A new survey finds Americans split on buy now, pay later, with younger shoppers warmer to it. Check your budget before splitting holiday gifts into payments.
Americans are almost evenly split on buy now, pay later, the services that let you divide a purchase into smaller payments. A new survey found 37% view it favorably and 36% view it unfavorably. Younger shoppers like it more, but fans show up across income levels too.
The survey came from the ETA and TSG. It gathered answers from U.S. consumers of different genders, incomes, ages and regions. People were asked how they felt about their buy now, pay later purchases over the past few months. Approval varied sharply by generation:
Income mattered less. About 35% of low-income and high-income consumers liked it, compared with 40% of middle-income consumers.
Buy now, pay later is not the fastest-growing way to pay. Only 9% of people said they tried it for the first time in the past year. Tap-to-pay led at 53%, followed by digital wallets at 31% and peer-to-peer apps at 28%. Cryptocurrency came last at 3%.
For regular use, tap-to-pay again led at 81%. Digital wallets reached 61% and peer-to-peer apps 60%. Buy now, pay later landed at 21%, ahead of cryptocurrency at 8%.
Other research points to budgeting. In a PayPal Holdings survey of 2,005 adults, about six in ten consumers said they lean toward these payments to stretch holiday budgets and control spending. Afterpay, a Block subsidiary, said 96% of customers who used its installments for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2025 repaid early or on time. That figure comes from the company itself.
If you plan to split holiday purchases into payments, add up everything you would owe each month first. Mixed feelings in the survey suggest many people see both the benefits and the risks. The summary does not say how many people were surveyed, so treat the results as a snapshot, not a verdict.
Buy now, pay later divides opinion, so total up all your holiday payments against your budget before you split a purchase.
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