Pay on iPhone lets you accept Apple Pay directly on a compatible iPhone with no extra equipment required.

Step 2: Connect it to your point-of-sale (POS) software. Make sure your POS system is configured to accept contactless payments. Most modern POS systems support this without any extra setup.

Step 3: Position the reader for customers. Place the terminal facing customers and within easy reach so they can hold their iPhone, Apple Watch, or iPad near the reader to pay. With Tap to Pay, simply prompt customers to hold their device near your iPhone to complete the transaction. The transaction completes in seconds—you'll typically see a confirmation on screen once it goes through.

Online

Step 1: Check whether your payments provider supports Apple Pay. Most do. Businesses with online payments supported by Stripe can set up an Apple Pay integration in just a few quick steps.

Step 2: Enable it in your checkout settings. Log into your payments provider's dashboard and look for Apple Pay or “digital wallets” under payment methods. Toggle it on.

Step 3: Test the checkout flow. Before going live, run a test purchase on an Apple device to confirm the “Pay with Apple Pay” button appears and the transaction completes correctly.

If you’re accepting payments on your website, you probably already have a payment gateway and payments provider. Most payments providers are equipped to accept Apple Pay transactions.

On mobile apps

Step 1: Check your payments provider's documentation. If you're using Stripe or a similar provider, adding Apple Pay to a mobile app typically requires just a few lines of code.

Step 2: Step-by-step integration guides are available for both iOS and Android.
Add the payment button to your checkout screen. Your developer (or you, if you're comfortable with the documentation) will implement the Apple Pay button and connect it to your existing payment flow.

Step 3: Run your test transactions on an actual iPhone or iPad.

How much does Apple Pay cost per transaction?

Apple itself doesn’t charge businesses to accept Apple Pay, nor do they charge users. Apple makes money from Apple Pay by charging card issuers 0.15% on each Apple Pay purchase. Although Apple doesn’t charge merchants to accept Apple Pay, some payment providers charge businesses a processing fee for each Apple Pay transaction. These fees vary depending on which payment provider you use.

Stripe customers don’t pay any additional fees to process Apple Pay, and the pricing per transaction is the same as for other card transactions. For more information about accepting Apple Pay as a Stripe business, including how Apple Pay fits into a comprehensive payments strategy to engineer frictionless checkout experiences, learn more here.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.
  
• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.
  
• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.
  
• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.
  
• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.
  

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.