Affirm’s sales jumped in its latest quarter as consumers increasingly turn to buy now, pay later lenders to finance their purchases.
The fintech company posted a profit of $80.7 million for its first fiscal quarter of 2026 that ended Sept. 30, or 23 cents a share, compared to a net loss over the same period last year. Revenue rose by more than a third to $933.3 million. Both profit and revenue blew past Wall Street estimates, lifting Affirm shares over 10% after hours.
“They’re opening credit opportunities for a younger generation that doesn’t like credit cards,” said Dan Dolev, a fintech analyst at Mizuho Group. “It’s part of a bigger trend—and they’re at the forefront of it.”
Affirm projects its revenue will surpass $1 billion next quarter for the first time ever, a slightly rosier forecast than the analyst consensus.
The company is cashing in on growing consumer appetite for buy now, pay later lending, which provides pay-in-installments financing with the tap of a button. Users spent $10.8 billion with Affirm in the first quarter, a 42% increase from last year. Half of that growth came from users selecting Affirm at checkout. A third of it came from the company’s growing direct-to-consumer offerings like the Affirm Card, a physical and digital card that lets consumers finance purchases from vendors who don’t offer B.N.P.L. directly.
Affirm had over 24 million active users as of September, an increase of nearly a quarter from last year. The number of merchants offering Affirm at checkout grew even quicker, climbing 30% year-over-year to more than 400,000. More people are tapping Affirm to finance travel, fashion and beauty-related purchases, the company said.
“The use cases continue to expand,” said James Friedman, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group. “So you can start to imagine the other big ticket items this is gonna go into.”
Over the last year, the Affirm Card has grown rapidly. Total spend on the card reached $1.4 billion in the first quarter, more than double what it was last year. The card is a direct-to-consumer play. When users swipe or tap the hybrid debit-financing card, they can request financing directly from Affirm for goods and services purchased even from vendors who don’t accept B.N.P.L., as long as those purchases exceed $50.
“The card architecture is really kind of a game changer,” Friedman said. “ They used to have to go store to store, and now this thing’s accepted everywhere.”
Max Levchin, Affirm’s founder and CEO, has called his service a replacement for credit cards. B.N.P.L. isn’t anywhere near posing a serious threat to the credit card industry yet: Americans made over $3.6 trillion worth of purchases on credit cards in 2024, according to an eMarketer forecast—over 40 times the amount they borrowed from B.N.P.L. companies.
But the Affirm Card makes it a little bit easier for users to finance through the fintech company instead of swiping their credit card, a choice the company is betting people will continue to make more often.
Affirm’s robust profits arrived at the same time consumer confidence plummeted to near-record lows amid economic uncertainty. Levchin says his company’s earnings signal consumer strength.
“You can see that consumers are transacting more and more frequently,” Levchin told CNBC. “The consumer growth itself, the merchant growth, all these things compound to just drive usage more and more.”
Some critics interpret the growth of B.N.P.L. lending to signal a weak U.S. consumer, not a strong one, especially as people turn to companies like Affirm to finance essential purchases. Around 25% of B.N.P.L. borrowers have financed their groceries in installments, an April survey by loan marketplace LendingTree found—up from 14% the year before.