Afterpay and Clearpay payments
Afterpay gives your customers in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States a way to pay for purchases in installments. Afterpay is particularly popular among businesses selling fashion, beauty, and sports products.
Afterpay immediately pays you in full and collects the remaining installments from your customer over time. For more information, see Collection schedule and limits.
Payment flow
Get started
You can add Afterpay and other payment methods from the Stripe Dashboard without changing your code. Stripe determines the list of supported payment methods to show each customer by evaluating the currency, payment method restrictions, and other parameters. Learn how to accept Afterpay and other payment methods automatically with Checkout and Payment Element.
Payment Links also supports adding Afterpay from the Dashboard.
If you prefer to manually list payment methods, learn how to manually configure Afterpay as a payment.
You can also let customers know Afterpay payments are available by including the site messaging Element on your product, cart, and payment pages. We recommend adding a site messaging Element to help drive conversion.
Installment schedule and limits
When a customer uses Afterpay, you (the merchant) are always paid out in full to your Stripe account immediately. Afterpay collects the first installment from the customer immediately, and the next installment either 2 weeks or 1 month after, depending on the payment schedule which varies by customer country.
You can accept payments from customers in the same country that you registered your Stripe account in. Payments must also match the local currency of the country.
The following table lists total transaction limits and installment schedules by country.
| Stripe account and customer country | Currency | Transaction limits | Payment schedule | Total installments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | AUD | 1 - 2,000 AUD | First payment collected immediately, then every 2 weeks | 4 payments over 6 weeks |
| Canada | CAD | 1 - 2,000 CAD | First payment collected immediately, then every 2 weeks | 4 payments over 6 weeks |
| New Zealand | NZD | 1 - 2,000 NZD | First payment collected immediately, then every 2 weeks | 4 payments over 6 weeks |
| United Kingdom | GBP | 1 - 1,000 GBP | First payment collected immediately, then every 2 weeks | 4 payments over 6 weeks |
| United States | USD | 1 - 2,000 USD | First payment collected immediately, then every 2 weeks | 4 payments over 6 weeks |
| France, Spain | EUR | 1 - 1,000 EUR | First payment collected immediately, then every month | 3 payments over 2 months |
Prohibited business categories
In addition to the categories of businesses restricted from using Stripe overall, the following categories are prohibited from using Afterpay.
- Alcohol
- Digital games and apps
- Donations
- Electronics
- Flash sales
- Pre-orders
- Travel
For the complete list, see the terms of service.
Adding Afterpay branding to your website
Let your customers know you accept payments with Afterpay by including the site messaging Element on your product and cart pages.
Afterpay also provides static visual assets and branding guidance. In AU, CA, NZ and the US, consumers know Afterpay as ‘Afterpay’. In the EU, they know it as ‘Clearpay’. Make sure you pick the right location (see the footer in the Afterpay documentation) so that you get the appropriate assets. For an example, see the UK assets and branding guidance.
Disputed payments
Afterpay covers disputes driven by consumer fraud or inability to repay installments.
If a customer claims that you didn’t deliver the relevant goods as expected, Afterpay may send you an email to request additional information. If Afterpay receives a large volume of customer complaints, these disputes may turn into chargebacks, with funds withdrawn from your Stripe account.
Refunds
You can refund Afterpay charges up to 180 days after the original payment. Refunds for Afterpay payments are asynchronous.
Connect
You can use Stripe Connect with Afterpay to process payments on behalf of a connected account. Connect users can use Afterpay with the following account and charge types:
| Account types | Charge types |
|---|---|
Stripe and Afterpay rely on merchant category codes (MCC) to determine eligibility of the connected accounts against the Afterpay prohibited business categories. Make sure that you set correct MCCs for your Custom and Express accounts.