There are three ways to offer financing to customers. A lender or financing partner pays you, usually within days, and the customer repays the lender. A buy now, pay later method at checkout pays you up front, less a fee, and the customer repays the provider. Your own in-house plan pays you payment by payment, and you carry the risk. Lenders and buy now, pay later providers check the customer's credit and decide who qualifies. On your own plan, you decide. Check first whether your business category is allowed, and what Truth in Lending and your state ask of you.
Checked against Stripe's documentation and pricing, Wisetack's merchant page, ThriveCart's help centre, the Code of Federal Regulations, the FTC and the CFPB on 22 October 2026.
What are the ways to offer financing to customers?
There are three, and they differ in who lends the money.
- A lender or financing partner. You sign up with a consumer-finance company. The customer applies, often from a link you send. If approved, the lender pays you and the customer repays the lender.
- Buy now, pay later at checkout. A payment method such as Affirm, Klarna or Afterpay sits beside card in your checkout. Stripe describes the flow: the customer chooses it, signs in or creates an account with the provider, accepts the repayment terms and comes back to your site. (Stripe: buy now, pay later)
- Your own in-house plan. You agree a schedule with the customer and charge each payment yourself. No one else lends anything. See in-house financing for the definition.
The first two are loans from someone else. The third is credit you extend, which is why the rules section below matters even at 0%.
How does each one pay you?
- A lender. Wisetack, which finances home services, dental, elective medical and veterinary work, says the business gets "paid 1 to 3 business days after the job is completed, while your customer pays over time." (Wisetack: home services)
- Buy now, pay later. For Affirm through Stripe, "Stripe makes the full amount of the funds (minus fees) available to you upfront", with settlement in up to two business days. Klarna's page says the same of Klarna. (Stripe: Affirm, Stripe: Klarna)
- Your own plan. You're paid as each payment lands: the deposit at signing, then each installment on its date.
So the first two turn a sale into cash this week. The third turns it into a schedule of receivables.
What does each cost you on a $14,800 sale?
Take one sale: $14,800, with a $1,500 deposit and the $13,300 balance over twelve monthly payments. On your own plan, that's eleven payments of $1,108.33 and a last one of $1,108.37.
| Option | Published rate | What you give up on $14,800 | When you have the money |
|---|---|---|---|
| A lender (Wisetack's published rate) | 3.9% per transaction | $577.20 | 1 to 3 business days after the job |
| Buy now, pay later (Affirm through Stripe, standard) | 6% + 30¢ | $888.30 | Up front, settled in up to 2 business days |
| Your own plan, paid by card on Stripe | 2.9% + 30¢ per payment | $433.08 across 13 payments | Over twelve months |
| Your own plan, paid by bank (ACH) on Stripe | 0.8%, capped at $5 | $65 across 13 payments | Over twelve months |
Sources for the rates: Wisetack, Stripe local payment methods pricing and Stripe pricing. The card figure is $43.80 on the deposit plus $32.44 on each of the twelve payments. Every bank payment is large enough to hit the $5 cap.
Read the table with two caveats. First, these are published rates. Stripe's pricing page lists Affirm's Enhanced package at 7.99% + 30¢, and notes a temporary 2.9% + 30¢ rate on Affirm and Klarna for some businesses before standard pricing applies. Second, the cheapest row isn't free. On your own plan, you wait a year for the money and carry the risk that a payment never arrives. Where your state allows it, a card surcharge can recover the card fee. What does ACH save on a $15,000 plan? runs the bank-versus-card numbers in more detail.
Can your business use a lender or buy now, pay later at all?
Check this before anything else, because many service businesses are restricted. When offered through Stripe:
- Affirm is for consumer sales only. It lists home improvement services, including contractors, and professional services among the categories that are prohibited or subject to extra requirements. Vocational and trade schools are restricted, and colleges are prohibited. (Stripe: Affirm)
- Klarna doesn't support business-to-business payments. (Stripe: Klarna rules)
- Sunbit lists vocational and trade schools, educational services and child care among its prohibited categories. (Stripe: Sunbit)
Size matters too. Affirm's limit through Stripe is $30,000, Afterpay's US monthly option tops out at $4,000 and Klarna's US financing at $10,000. So Klarna and Afterpay couldn't take the $14,800 sale above in one purchase. Buy now, pay later for business has the full list of limits.
Who carries the risk if the customer stops paying?
- Buy now, pay later. Stripe's Klarna page says "If the customer can't repay Klarna, Klarna takes loss liability." Its Afterpay page says Afterpay covers losses from customer fraud or the inability to repay. Disputes still come back to you: when one opens, Stripe holds the disputed amount from your balance until the provider decides. (Stripe: Klarna, Stripe: Afterpay, Stripe: Affirm)
- A lender. It depends on your agreement. Wisetack's merchant page doesn't say. Ask any lender in writing whether it can ever come back to you for a loan the customer stops paying.
- Your own plan. You do. A missed payment is money you're owed, and following up is your job.
Who owns the customer relationship?
With a lender or buy now, pay later provider, the customer has an account with them, and they collect the repayments. For Affirm, the charge on the customer's statement shows Affirm with your name, and Affirm emails the customer about the loan and each payment. You still send your own order and service emails. (Stripe: Affirm)
With your own plan, every reminder, receipt and conversation about a late payment comes from you. That's work, and it's also the point for many businesses: the customer never meets a lender.
