WeChat Pay vs Alipay 🥊 Which One is Better? 2023 Edition

WeChat Pay vs Alipay // Find Which One is Right For You

Welcome to the battle of two heavy weights, WeChat Pay vs Alipay.

Today we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about China’s leading mobile payment systems.

In recent years China has been moving towards a cashless society. This has been made possible by two smart payment giants: WeChat Pay and Alipay.

Mobile payments now dominate the market in China, which can sometimes be a bit confusing for foreigners who are unfamiliar with the systems.

That’s why we’re going to take a closer look at WeChat Pay and Alipay to see what the difference between the two actually is.

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Quick Introduction

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || What’s the Difference?

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || What Can they be Used For?

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Which One is More Popular?

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Can You Link a Foreign Bank Card?

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Can You Use them Outside China?

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Summary

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || 2023 Updates

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || FAQs

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Quick Introduction

First of all, let’s start with a quick introduction to these two mobile payment platforms, that are used in over 90% of cashless transactions.

WeChat Pay

WeChat Pay was developed as an additional feature within China’s must have instant messaging and social media app WeChat.

WeChat is owned by Tencent and is China’s most popular messaging app, although it has now become far more than that.

WeChat started as a chat app when it was launched in 2011, but has now become much more than that.

In 2013 WeChat’s virtual wallet payment system WeChat Pay (also referred to as TenPay) was introduced.

Although WeChat Pay is much newer than its main competitor Alipay, its already huge user base has enabled it to quickly become dominant in the market.

WANT TO DISCOVER MORE – Check out our guide on how to use WeChat here.

Alipay

Alipay is owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba.

It was first introduced in 2003 as an online digital payments solution for the Alibaba website.

In 2008, Alipay officially introduced its mobile e-wallet and has become a regular payment facility that services not only Alibaba products.

Before WeChat Pay was introduced Alipay completely dominated the smart and mobile payment market within China.

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || What’s The Difference?

The main difference between WeChat Pay and Alipay is that WeChat Pay is an in-app feature of the social media app WeChat whereas Alipay is a dedicated smart and mobile payment system.

This means that although both systems can be used for similar things the focus of them is slightly different.

WeChat Pay is more of a social app used by most users to navigate their daily life.

Popular uses are purchasing groceries, paying bills, transferring money to friends, sending red envelopes and other everyday transactions.

Alipay on the other hand puts more emphasis on e-commerce payment and financial services. As Alipay was originally created as a payment platform for the Alibaba website, it has become more of an escrow payment service.

In the table below you can see some of the key differences between the two smart payment systems.

With more supported currencies and a much higher limit for withdrawals, you can see some of the ways that Alipay is more focused towards ecommerce and business.

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WeChat Pay vs Alipay || What Can They Be Used For?

Almost everything.

Yes, nowadays WeChat Pay and Alipay can be used for pretty much everything.

Whether it’s ordering food, getting a taxi, topping up your electricity, buying plane tickets or sending money to friends the sky really is the limit with these mobile payment apps.

In fact, there are now some shops and venues which only accept mobile payments.

You’ll see that the only usage Alipay has which WeChat Pay doesn’t is the shopping apps Taobao and TMall.

This is because they are both owned by Alibaba so it makes sense for their business not to allow their competitor WeChat Pay as an option on their shopping apps.

Similarly, thanks to a deal in 2015 between Tencent and Jing Dong, you are only able to use WeChat Pay as a mobile payment on JD. You are also able to directly access JD through the WeChat app.

JD is not the only app you can access thorugh WeChat.

In fact, WeChat actually has a lot of partnerships set up with other Chinese companies which allow you to directly access them as a Mini Program.

Some other available apps are:

• Didi
• Dianping/Waimai
• Tongcheng-eLong (travel app)

The Alipay app also allows users to use in app third party services such as:

• Eleme
• Taobao
• Hellobike

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WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Which One is More Popular?

Given the fact that almost everyone in China uses WeChat it’s no surprise that WeChat Pay now has more monthly active users than Alipay.

Although year on year users of both smart payment systems have been growing, the most recent data shows that WeChat Pay has more user.

For normal, everyday users, it does make more sense to use WeChat Pay as pretty much everyone will already have WeChat it’s much easier to use the in app feature and simply add your bank details rather than download a separate app.

