For expenses such as a healthcare bill, car repairs, or new electronics, people want payment options that offer flexibility without fees. Since 2012, Affirm has helped people make significant and everyday purchases by providing transparent buy now, pay later financing that lets them pay over time.
“What people love about Affirm is knowing exactly what they’re going to owe every month,” said Steve McPhee, vice president of strategic partnerships at Affirm. “The cost doesn’t increase, there are no hidden fees, and they never pay more than what they agreed to at checkout.”
To keep pace with rising demand for flexible payment options, Affirm and Stripe launched a distribution partnership in 2022 that spans product innovation, business distribution, and new commerce experiences. Product, engineering, partnership, and go-to-market teams from both companies regularly work together to boost adoption of Affirm across new industries and channels, helping more customers access the financing they need for both big-ticket and everyday purchases.
“Our relationship with Stripe doesn’t feel transactional. It feels like a thought partnership,” said McPhee. “We have people across teams working together to understand how payments are evolving, so we can build new experiences for merchants who are adapting to changing customer behavior and preferences, including agentic commerce and the rising use of AI.”
Stripe is a very like-minded partner. They’re technology-first, they move quickly, and they share the same customer promises we’re trying to deliver.
Affirm brings flexible financing to more industries
Affirm works with Stripe to give businesses an easy way to offer transparent installment financing while reaching more customers. The partnership drives value for businesses, which see both higher revenue and improved conversion rates after adopting Affirm. On average, businesses that add Affirm through Stripe see a 14% increase in revenue on Affirm-eligible sessions and a 21% increase in conversion on purchases of $250 or more.
By partnering with Stripe, Affirm has been able to expand the adoption of flexible financing into new industries outside of online retailers. “Stripe has helped us expand beyond traditional ecommerce transactions to other verticals with high-value products, such as healthcare, beauty and wellness, hospitality, ticketing, auto repair services, and the creator economy,” said Nupur Kantamneni, vice president of product at Affirm.
Stripe’s Optimized Checkout Suite makes it easy for businesses to add Affirm as a payment method through a single integration. As more businesses have adopted Affirm through Stripe, the partnership has boosted long-term customer engagement, with the number of repeat customer transactions using Affirm growing 109% year over year.
Part of that growth comes from the product collaboration between Affirm and Stripe to improve how and when BNPL appears to shoppers during the buying and checkout experience. “We worked together to introduce the BNPL value proposition earlier in the customer journey. That kind of full-funnel thinking is pretty unique to Stripe,” said Kantamneni. Businesses can present Affirm before checkout to drive awareness using the Payment Method Messaging Element, an embeddable component that automatically shows BNPL offers on the product or cart pages.
In 2025, Affirm became the first BNPL provider available through Stripe Terminal, which allows businesses to offer the same flexible financing options in person as they do online. Customers can scan a QR code displayed on the terminal, complete the familiar Affirm sign-up flow on their own device, and return to the terminal once approved. This setup creates a secure and seamless BNPL experience for brick-and-mortar stores.
Customers don’t think in channels. They just think about the best way to pay, whether that is online or in-store. We wanted to make sure we can meet users where they are, and help merchants offer an omnichannel experience.
Affirm drives conversion and revenue across platforms on Stripe
Through Stripe Connect, Affirm is able to expand its availability across new types of businesses by giving platforms the ability to add Affirm as a payment method for thousands of businesses at once. For example, legal AI software provider Clio has seen a 39% increase in average order value in the US and Canada with Affirm, compared to purchases made with other payment methods.
“So many of the vertical-specific businesses and platforms Stripe supports today are a natural fit for more customer-friendly, flexible financing. Our partnership with Stripe created the perfect opportunity to build the interoperability that brings Affirm’s offerings to these platform businesses,” said Jeffrey Salvitti, senior director of strategic partnerships at Affirm.
More than 5,000 other platforms have added Affirm through Connect to help their merchants improve conversion, grow average order value, and increase revenue. For example:
- GlossGenius, a platform built to support health and wellness merchants, used Stripe to add support for Affirm and other BNPL providers to give clients payment flexibility and choice. Adding and promoting BNPL availability led to an overall 5.72% lift in payment volume and a 171% increase in average order value compared to cards. One business on GlossGenius reported using Affirm to increase its average booking value by 3.7x compared to non-BNPL bookings.
- The commerce platform ThriveCart implemented Affirm so digital creators can help their customers pay for high-value courses over time. Orders paid with Affirm have a 333% higher average order value than those made with other payment methods.
- The ticket marketplace SeatGeek added Affirm so customers could finance ticket orders, which helped SeatGeek increase conversion rates up to 2% while driving 50% higher order values compared to purchases made with other payment methods.
- As part of its embedded finance offering, the hospitality industry platform Cloudbeds used Stripe to give hotels a way to help guests manage the cost of travel. Businesses on Cloudbeds that added alternative payment methods like Affirm have seen their revenue increase by 14.8% on average.
“Stripe gives us the ability to reach a lot of small merchants through platforms that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to reach on our own. Stripe manages all of the payouts and money movement between us, the platform, and the end merchant,” said McPhee. “It’s one of the bigger growth areas for us in the past couple of years.”
Building for the age of agentic commerce
As customers increasingly use AI platforms to discover products and make decisions, Affirm sees flexible payment options as an important part of the buying experience. Affirm expanded its Stripe partnership to support Shared Payment Tokens, which let AI agents initiate payments using a buyer’s saved payment method without exposing payment credentials. By combining Stripe’s infrastructure with Affirm’s transparent financing model, Affirm wants to provide buyers with the same confidence and choice in AI-assisted purchases that they have in traditional checkout experiences.
Many things will change in terms of how people buy things. One thing that won’t change is the need for financing and the need for affordability. When AI agents are making purchases on behalf of consumers, they’ll be able to read all the fine print. We don’t have any fine print, and we think our approach to fair financing will help us rise to the top.
