Alma Review

Alma is a French buy-now-pay-later provider. It lets a merchant's customers pay in 2, 3 or 4 instalments, 15 or 30 days later, or over up to 12 months, online and in store. Alma lends to the shopper and takes on the risk of non-payment, and the merchant is paid the full basket less a commission. Alma SAS was registered in April 2018 by Louis Chatriot and Guillaume Desloges and is based in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. The French regulator, the ACPR, has authorised it as both a payment institution and a financing company since May 2021. As of October 2026 its French price list charges merchants 3.6% for 2 instalments, 3.8% for 3 and 4.8% for 4, plus VAT. Pay-later plans cost 4.2% (15 days) or 4.6% (30 days). There is no monthly or setup fee, and part of the cost can be passed to shoppers within legal caps. Plans of 10 or 12 instalments are priced on quote. Alma's help centre says payouts generally arrive 7 to 14 days after the sale, while its merchant terms say within seven days of the transaction being confirmed. The merchant contract has no fixed term, but either side must give three months' notice to end it. For 2025, Alma reported €2.5 billion of business volume and its first positive net result. It says 23,000 merchants use it, and consumers rate it 4.8 on Trustpilot. Complaints centre on declined applications, refunds and hard-to-reach support.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Alma’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What Alma is

Alma is a French buy-now-pay-later company. It lets a merchant's customers spread a purchase over 2, 3 or 4 interest-free instalments, defer payment by 15 or 30 days, or finance a larger basket over 10 or 12 months. Alma lends to the shopper, pays the merchant the full basket less a commission, and carries the risk if the shopper does not pay. The company, Alma SAS, was registered on 16 April 2018 and is based at 176 avenue Charles de Gaulle in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just outside Paris. Louis Chatriot, its president and chief executive, co-founded it with Guillaume Desloges, who is listed as a director general in the French company register and as chief operating officer on Alma's own site. Alma's website used to be getalma.eu. It has moved to almapay.com, and the old domain now redirects there.

For 2025, in a March 2026 press release, Alma reported €2.5 billion of business volume, up 30%, and €114 million of annual recurring revenue at 31 December 2025. It also reported its first positive full-year net result and about 23,000 merchant partners in Europe. The same release says more than 9 million consumers have used Alma since it started, in 10 countries. Its pricing page, updated since, says 25,000 brands. Alma has raised money several times: €49 million in 2021, then €210 million in February 2022, made up of €115 million in equity and €95 million in debt. Investors include Cathay Innovation, Eurazeo, Bpifrance's Large Venture fund, Seaya Ventures, Picus Capital, Tencent, GR Capital and Roosh Ventures. None has disclosed a controlling stake, so we treat them as investors, not owners. Alma's merchant customers include La Redoute, SNCF and Maisons du Monde.

Why we list Alma as a BNPL provider

Alma holds the merchant relationship and the credit itself. The merchant signs Alma's own terms of sale, and each shopper signs a payment or credit agreement with Alma. Alma is authorised by the ACPR, the French banking supervisor, as both a payment institution and a financing company, with both licences dated 10 May 2021. Under EU passporting it can provide payment services in other EU and EEA states. It does not acquire card payments in the ordinary sense. Instead, it takes the shopper's instalments by card and advances the full purchase price to the merchant. That is the BNPL model, so it is not an acquirer, a payment facilitator or a gateway, even though Stripe also offers Alma as a payment method.

What it costs

• France, as of October 2026, for merchants with turnover up to €1 million: 3.6% for 2 instalments, 3.8% for 3, 4.8% for 4, 4.2% for 15-day pay later and 4.6% for 30-day pay later, all excluding VAT.
• Plans of 10 or 12 instalments: quoted per merchant, and only available to merchants who already offer 2, 3 and 4 instalments.
• Above €1 million of turnover: rates are negotiated and fall with volume, according to the price list.
• No setup fee, monthly fee or minimum commitment.
• Alma charges VAT at the standard rate on commissions for plans of up to 4 instalments, pay later and one-off payments, and deducts it from payouts.
• Surcharges: the price list says rates may be adjusted for risk and rise automatically for American Express and business cards. It does not give the size of either.
• Spain lists the same rates as France, excluding VAT. Belgium lists 3.4% for 2 instalments and 3.8% for 3, and Luxembourg 3.4%, 3.8% and 4.6% for 2, 3 and 4. Neither of those two pages says whether VAT is included.

Merchants can pass part of the cost to shoppers. On the French list, the shopper's share is capped at 0.83% on 2 instalments, 1.65% on 3 and 2.47% on 4, so the merchant still pays at least 2.77%, 2.15% and 2.33% respectively. Alma applies the caps in each country automatically to stay within usury and consumer-credit limits, and recommends merchants absorb the whole fee because free plans convert better. As an example, take a French shop selling 50 baskets of €600 a month in 3 instalments, with no fee sharing. That is €30,000 of sales, and Alma's commission is €1,140, or 3.8%. With VAT at France's standard 20% it is €1,368, about 4.6%. A VAT-registered business can usually reclaim that VAT, but a business that cannot will pay the higher figure. Both figures are before any risk or card-type adjustment. The merchant terms let Alma set the final commission after reviewing your business and raise it later on one month's notice. Treat the published rate as a starting point and get your rate in writing.

