•Switching behavior involves push, pull, and mooring factors.•Privacy concerns push users to switch.•Monetary rewards of alternatives pull users to switch.•Inertia moors users to stay with incumbent mobile payment apps. Switching behaviors of mobile payment application received scarce attention. This study investigates the key factors influencing the switching behaviors of mobile payment application through the perspective of the push–pull–mooring framework. Privacy concerns, alternative rewards, and inertia are identified as push, pull, and mooring factors, respectively. The model was tested with 3785 valid responses among Alipay users. Inertia was found to attenuate the relationship between alternative rewards and switching behavior. This study sheds new light on the switching behavior of mobile payment application users. Our findings inform service providers to retain existing users as well as attract potential users.