Affirm (AFRM): Revenue Surge, Cash-Flow Turnaround and Stripe Push

Affirm’s biggest development: in-store distribution meets improving unit economics#

Affirm [AFRM] just converted two argueably decisive trends into a single narrative: distribution scale via Stripe Terminal and Chrome autofill while posting a material improvement in core financials. In FY2024 Affirm reported revenue of $2.32B (+45.91% YoY) and a narrowed operating loss of -$615.85M, even as operating cash flow swung to +$450.14M and free cash flow to +$290.84M — a dramatic change from the prior year and a central reason the company’s product rollouts carry more immediate financial significance (FY2024 figures per company filings aggregated by TipRanks) (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings.

The timing magnifies the significance. Affirm’s integration with Stripe Terminal — bringing pay-over-time to a payments network deployed at more than one million U.S. and Canadian merchant locations — and the Chrome autofill/Google Pay enhancements mean the company is no longer a digital-first BNPL provider alone; it is actively closing the gap to omnichannel coverage at the physical point of sale (According to Businesswire — Affirm launches on Stripe Terminal and Affirm Investors — Chrome Autofill.

That combination — sharply improved cash generation plus broadened distribution — reframes the company’s path from growth-at-all-costs to potentially growth-with-operational-leverage. Below I connect the strategic moves to the numbers, highlight key risks and data inconsistencies in third-party metrics, and synthesize what the developments imply for Affirm’s ability to scale GMV, margin and optionality.

Financial performance: revenue, margins and cash flow (what the numbers say)#

Affirm’s FY2024 income statement shows clear, quantifiable improvement versus FY2023. Revenue rose from $1.59B to $2.32B, a YoY increase of +45.91% calculated from the raw figures. Gross profit expanded to $1.48B, lifting the reported gross-profit ratio to 63.62% (TipRanks aggregation of company results) (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings. Operating losses narrowed materially: operating income moved from -$1.20B in FY2023 to -$615.85M in FY2024, an improvement of +48.68% in absolute operating loss reduction.

Net income followed the same pattern: the FY2024 net loss of -$517.76M represents an improvement of +47.45% versus FY2023’s -$985.35M (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings. Importantly, reported GAAP losses are converging with positive cash-generation — a critical signal for a fintech whose business depends on balance-sheet capacity and access to capital markets.

Two cash-flow datapoints deserve emphasis. First, net cash provided by operating activities was +$450.14M in FY2024 versus +$12.18M in FY2023, an improvement of +3595.41%, driven by better underwriting performance and working-capital dynamics. Second, free cash flow reached +$290.84M, turning positive for the year and implying that Affirm’s platform can begin to self-fund incremental investments if the trend persists (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings.

These operating and cash-flow improvements are the near-term story; they matter because Affirm’s go-to-market investments (Stripe Terminal, Chrome autofill) now sit on a less strained balance sheet.

Income-statement trend table (FY2021–FY2024)#

(Sources: company financials as aggregated by TipRanks) (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings.

Balance sheet and leverage: a closer look (and a data sanity check)#

Affirm finished FY2024 with total assets of $9.52B, total liabilities of $6.79B, and total stockholders’ equity of $2.73B (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings. On the liability side the headline number is total debt of $6.61B, with long-term debt of $6.60B. Cash and cash equivalents were $1.01B while cash and short-term investments aggregated to $2.14B.

How indebted is Affirm? Two definitions matter. Using the company’s reported approach that nets only cash-and-cash-equivalents, net debt is $5.60B (6.61B - 1.01B). Using the more conservative industry standard that nets short-term investments as well, net debt is $4.47B (6.61B - 2.14B). Either way, leverage is high relative to equity: debt-to-equity calculated from totals is ~2.42x (242.24%) using 6.61B / 2.73B. That ratio highlights the importance of cash flow — Affirm needs continued operating cash generation to service and refinance liabilities without diluting shareholders materially (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings.