To take myself as an example when I first moved to Beijing for the first few months, I exclusively used WeChat Pay. It wasn’t until I wanted to use Taobao that I then also set up an Alipay account.

As you can see in the Venn diagram below it is quite common for users to use both WeChat Pay and Alipay.

However, although WeChat Pay has more monthly active users, Alipay is still the most popular online payment system in China.

In Q3 of 2019 Alipay had over a 50% share of China’s mobile payment market with 54.5%. Whereas WeChat Pay had 39.5%.

This also clearly shows how the two smart payment giants dominate the market, accounting for a total of 94% share between them.

But could this all be set to change with the massive growth WeChat Pay has seen over the past few years?

As recently as 2014 AliPay accounted for over 80% of transaction value in the mobile payment market and WeChat Pay only 10%. Given, this it’s pretty impressive that in just five years WeChat Pay has grown to almost 40%.

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Can You Link a Foreign Bank Card?

Yes, as of November 2019 both WeChat Pay and Alipay enabled users to link a foreign bank card to their account for the first time.

Alipay was the first to introduce this, creating an international e-wallet, targeted at tourists, that allowed foreign bank cards to be linked to the app.

Never one to fall behind, WeChat Pay soon followed suit and also made adding foreign bank cards available on their app.

And then, in 2023, Alipay and WeChat announced that they would be allowing tourists and short-term visitors to link their international cards rather than just long-term residents.

However, the way the two work differs quite significantly.

With Alipay users can top up an e-wallet called a “Tour Card” using their foreign bank card, this is limited to a maximum top of 10,000 CNY and can only be used for 6 months.

You can see full details in our guide to using Alipay as a foreigner and WeChat Pay for Foreigners.

In contrast WeChat Pay has enabled users to make payments directly through its digital wallet using the linked foreign bank card. It’s important to note that only credit cards can be used, although you can enter the details of a debit card it won’t work.

Also if your WeChat Pay is linked to a foreign bank card, the uses of it are more limited.

For instance you can pay vendors, but can’t make transfers to friends or send red envelopes.

Whereas using the “Tour Card” in Alipay gives you access to all of the Alipay features.

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WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Can You Use Them Outside China?

Although more and more countries are accepting WeChat Pay and Alipay as payment methods outside of China this is only available to Chinese citizens.

Currently, to be able to use Alipay or Wechat Pay abroad you need to have an account with a mainland Chinese ID.

This is disappointing for foreigners who live in mainland China and then go to a neighbouring country on holiday.

However, with the changes in 2019 to allow foreign bank cards to be added to the apps perhaps it won’t be too long before foreigners can use these smart payment systems outside of China.

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WeChat Pay vs Alipay || Summary

Overall the difference between the two apps is very little.

Both apps can be used for almost all payments and transactions needed in daily life.

If you are new to mobile payments in China and want to know which one to go with, WeChat perhaps makes more sense.

As WeChat is already an essential app for living in China, it makes sense to make use of the WeChat Pay rather than downloading a separate app.

However, if you want to experience the wonderful world of Taobao shopping you will need to download Alipay.

For anyone who will only be in China short term and wants to link a foreign card it may be worth downloading Alipay and using their Tour Card as this has more features than adding a foreign bank card to WeChat Pay.

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || 2023 Updates

Apps are changing all the time (looking at you, Twitter), but luckily we’re here to keep you up-to-date on the latest and most important updates of the year.

Alipay

• Visitors to China are now able to link both Mastercard and Visa cards to Alipay and use this as they would normally to pay for goods and transport (and yes, that includes the subway!)
• TourPass has now been upgraded to Tour Card, which you allows you to preload you Alipay account. Check out our Alipay Guide for more information

WeChat Pay

• Like Alipay, WeChat Pay can now link both Mastercard and Visa cards as a form of payment.
• Digital Yuan, or e-CNY, is now being rolled out across China and can be used on WeChat Pay for anything from ordering a cheeseburger to paying your bills.
• Soon, you might not even need your phone at all! This year WeChat Pay introduced Palm Payment, which yep, literally means scanning your palm to make a payment.

WeChat Pay vs Alipay || FAQs

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