Updated November 25, 2024
Boost your revenue, increase your conversion rates, and get paid up front with Affirm’s buy now, pay later options!
Overview of Affirm
Affirm is a “Buy Now, Pay Later” solution that allows businesses to receive an invoice’s full payment amount immediately while the purchaser enrolls in interest-free or low-interest installment plans.
Affirm is an available payment option for Stripe businesses and clients located in the United States and Canada. When a client chooses Affirm during checkout, the business receives the full payment amount immediately (minus processing fees), while Affirm collects installment payments from the client over time.
The installment options that Affirm offers depends on the invoice amount and the client’s credit details. Affirm can accommodate purchases from $50 to $30K, with a max credit limit of $20K. Their offers can include:
4 interest-free payments every 2 weeks for purchases up to $250
Installment plans for orders between $150 and $30K, spanning up to 36 months
How Affirm works with Dubsado
Business located in the United States and Canada that are connected with Dubsado Payments have Affirm enabled, by default.
You can head to Settings ➔ Payments and invoices to review or make changes to your accepted payment methods.
On a Dubsado invoice, clients can choose Affirm when they opt to pay an invoice in full. If you’d like to encourage your clients to pay in full with Affirm, it may be helpful to remove any Dubsado payment plans from your invoices.
After clicking Pay Now, clients can select Affirm from the payment options at the top of the payment modal to view their available offers from Affirm. Clients can also click Learn more to get more details on their available offers.
After the client clicks the Pay button within the modal, they are redirected to Affirm’s site to finish enrolling in the installment plan of their choosing.
Once the client has completed their enrollment and made their first payment, they are directed back to the Dubsado invoice where their payment is confirmed.
As with normal payments transacted through Dubsado Payments, the client automatically receives a receipt for their payment. Their receipt denotes that the full invoice amount has been paid via Affirm.
Affirm pricing and promotional rate
The processing rate for accepting payments via Affirm is 6% + $0.30.
This processing rate is a bit higher than the standard processing rate for the United States and Canada since businesses receive the entire invoice amount up front, and Affirm assumes the risk and responsibility for collecting the remainder of the invoice amount from your client.
Affirm eligibility
In order for a Dubsado invoice to qualify for Affirm payments, the following conditions apply:
You must be connected with Dubsado Payments powered by Stripe, and your brand must have Accept Affirm payments enabled within Settings ➔ Payments and invoices.
Your Stripe account must be registered in either the United States or Canada.
Your Dubsado brand's currency must match your Stripe account's country of register.
Stripe accounts registered in the US must be accepting USD in Dubsado.
Stripe accounts registered in Canada must be accepting CAD in Dubsado.
Your clients must be located in the same country as your business.
If your business is registered in the US within Stripe, only US clients can pay with Affirm.
If your business is registered in Canada within Stripe, only Canadian clients can pay with Affirm.
Your Stripe business category qualifies for Affirm (see blocked business categories below).
The invoice’s total must be greater than $50 and less than $30,000.
The client must choose to pay the entire invoice amount.
The invoice is not a recurring invoice.
The invoice is not a scheduler invoice.
The client is not already enrolled in autopay.
Clients who are enrolled in autopay can click stop autopay turn off autopay and see Affirm payment options.
The project that the invoice belongs to is not using a legacy setting for the payment options override feature.
Most current projects are in the new default setting, so this condition shouldn’t affect the majority of projects. If Affirm is not showing up on a particular invoice and you’ve confirmed that the invoice meets the other conditions, you can click the "Revert to Default" button under Invoice Options to refresh the payment options.
If a client isn’t seeing Affirm as a payment option on a given invoice, double check that the invoice meets all of the above conditions.
Refunds with Affirm
Payments made on an Affirm installment plan can be refunded up to 120 days after the original purchase.
Both partial and full refunds are allowed. Once a refund is initiated, Affirm pauses the client’s installment plan and refunds the customer for payments that have already been completed. Any interest paid by the customer is not returned with a refund, and Stripe does not credit the business with the processing fees associated with the payment.
Blocked business categories
Not all business categories within Stripe qualify for accepting payments via Affirm. Stripe determines your merchant category code (MCC) based on the information you provide during onboarding and sets it automatically.
Check the table below for a list of the more common business categories that are blocked from accepting Affirm payments.
Merchant Category Code (MCC) | Category |
7392 | Consulting, Management and Public Relations Services |
7399 | Business Services Not Elsewhere Classified |
7372 | Computer Programming, Data Processing and Integrated System Design Services |
8931 | Accounting, Auditing and Bookkeeping Services |
1799 | Contractors, Special Trade Contractors–not elsewhere classified |
8299 | Schools And Educational Services–Not Elsewhere Classified |
7333 | Commercial Art, Graphics, Photography |
8111 | Attorneys, Legal Services |
7829 | Motion Picture and Video Tape Production and Distribution |
7277 | Debt, Marriage, Personal–Counseling Services |
Don’t see your business type listed, but you're not seeing Affirm as an option? You can find a full list of all blocked business categories here.
FAQ
Can I have surcharging and Affirm enabled at the same time?
You can have both surcharging and Affirm enabled simultaneously, but if your client chooses to pay with Affirm then you cannot also apply a surcharge to their payments. A surcharge can only be applied if the client pays with a credit card and does not pay via Affirm.
My business can't accept Affirm payments because it's not located in the US or Canada, or my Stripe business category is blocked. Is there another way my business can implement buy now, pay later options?
Yes! Businesses in a variety of countries can use Klarna as a buy now, pay later option. Check out our article on accepting payments with Klarna to see a full list of merchant countries that can use Klarna. And, Klarna can be used by almost every industry and business category!