Splitit is a buy-now-pay-later alternative available to eCommerce merchants. It is similar to Paythen, but costs more and is less flexible. Paythen can be used anywhere on any site, including but not limited to eCommerce. In fact, Paythen doesn’t even need a site to work, since each plan link is hosted on its own page. Splitit works by allowing your customers to choose a payment plan option using their Mastercard or Visa credit card. Splitit blocks the full amount of the purchase on the customer’s credit card upfront, and after each installment is paid, releases that amount. While this sounds great in theory (since it de-risks it for merchants), it also defeats the purpose of a payment plan for most customers – cashflow. Because Splitit blocks the full amount on customers’ credit cards, it reduces their available credit – so instead of customers needing only the amount due for each installment available on their card, they need to have the full amount available.
- One big limitation of choosing Splitit for payment plans is that right out of the box, only a portion of your customers can use it – Splitit is restricted to Visa and Mastercard credit cards only – according to a 2019 study by the US Federal Reserve, there were twice as many debit card transactions compared to credit cards. This trend is only accelerating – meaning that your payment plans will be available only to a small part of your customers that might want to use it. With Paythen, you can accept all major credit cards including American Express, debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and where eligible, even AliPay and iDEAL. With Paythen, your payment plan option will also be available to 100% of your customers instead of just a small portion.
- Splitit is also more expensive than Paythen – 1.5% to 6.5% + $1.50 per transaction + $75 / month. Paythen charges only a low 1.4% per transaction.
- If your business is doing more than $1m revenue, and you’re based in one of a handful of countries, Splitit does have the option of you getting paid upfront – like traditional buy-now-pay-later providers. This can be useful if it works for business model and with your margins.
- Splitit is primarily targeted at large Enterprise – you can tell from their site and the jargon and buzzwords they use – this makes sense since they are a publicly listed company that needs to do quarterly earnings calls to show investors they are constantly growing. Paythen is a small but dedicated business targeted specifically at small business owners and operators. We exist purely to ensure you can offer flexible, powerful payment plans with minimal admin or hassles. With Paythen, you get friendly, fast support and no sneaky, hidden fees.
- Paythen works with Stripe – which is in our opinion, one of the best, if not the best payment processors in the world. They are certainly one of the most innovative companies in the world – and are constantly making payments faster, cheaper and more secure for businesses everywhere in the world. Splitit works with a few payment providers, unfortunately not Stripe. Paythen works only with Stripe because we believe they are the best at what they do and since they started, have focused on constantly making payments better and simpler for their customers.
If you haven’t already, you can see some benefits of choosing Paythen as your payment plan provider over Splitit here. The best way to see if Paythen is right for you is to try it yourself. It’s risk-free to try with our 7 day trial during which you don’t pay any Paythen fees. No credit card needed too.
