US Buy Now, Pay Later Loan Trends, 6th Edition Report
Explore Packaged Facts' US Buy Now, Pay Later market report, covering leading providers, user trends, risks, and rapid expansion.
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Report Overview
Finance and Commerce Products Turn the Flywheel
For BNPL providers, the key to growth involves not just growing BNPL users. It means wrapping complementary products and services around BNPL or vice versa. This broader “flywheel” equation is tested, tried, and true, and the operations of PayPal and Block’s Cash App are the furthest along in this regard, with Klarna catching up fast.
Key Themes Covered in this Report:
- The key to growing BNPL users involves wrapping complementary products and services around the offering—and integrating BNPL into existing offerings.
- Millennials remain core users, although Gen Z usage has grown the fastest in recent years.
- Consumer credit risk is a significant influence on BNPL usage, as those with poor credit scores being more than three times likely than those with the highest scores to pay via BNPL.
This report covers trends shaping the fintech buy now, pay later (BNPL) market. More specifically, this report includes:
- US and international BNPL fintech provider payment value market sizing and forecasting overall and by provider
- US BNPL payment value market sizing and forecasting segmented by interest-free (Pay in X) and interest-based loans
- US BNPL payment value by provider segmented by interest-free (Pay in 2/4/8) and interest-based loans
- Key growth drivers, including embedded finance; and vertical, payment method, demographic, and BNPL specialist expansion
- BNPL use and usage frequency analysis, trended over time, identifying core users and new user groups
- BNPL user risk assessment, including analysis of BNPL usage and usage frequency by credit score and alternative financial services use
- BNPL usage rationales, including budgeting, debt management, and cash flow, loan stacking, ease of use, no fees/interest, and rewards
- BNPL user interest in broader provider offerings, from high-yield savings accounts to cell phone plans
- Why holdouts say they do not use BNPL
- Bespoke analysis of leading BNPL fintech provider performance trends and product/feature innovations
US Buy Now, Pay Later Loan Trends Report Details
| Current Total Market Size | $140.8 billion in 2026 |
| Forecast Total Market Growth Rate | 25% CAGR from 2026-2028 |
| Historical Period | 2019-2025 |
| Forecast Period | 2026-2028 |
| Units Covered | US dollars |
| Regions | United States |
| Products | Pay in 4, Pay in 8, Pay in 2, Interest-Based |
| Additional Elements | Survey data, Fintech leader analysis |
Leading Companies Driving Trends in the Buy Now, Pay Later Industry
| Affirm | PayPal |
| Afterpay | Sezzle |
| Klarna | Zip |
Engagement Gains Bode Well for BNPL Provider Futures
For a variety of reasons, increasing customer engagement and usage frequency is important to BNPL providers. The bottom line—as with most product and services models—is that the economics generally improve as existing customers transact more often.
This is especially important for BNPL providers, which got their start offering Pay in 4 loans that—on their own—are hard to turn a profit on. And major providers started near the engagement bottom: For example, in 2020, Affirm customers made just 2.6 estimated transactions annually.
And as new players in consumer finance, they have also had to ramp up, well, just about everything: consumer awareness, merchant acceptance locations, product underwriting, payment processor and mobile wallet relationships, and more products and services (especially ones that earn higher profits) to attract customers.
US Buy Now, Pay Later Loan Trends Report Scope
This report covers trends shaping the fintech buy now, pay later (BNPL) market. More specifically, this report includes:
- US and international BNPL fintech provider payment value market sizing and forecasting overall and by provider
- US BNPL payment value market sizing and forecasting segmented by interest-free (Pay in X) and interest-based loans
- US BNPL payment value by provider segmented by interest-free (Pay in 2/4/8/30, etc.) and interest-based loans
- Key growth drivers, including embedded finance; and vertical, payment method, demographic, and BNPL specialist expansion
- BNPL use and usage frequency analysis, trended over time, identifying core users and new user groups
- BNPL user risk assessment, including analysis of BNPL usage and usage frequency by credit score and alternative financial services use
- BNPL usage rationales, including budgeting, debt management, and cash flow, loan stacking, ease of use, no fees/interest, and rewards
- BNPL user interest in broader provider offerings, from high-yield savings accounts to cell phone plans
- Why holdouts say they do not use BNPL
- Bespoke analysis of leading BNPL fintech provider performance trends and product/feature innovations
This report can help industry participants understand how and why BNPL continues to grow, how BNPL providers are innovating to capture growth. They gain insight into how customer behavior, product usage, product and services expansion are aligning to drive growth forward.
This report features proprietary market sizing for US and international BNPL payment value, as well as US BNPL segmented by major provider and loan type. It also features analysis that hits key industry issues, including BNPL user engagement over time by demographic, BNPL user risk assessment by credit score and alternative financial services use; BNPL provider embedded finance innovation; BNPL usage rationales; user interest in obtaining fintech commerce and financial services from BNPL providers, trended analysis of major BNPL fintechsu2019 performance and product innovation.
This report includes analysis of u201cPay in 4u201d, other no-interest, and interest-based installment loans offered by leading BNPL fintechs.
