Who Sezzle Is Best For
Sezzle might be a good fit if you:
- Shop at stores that offer Sezzle. You can only use Sezzle with certain merchants. It partners with over 47,000 stores, so there are plenty of choices. Even so, if you have a particular store in mind and they don’t offer Sezzle, you’re out of luck. If you want to keep using Sezzle in the future, it will limit your shopping options.
- Want to improve your credit score. Sezzle will run a soft credit check when you apply for a loan, but your credit doesn’t factor into its decision as much as with regular lenders. In addition, Sezzle will report your payments to the credit bureaus once you’ve met some requirements, which can help you build credit.
- Can afford to repay the loan in six weeks. Sezzle payments are due every two weeks. If you can’t make the payment, Sezzle will deactivate your account, charge you a $15 fee to reinstate it and report that late payment to the credit bureaus.
Related: Best Buy Now, Pay Later Apps
Who Sezzle Isn’t Right For
Sezzle may not be right if you:
- Have specific stores in mind. Sezzle only works with certain stores. In contrast, some other BNPL lenders do let you use their loans just about wherever you want.
- Want more flexible payment options: Other BNPL merchants offer different short-term loan options. With Sezzle, you only get the standard pay-in-four option.
- Want a lender that’s upfront with the details: Sezzle will assign you a spending limit, but you need to jump through some hoops to find out what it is. It also offers many beta features which may or may not be available to you.
How Sezzle Works
Sezzle offers a one-size-fits-all payment plan. You put down 25% at the time of purchase and pay the remaining balance off through three equal payments due every two weeks. Thus, you’ll pay off the loan in six weeks.
Paying Off Your Sezzle Loan
Sezzle doesn’t charge any interest or loan fees as long as you make all of your payments on time via the free payment methods. We recommend signing up for automatic ACH transfers from your bank account.
You can opt to pay via prepaid card, credit card or even a debit card, but Sezzle charges a $5 fee per payment for these methods. It also has a strict late payment policy: If your payment is late by two days, Sezzle will deactivate your account until you make the late payment plus a $15 reactivation fee.
Although Sezzle sets an individual spending limit for you, it won’t always tell you what it is. You get access to this information if you set up a bank ACH transfer as your default payment option or by looking up your spending limit with a particular merchant directly in the app. You can also see your spending limit if you upgrade to Sezzle Up.
Over time, Sezzle will increase your credit limit as you successfully pay off previous Sezzle loans.
Sezzle Upgrade Options
Sezzle only reports payments to the credit bureaus if you upgrade to Sezzle Up, which you can do for free by meeting these three requirements:
- Verify your identity, including your Social Security number
- Set up a bank ACH transfer or debit card as your default payment method
- Pay off at least one Sezzle loan on time or early
Sezzle also has beta upgrades, perks and features, including:
- Sezzle Premium. A paid subscription costing an undisclosed amount that unlocks more merchants for you to use Sezzle with, more deals and rewards, priority customer service and more.
- Sezzle Rewards. Earn five points per dollar spent with certain merchants and redeem every 1,000 points for $5 toward a future Sezzle.
- Sezzle Pay-in-Full. This lets you buy something with a single payment, potentially earning rewards and building positive repayment history with Sezzle.
How to Use Sezzle
Most people learn about Sezzle after seeing it listed as a payment option when they’re checking out online with a partner merchant. In that case, you’d simply click the link to be guided through the account creation process, loan application, loan agreement and payment setup.
You can also take a more proactive approach and download the Sezzle app. This allows you to use more of Sezzle’s features and see its merchant partners.
Customer Reviews
Reviews of Sezzle’s app on Trustpilot (4.5 stars), the Google Play store (4.7 stars) and the Apple app store (4.9 stars) are overwhelmingly positive. Most customers seem to love the service, although there does seem to be a higher-than-normal amount of people who run into problems.
There are many complaints filed by customers against the company on websites like the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal consumer protection agency. Many people have had issues with Sezzle listing incorrect information on their credit reports.
Sezzle has also had recent legal problems. State authorities sued the company in 2020 for giving out nearly 17,000 illegal loans in California, forcing the company to pay out over $300,000 in penalties and customer refunds. There’s also a current class-action lawsuit in California by customers who claimed that Sezzle failed to properly warn them of high bank overdraft fees that the company’s auto payments can cause.
Sezzle Alternatives
The market is currently exploding with BNPL lenders. Often the best choice is whichever lender your preferred store uses since most online retailers only partner with one BNPL lender. Here’s how Sezzle compares to the other competitors.
Sezzle vs. Klarna
Klarna offers multiple payment options: the standard BNPL pay-in-four plan, a pay-in-30-days plan and a long-term plan ranging from six to 24 months. All plans are interest-free except specific long-term payment plans.
Klarna features a partner merchant network that’s nearly 10 times larger than Sezzle. It also offers an actual physical card that you can use to make BNPL purchases with any retailer you want that accepts Visa. However, there’s a fee of $4.99 per month.
Related: Klarna Review
Sezzle vs. Afterpay
Afterpay offers one payment plan that’s the hallmark of BNPL lenders. You can split up a purchase into four payments; the first one’s due at checkout and the remainder is spread over the next six weeks. You can only use Afterpay with partner lenders. Its network is twice as large as Sezzle but still not as large as Klarna.
Related: Afterpay Review
Sezzle vs. Splitit
Unlike most BNPL providers, Splitit lets you use one of your current credit cards to split purchases into multiple payments. Select merchants will charge your card a portion of the total payment until it’s repaid.
You may be able to pay it off anywhere from three months to two years, depending on the price of your purchase. While you won’t have to pay interest or fees to use Splitit, your credit card may charge interest if you don’t repay your balance on time.
If you’d rather use one of your existing credit cards than take out a point-of-sale loan, Splitit may be a preferable option to Sezzle.
Featured Partners
1
LendingPoint Personal Loans
$2,000 to $36,500
7.99% to 35.99%
600
2
SoFi®
650
8.99% to 29.99%
$5,000 to $100,000
3
Avant
$2,000 to $35,000
9.95% to 35.99%
580
4
Upgrade Personal Loans
580
8.49% to 35.99%
$1,000 to $50,000
Methodology
We reviewed Sezzle based on 11 data points in the categories of loan details, loan costs, perks, customer experience and accessibility. We rated Sezzle based on the weighting assigned to each category:
- Loan cost: 30%
- Loan details: 25%
- Accessibility: 20%
- Perks: 15%
- Customer experience: 10%
Within each major category, we also considered several characteristics, including available loan amounts, repayment terms, interest and applicable fees. We evaluated Sezzle’s customer support tools, borrower perks and features that simplify the borrowing process.
Where appropriate, we awarded partial points depending on how well it met each criterion.