What does the customer go through?
- A lender. An application. Wisetack advertises prequalification "with a soft credit check only", with offers from 0 to 35.9% APR "based on amount requested and creditworthiness" and terms from 3 months to 10 years. (Wisetack)
- Buy now, pay later. An account with the provider and an eligibility check. Affirm's rates run from 10% to 36% APR on interest-bearing plans, subject to eligibility, and Klarna's financing approval "is subject to creditworthiness". Short pay-in-4 options are interest-free. (Stripe: Affirm, Stripe: Klarna)
- Your own plan. Whatever you decide. You can run a plan with no credit check and no interest, and take a deposit instead.
Some customers will be declined by a lender. The CFPB found that 73% of buy now, pay later applicants were approved in 2021. (CFPB, September 2022) Your own plan is often the only option left for the rest.
What rules apply when you offer financing?
This is general information, not legal advice. Take your own setup to counsel and your state's financial regulator.
- Your own plan can make you a creditor. Under Regulation Z, a business that regularly extends consumer credit payable in more than four installments, not counting a down payment, or with a finance charge, is a creditor. Regularly means more than 25 times in the preceding year. (12 CFR 1026.2(a)(17)) Is a 0% payment plan a loan? and Truth in Lending Act go through what follows.
- Referring customers to a lender has its own rule. The FTC's Holder Rule makes it unfair for a seller to accept the proceeds of a purchase money loan unless the credit contract carries a notice that keeps the customer's claims against you alive against the lender. A purchase money loan here means one with a finance charge, from a lender you refer customers to or have a business arrangement with. (16 CFR 433.1 and 433.2, FTC: Holder Rule)
- Buy now, pay later comes with the provider's rules. Through Stripe, you can't charge a fee or a higher price for paying with Klarna, and Sunbit doesn't allow surcharging. (Stripe: Klarna rules, Stripe: Sunbit)
- States have their own rules. A state can require you to register before you offer installment plans, even at 0%. California's DFPI and tuition plans is one example. Check yours.
Which one fits your business?
- A lender fits when your category is one it serves, the ticket is large, and you'd rather have the money now than keep the customer's balance.
- Buy now, pay later fits online checkouts selling to consumers, inside the provider's limits and categories.
- Your own plan fits when the price is high, the schedule runs for months, your category is restricted elsewhere, or you want customers who'd be declined to still buy. A 0% plan from the school, or a loan from a lender? shows what each costs the customer.
You can use more than one: a lender for customers who want a long term, and an in-house plan for everyone else.
What about a high-ticket coaching or consulting program?
For a coaching, consulting or mastermind program sold on a call and delivered over weeks or months, the choice often comes down to two: a payment plan you carry, or program financing that pays you up front.
- A plan you carry. The client pays you a deposit at enrollment and the rest on a schedule. You decide who qualifies, no lender is involved, and every reminder comes from you. You're paid over the life of the program, and if a client stops paying, following up is your job. On a $10,000 program paid as a $1,000 deposit and nine payments of $1,000, Stripe's standard card fees come to $293. (Stripe pricing)
- Financing that pays you up front. A provider pays you now and collects from the client. ThriveCart's ThrivePay Installments is one example of how such terms read. Its help centre says customers can split a purchase into 3, 6 or 12 monthly payments "with zero interest", with no credit checks. The seller receives "full payment upfront (minus processing fees)", paid out weekly on Fridays. A 15% installment fee is withheld, and a further 15% reserve is held for 180 days before it's paid out. ThrivePay "assumes all collection risk", except refunds and chargebacks. As of 22 October 2026 it covers one-time purchases, not subscriptions, by US customers paying in US dollars with a credit card, and ThriveCart has to approve the seller. (ThriveCart: what is ThrivePay Installments?)
On a $10,000 program, a 15% fee is $1,500, and another $1,500 sits in the reserve for six months. Against that, the client's default is no longer your problem. Other providers set their own fees, limits and categories, so read each one's terms. The category checks above apply too: through Stripe, Affirm lists professional services, "including legal, consulting, and accounting", among the categories that are prohibited or subject to additional requirements. (Stripe: Affirm)
Which fits depends on what you're optimising for. If you want the default risk gone and the cash now, financing does that for a fee. If you'd rather keep the margin and the client relationship, and can carry the wait, a plan of your own does. Pricing the plan above pay-in-full, or running many plans for clients who buy for themselves, brings in the Truth in Lending rules above. Passing credit card fees to clients on a high-ticket program covers the card-fee side, and deposit, then the balance covers setting up the plan from the CRM deal.
How do you start?
- Check your category against each provider you're considering.
- Run your own average sale through the table above.
- Decide who carries the risk and who talks to the customer when a payment is late.
- If you'll run your own plan, write the terms down first. How to offer payment plans to your customers covers the deposit, schedule and missed-payment decisions.
- Take the rules section to counsel before you launch.
Changelog
- 22 October 2026: first published.
- 22 October 2026: added a section on high-ticket coaching and consulting programs, with ThriveCart's ThrivePay Installments terms as checked that day.
Payment plans built from the deal in HubSpot or Pipedrive, with each location paid into its own account and books.
Paycove runs your own plan instead of a lender's loan, built from the deal in your CRM, charged on the dates you set and paid into each location's own account.
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