To maintain growth, Sezzle looks to phone plan, subscriptions for stickiness.

Following Klarna and OnePay, the small BNPL provider looks to mobile phone plans to power its super app play.

Afterpay partnered with a slate of new merchants to increase flexible financing options for consumers ahead of the holidays, per a press release. New partners include Thursday Boots, Diesel, and SP5DER Worldwide. Block is betting on its ecosystem effect raising the value of all of its products. However, major partnerships are still needed to rocket a BNPL product to high use, like Klarna’s integrations with Walmart.

Klarna debuted a two-tiered membership program, per a press release. larna’s second stab at a rewards membership program may prove more fruitful. This places the onus on competitors like Affirm, Sezzle, Cash App Afterpay, and PayPal to respond in kind. Offering better rewards is one way to stand out: PayPal’s Pay Later offered an untouchable 5% back during a holiday promotional period. While platforms could mimic Klarna’s membership program, BNPL providers could also expand promotional 0% interest windows, like Affirm’s latest offer, to sway young consumers who view installment loans as safer than revolving credit.

BNPL payment value and user growth will decelerate in the coming years as the industry matures. But BNPL providers still have a big opportunity to grow their share of retail sales.​

The news: Sezzle debuted a suite of payment and deal-hunting features, per a press release. Our take: Sezzle needs to find any kind of foothold in the BNPL space, as its market share is massively outstripped by competitors like Klarna and Affirm.

Most consumers aren’t using BNPL frequently enough to make it cost effective

The BNPL provider has made strong inroads in the US but faces steep obstacles in growing its market share

The BNPL player’s revenues doubled in Q4 thanks to users’ more frequent purchases

Sezzle faces an uphill battle competing against larger players like Affirm and Klarna

From a slew of major partnerships to our forecasts for slower user growth, we look at the biggest BNPL trends of 2024—and what they mean for 2025.

BNPL is still a small retail payments player. While 73% of US consumers said they’d heard of BNPL in 2022, just 5.8% said they’d used it at least once over a 30-day period. US BNPL value will hit $80.77 billion in 2024, per our forecast—just 1.1% of total US retail sales.

Sezzle and Klarna made progress toward long-term profitability in 2023—we look at how they’re using subscriptions to help make that happen

The debit card gave Affirm a boost in active users and strong numbers, but to continue this pace of growth, Affirm may need to get creative

The subscription service model is growing in popularity across the payments industry as it provides payment transparency for consumers and a steady stream of revenues for providers

BNPL players are reimagining how consumers access lines of credit—while also seeking elusive profits

To keep up the momentum, the BNPL provider launched a Pay-in-2 product so it can expand into new payment categories

Both firms reported slight profit improvements in Q4 following a shift away from a growth-at-all-costs mentality—which is likely to continue into 2023.

Zip said it plans to focus on its core business instead—we look at what it means for both providers.