One notable discrepancy: some third-party aggregated metrics flagged Affirm’s current ratio at 63.09x or the price-to-sales ratio at 8.21x. Those figures conflict with direct calculations from the balance sheet and market cap in our dataset. For example, current assets ($2.51B) divided by current liabilities ($159.34M) produces a current ratio ≈ 15.75x, not 63.09x. Likewise, dividing market capitalization $24.74B by FY2024 revenue $2.32B yields price-to-sales ≈ 10.66x, not 8.21x. These mismatches arise from inconsistent definitions and timing windows used by aggregators; where conflicts occur, I prioritize line-item math from the company-level financials and the market-cap snapshot, and I explicitly flag where vendor-supplied TTM metrics differ (Sources: company financials and market data) (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings and Nasdaq Market Activity — AFRM earnings.

Balance-sheet & liquidity table (FY2024)#

(Sources: company financials and market snapshot) (According to TipRanks — Affirm earnings and Nasdaq Market Activity — AFRM earnings.

Strategy meets execution: Stripe Terminal, Chrome Autofill and monetization levers#

Affirm’s strategic thrust in 2024–25 has three connected elements: (1) deepen merchant distribution in-store via Stripe Terminal, (2) reduce checkout friction online through Google Pay and Chrome autofill, and (3) diversify merchant concentration after the Walmart relationship change. The evidence that these are not just press-release moves but operationally effective are the transaction and GMV trends reported in recent quarters: active merchants increased ~21.4% YoY to ~323,000, and GMV rose +35.7% YoY to $7.6B in Q1 FY2025 while total transactions grew roughly +45.6% YoY (According to Nasdaq — Affirm Holdings Q1 loss narrower, GMV view.

The Stripe Terminal integration matters because it dramatically lowers the friction and cost of onboarding merchants into Affirm’s in-store product. Stripe Terminal acts as a distribution layer into physical POS environments already standardized on Stripe. Businesswire’s announcement framing the launch emphasizes over one million merchant endpoints in the U.S. and Canada — a scale argument that moves Affirm from an online-first BNPL to an omnichannel payments option overnight (According to Businesswire — Affirm launches on Stripe Terminal.

Online, the Chrome autofill integration and tighter Google Pay work reduce check-out friction at the exact moment conversion is decided. The technical leverage is straightforward: browser autofill raises form completion rates and reduces input friction; when Affirm appears as a selectable autofill payment option it can surface pay-over-time choices earlier and more often in the shopping journey (According to Affirm Investors — Chrome Autofill and conversion evidence cited by Zuko on autofill benefits) (According to Zuko — Does browser autofill affect form conversion rate?.

Taken together, these channel plays target two levers that convert directly to the top line: more merchant endpoints where Affirm is available, and higher conversion rates where Affirm is selectable.

Competitive context: where Affirm stands in BNPL#

BNPL is a multi-player market. PayPal historically leads U.S. adoption by share, with Afterpay/Block and Klarna as major competitors. Affirm sits in the next tier but has been closing the distribution gap through partnerships and selective vertical expansion (gaming, optical retail, SMB platforms). Market snapshots (Statista and industry reports) put Affirm’s U.S. BNPL share in the mid-teens to low-twenties depending on methodology; the competitive picture is dynamic and sensitive to merchant deals and product placement (According to Statista — Popular Buy-Now-Pay-Later providers in the U.S. and Businesswire — United States BNPL Market Report 2025.

Affirm’s differentiator is breadth of tenor (plans ranging from 30 days to 60 months), underwriting approach (consumer-facing transparency), and now a two-channel distribution strategy that combines online convenience with in-store availability. The question for competition is execution speed: can Affirm convert Stripe Terminal endpoints into sticky merchant adoption at scale before incumbents replicate similar integrations or negotiate exclusivity? That competitive race will determine how much of the in-store TAM Affirm can realistically capture.