How it works for the merchant and the shopper

Online, Alma plugs into PrestaShop, Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, Sylius, WooCommerce and WiziShop through ready-made plugins, or into a custom checkout through its API, with a free sandbox for testing. Stripe merchants in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg can also turn on Alma as a payment method, under Stripe's own terms and settlement timing. In store, Alma PoS is a web interface on a tablet or computer, not a card terminal. Staff text the shopper a payment link or let them fill in their details on screen, and the same tool handles phone and email orders. By default Alma is offered on baskets between €50 and €2,000. Shoppers need a non-prepaid card from one of the ten countries Alma serves. Alma says it accepts 95% of payment requests, and that in under 5% of cases it asks the shopper for more information before deciding. In those cases it may ask you to hold shipment, and it refunds its commission if it finally declines. Plans longer than three months are regulated consumer credit in France, so they need an identity check, a creditworthiness check and a signed credit agreement. The merchant must also add specific legal wording to its own terms of sale.

The rules are changing. The EU's revised Consumer Credit Directive (2023/2225) brings interest-free credit, and credit repaid within three months with only negligible charges, into consumer-credit law. The French government's own summary of its transposing ordinance of 3 September 2025 describes that second category as split and deferred payments, which covers Alma's core 2, 3 and 4 instalment and pay-later products. The new rules apply from 20 November 2026, the date the directive sets. For these short plans France has opted for a reduced set of pre-contract and contract information, but creditworthiness checks still apply. Merchants should expect some change at checkout and in the wording they must display, and should ask Alma what it will be.

Payouts, reserves and refunds

Alma pays the merchant the full basket, not the instalments as they come in. The merchant terms say the money is transferred within seven days of Alma confirming the transaction, or of capture for deferred payments, net of commission, refunds and any reserve. Alma's help centre puts it more loosely: payouts generally arrive 7 to 14 days after the sale, can take longer depending on the business, and then take 24 to 72 hours to clear through the banks. Alma sends transfers every day except Saturday. If your risk profile changes significantly, for example through high refund, dispute, complaint or order-suspension rates, a sudden spike in volume or weakened finances, the terms let Alma delay payouts. The listed reserve triggers also include having used Alma for less than six months and delivery times of more than seven days, so new merchants and made-to-order sellers should ask about reserves up front. After five working days' notice, it can also hold back a fixed reserve or a percentage of each sale for a set number of days. Refunds are made from the Alma dashboard or from supported platforms. A partial refund first cancels the shopper's outstanding instalments, and only the excess goes back to their card.

Contract terms

The merchant terms (Conditions générales de vente – Marchands, read in October 2026) run with no end date from the day you sign up. Either side can end them on three months' notice, and the merchant gives notice by email. There is no published exit fee. Alma can end the contract immediately in several cases: if the merchant's monthly rate of unpaid instalments reaches a threshold Alma sets, if the merchant sells an excluded product, or if it has not made Alma available to customers within 90 days of integrating it. If the merchant fails to supply documents Alma asks for, or supplies incomplete or falsified ones, Alma can end the contract within 15 days. Plans already running continue after termination. Money Alma owes the merchant is paid within 90 days, provided commissions are paid and goods delivered. Alma can change the terms by email, and the merchant's only remedy is to refuse within 30 days, which ends the contract. Alma's liability is capped at 8% of the commissions it took in the previous 12 months, and claims must be brought within a year. Disputes go to mediation first and then to the courts with jurisdiction over Alma's registered office. The terms also forbid the merchant from charging shoppers late penalties. They include an exclusivity clause, too: for as long as the contract runs, the merchant grants Alma exclusivity over offering its customers the financing products the contract covers. The terms do not spell out how far that reaches, so if you want to offer another instalment provider alongside Alma, get Alma's agreement in writing first. The merchant must also keep proof of delivery for 12 months and produce it within 48 hours if asked, or repay Alma when a shopper disputes the sale.

Reputation and complaints

Alma's Trustpilot profile, which is mostly reviewed by shoppers rather than merchants, showed a TrustScore of 4.8 from about 91,000 reviews when we checked in October 2026. 90% of those reviews are five-star and 2% are one-star. Alma invites customers to leave reviews, which inflates volume, and replies to almost every negative review. The one-star reviews repeat a few themes: applications declined without explanation, refunds that merchants confirmed but shoppers did not receive, payment problems after a failed instalment, and support that relies on chat and email and is slow to escalate. These are consumer complaints, but they land on the merchant's customers. Our searches found no lawsuit, fine or regulatory enforcement action naming Alma. Its ACPR authorisations were active on the public register in October 2026.

Who should use Alma

Alma fits a merchant in France, or another of its ten euro-area markets, selling mid-priced goods or services between about €50 and €2,000, where letting customers split the bill is likely to win sales or lift basket size. It suits shops selling both online and in store that want one provider and a published price, with no fixed fee if volume is seasonal. It is a poor fit if your margins cannot absorb a commission of 3.6% to 4.8%, more if you cannot reclaim the VAT, if you rely on next-day cash, or if you sell outside its countries or in a category it excludes. Before signing, get your actual rates in writing, including any Amex or business-card surcharge and any risk adjustment. Ask how payout timing will work for your business, and diarise the three-month notice period.