Best Buy Now, Pay Later Providers

Zip

BNPL Network

B

Zip is the US buy-now-pay-later network formerly known as Quadpay, owned by the ASX-listed Zip Co Limited. Zip Co was founded in Sydney in 2013 by Larry Diamond and Peter Gray and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2015; the American business it now trades under is Quadpay, a New York company incorporated in August 2017 and bought by Zip in a deal announced in June 2020, approved by shareholders on 31 August 2020 and completed that September. For a merchant the offer is the familiar BNPL trade: let shoppers split a purchase into four instalments over six weeks, get paid up front, and hand the credit and non-payment risk to Zip. What separates Zip from the rest of the category is that it prints a price, and a settlement window to go with it. Its Standard plan is published on its own site at 5.9% plus 30 cents per transaction with no monthly or annual fee, where Afterpay, Klarna and most of the field quote nothing at all and negotiate every deal in private. It also publishes what most of the category will not: that it settles the merchant in full, minus its fees, within two to three business days, and where chargeback liability sits. That 5.9% is nonetheless the highest published headline rate in mainstream BNPL, and Zip's own FAQ confirms it is a floor rather than a ceiling. The parent is now solidly profitable — FY26, the year to 30 June 2026, brought A$16.7 billion of transaction volume, A$1.336 billion of revenue and A$116.4 million of statutory profit, with the US arm growing revenue more than 42% in local currency — but it has also exited Singapore, the United Kingdom and, in August 2026, New Zealand, and in May 2026 lost a unanimous High Court trade mark case in its home market — a loss it settled eight days later by acquiring the disputed mark from Firstmac, avoiding the rebrand the judgment otherwise required and taking on no further damages liability.

Afterpay

BNPL Network

B

Afterpay is the buy-now-pay-later network founded in Sydney in October 2014 by Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen, and owned since January 2022 by Block, Inc. — the deal was announced in August 2021 at a headline US$29 billion and completed on far less, reported at roughly US$14 billion in Class A shares, because Block's own share price had fallen in the interim. For a merchant, the proposition is straightforward: offer shoppers four interest-free instalments over six weeks, or a monthly plan over six or twelve months, get paid up front rather than waiting for the customer to finish paying, and let Afterpay carry the fraud and non-payment risk. In exchange the merchant pays a commission Afterpay does not publish — third-party reviewers consistently report a range around 4% to 6% plus roughly $0.30 per transaction, several times the cost of taking the same sale on a card. Afterpay's own merchant marketing claims a 58% increase in average order value among accepting merchants and $8.6 billion of incremental US sales delivered over the preceding twelve months. Under Block, the product has increasingly become a Cash App feature rather than a standalone checkout button: Afterpay Post-Purchase and, from 2026, Afterpay Pre-Purchase let Cash App Card holders convert everyday card spend into instalments at any merchant, whether or not that merchant has ever signed an Afterpay agreement.

Klarna

BNPL Network

B

Klarna is a Swedish-founded, UK-parented digital bank and flexible payments provider that listed on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2025. Its full year 2025 results put it at $127.9 billion of gross merchandise volume, $3.5 billion of revenue, 118 million active consumers and 966,000 merchants. For a retailer it is not a merchant account — it is an additional payment method that sits alongside card acceptance, sold on the promise of higher conversion and larger baskets, and priced far above card interchange. Klarna publishes no US rate card, its dispute process runs on its own rules rather than the card networks', and it is defending a securities class action filed after its IPO.

Pricing clarity

1.5

Feature set

4.5

Ease of use

4.0

Sezzle

BNPL Network

B-

Sezzle is a Minneapolis buy-now-pay-later provider founded in 2016; Charlie Youakim, Paul Paradis and Killian Brackey are the co-founders named most consistently, though accounts of the full founding team differ. It began as a next-business-day ACH product and pivoted to instalments in 2017, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on 30 July 2019, began trading on Nasdaq as SEZL on 17 August 2023 and left the ASX in January 2024. For the quarter ended 30 June 2026 it reported gross merchandise volume of $1.3 billion, up 37.9% year on year, total revenue of $149.7 million, up 51.7%, and net income of $40.8 million. For a merchant the bargain is the standard BNPL one but unusually cleanly stated: the shopper pays Sezzle a down payment, Sezzle pays you the full order value less your merchant rate, and Sezzle then carries both the fraud risk and the repayment risk for the six weeks that follow. What Sezzle does not do is tell you what that costs. There is no published merchant rate anywhere on its site — the fee is in the agreement you sign — and there are three separate ancillary charges most merchants only meet after signing.

Affirm

BNPL Network

B-

Affirm is a buy-now-pay-later provider founded in 2012 by Max Levchin, Nathan Gettings, Jeffrey Kaditz and Alex Rampell, headquartered at 221 Main Street in San Francisco and listed on Nasdaq as AFRM since January 2021. For the fiscal year ended 30 June 2026 it reported $50.2 billion of gross merchandise volume, up 37%, across approximately 571,000 active merchants and 27.8 million active consumers. Merchants integrate Affirm as a checkout option, Affirm underwrites and funds the consumer, and the merchant is paid in full up front minus a fee. Two things make it materially different from card acceptance: Affirm bears the consumer fraud risk on transactions it approves, and the merchant fee is several times a card rate — third-party surveys of mid-market merchants report 2% to 8%, while Affirm's own filings put blended merchant network revenue at 2.3% of GMV in FY2026. Its BBB profile is A+ and accredited; its consumer Trustpilot score is 1.7 across roughly 7,700 reviews.