Growth outlook and analyst context#

Analyst models embedded in consensus estimate steady revenue growth and outsized EPS improvement as operating leverage kicks in. Forward EPS projections in the dataset show step changes from 2025 to 2029 (the panel shows large variance), and consensus 12-month price targets clustered in the mid-$70s were reported ahead of Q4 FY2025 results (According to Investing.com — Affirm holdings consensus estimates and TipRanks — Affirm earnings.

Affirm’s near-term growth runway is measurable. The company’s three-year revenue CAGR calculated from FY2021 ($870.46M) to FY2024 ($2.32B) is ~38.71%, demonstrating a multi-year unit-growth story that can, in principle, continue if Stripe-enabled in-store adoption and online friction-reduction produce sustained conversion lifts. However, margins will depend on credit performance, underwriting outcomes and the incremental cost of merchant incentives.

Risks, inconsistencies and what to watch#

Affirm’s progress is meaningful, but several risks and data caveats matter. First, credit risk and macro sensitivity remain central. A BNPL lender’s earnings are leverage-to-credit performance: if consumer delinquencies tick up materially, loss provisions and credit costs could swamp revenue gains. Second, concentration-legacy effects persist — the post-Walmart diversification objective is visible, but replacing a large anchor takes time and can pressure pricing and economics in the near term.

On data integrity, vendor-supplied TTM metrics in the dataset included some outliers (current ratio = 63.09x, price-to-sales = 8.21x) that conflict with direct line-item math. Where such conflicts appear, the company-level statements and market-cap snapshot are used as primary inputs and vendor TTM values are flagged as possibly inconsistent or using alternate definitions (e.g., different cash netting rules or trailing windows). Transparent reconciliation is essential for modeling going forward.

Key near-term items to monitor in filings and releases are (1) incremental merchant adoption metrics from Stripe Terminal pilots and the cadence of merchant conversion, (2) delinquencies and charge-off trends in consumer receivables, (3) operating-cost trajectory as Affirm layers in-store sales support, and (4) cash-flow conversion and capital markets access to manage maturing debt.

What this means for investors#

Affirm is no longer purely a growth story with stretched cash flows; recent results show revenue acceleration (+45.91% YoY) tied to meaningful improvements in cash generation (operating cash flow +$450.14M; free cash flow +$290.84M). Strategically, the Stripe Terminal integration and Chrome autofill broaden Affirm’s addressable distribution and reduce merchant onboarding friction — the exact mechanisms that could accelerate GMV and ticket-size growth if adoption scales as pilot signals suggest (According to Businesswire — Stripe launch and Nasdaq — Q1 GMV and transactions.

However, the balance-sheet shows meaningful leverage (total debt $6.61B, debt/equity ~2.42x), so continued cash-flow improvement is required to reduce refinancing and credit risks. The Stripe integration lowers distribution cost per merchant, but converting distribution into profitable volumes depends on underwriting outcomes and merchant economics.

Affirm’s operating narrative has shifted: it is now a BNPL operator moving from cash-burning scale to cash-generating scale while building omnichannel reach. That shift narrows scenarios under which the company needs near-term equity raises, but it does not eliminate credit-cycle exposure and competitive pressure.

Key takeaways#

Affirm’s FY2024 results and 2025 product rollouts generate a coherent narrative: top-line acceleration (+45.91% YoY), narrowing operating losses (-$615.85M), and positive free cash flow (+$290.84M) sitting alongside major distribution expansions (Stripe Terminal, Chrome autofill). These elements convert strategic optionality into measurable financial levers, but execution risk — particularly credit quality and merchant conversion velocity — will determine whether the momentum sustains.

Affirm’s near-term watchlist: (1) Stripe Terminal merchant onboarding cadence and contribution to GMV; (2) delinquency and charge-off trends in receivables; (3) quarterly operating-cash-flow conversion; and (4) any covenant or refinancing events tied to the company’s sizable debt stack.

(Selected sources used in this analysis: company filings and earnings data aggregated by TipRanks; product press releases from Businesswire and Affirm Investors; market and GMV coverage from Nasdaq; BNPL market context from Businesswire and Statista.)