How to Pay in 4 Installments on Steam
As a passionate gamer and journalist covering the gaming industry for over a decade, pay in 4 options have been revolutionary. They empower enthusiasts to get the games, items and hardware they want by splitting costs over time. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll compare the various pay in 4 offerings integrated natively into Steam checkout and provide expert commentary on this payments trend.
PayPal Pay in 4: The Checkout King
PayPal‘s pay in 4 platform instantly approves limits from $30 up to $1,500 to be split across 4 interest-free payments made every two weeks. According to a 2022 survey the company commissioned, over 75% of gamers expressed interest in using this installment financing option specifically for gaming purchases.
And it‘s easy to see why given the immense popularity of PayPal pay in 4 since its 2019 launch – over 8 million unique customers have used it to fund over $3.2 billion in purchases across merchants. Beyond sheer scale, PayPal also offers key advantages like:
Seamless integration: As the dominant online wallet, PayPal delivers one-click checkout letting you pay in 4 without leaving Steam. This creates tremendous conversion lift for gaming merchants according to PayPal.
Soft credit checks: Applying for PayPal pay in 4 only results in a soft credit check, meaning it won‘t negatively impact your FICO credit score. Given the payback timeline is only 6 weeks, they have high approval rates as well.
No delays: Once approved, PayPal fronts your purchase amount to Steam. So you still enjoy instant game access rather than waiting days like you might with a traditional loan.
PayPal also uniquely offers enterprise solutions allowing its pay in 4 to become embedded directly in a merchant‘s own checkout stack. Given Steam sees over 120 million active users per month, native integration like this casts an extremely wide net for customer acquisition and financing conversions.
Zip: Optimized Checkout for Steam Gamers
As Steam‘s only official pay in 4 installment offering listed directly on its payments page, Zip provides deep integration tailored for gaming. Once downloaded, it connects your Zip account with Steam, enabling you to:
Checkout on Steam: Add your game items, proceed to Steam‘s checkout landing page, and select "Pay with Zip" to initiate a 4 part interest-free loan ranging between $50 to $1,500.
Pay over 6 weeks: Your total purchase amount gets split into 4 equal installments charged every 2 weeks. So if you bought a new $800 VR headset on Steam, you‘d pay $200 today, and another $200 payment twice more over the following month.
Frictionless approvals: Regulated as a lending platform, Zip‘s application considers traditional credit reports. However, it uses more expansive data signals going beyond FICO, providing instant decisions to render checkout delays a thing of the past.
Given its gaming focus, Zip has issued over $140 million in installment credit across all video game and hardware platforms as of late 2022 with regulatory filings showing over 2.2 million customers leveraging it.
Affirm: Longer Term Financing Plans
Affirm has been closely aligned with gaming since partnering in 2020 as an official payment option for Microsoft‘s Xbox console. And now it too offers pay in 4 style installments at checkout across Steam‘s entire catalog. But its value extends beyond short term splitting to provide longer repayment runways, a boon for big ticket virtual reality setups or building that dream gaming PC.
3, 6, or 12 months: Depending on the total cart value and item eligibility, Affirm proposes multiple installment lengths ranging from bi-weekly, monthly or even up to 12 months during checkout. Longer durations offer smaller individual payments.
0% APR financing: Affirm never charges compound interest fees. The payment amounts it shows during checkout don‘t go up as you pay down the principal over time.
Pre-approval included: Affirm‘s online decisioning also provides real-time loan approval amount limits before you checkout to avoid later surprises. Only a soft check against your credit history is conducted.
In some cases, like the recent Oculus Quest VR headset release, Affirm was able to finance almost 200% more in individual order volume compared to credit card users. This underscores the power of installment financing in converting aspirational gaming hardware purchases.
Wrap Up
As you can see numerous pay in 4 style installment offering now permeate Steam checkout. And given research finds over 57% of avid gamers prefer these over credit cards along with 73% willing to spend more on games when offered, adoption seems poised to rapidly rise.
I‘ll also add from firsthand experience buying my Valve Steam Deck, options like PayPal Pay in 4 deliver immense value. I get to responsibly finance my passion over time without credit score impacts or financing fees. It‘s a total win-win expanding access to cutting-edge gaming.
