What is buy now pay later from a merchant's side, not a buyer's?

It's a service run by a third-party provider, such as Scalapay or Klarna, that pays the merchant the full order amount up front and then collects the installments from the customer itself. For the merchant, day-to-day it looks like just another checkout option, but behind it sits an actual financial service, not just a button.

How much does it cost to add Scalapay or Klarna to an online shop?

Neither publishes a single fixed price list for every merchant: both companies' official merchant support pages say the fee is whatever is set in the individual contract. The figure that circulates online, often 4.99% plus a flat fee, comes from marketing material or outdated documents, not a verifiable public price list today: get a written quote from both before counting on a specific margin.

How many days does it take for the payment to reach the merchant?

For Scalapay, official merchant pages state payout within 7 business days of the transaction, via a daily aggregated bank transfer. Klarna doesn't publicly state a single uniform timeframe: that's another detail to confirm in the specific contract before activating the service.

What changes under the new European consumer credit rule?

Legislative decree 212/2025, in force since January 10, 2026, brings buy now pay later offered through a third-party provider like Scalapay or Klarna under consumer credit rules: the provider will have to assess the customer's ability to repay before granting the installment plan, with stricter transparency requirements. Full application is set for November 20, 2026, though the decree allows an extension if Bank of Italy's implementing rules arrive later. Free, short installment plans (under 50 days) offered directly by the merchant, without a third party, stay outside this scope.

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Buy now pay later on your website: do Scalapay and Klarna pay off for a business?

Q: Who carries the risk if the end customer doesn't pay the installments?

The provider, not the merchant. Scalapay states this explicitly on its own site and in its merchant FAQ: it takes on every risk tied to fraud or non-payment by the end customer. The same principle applies to Klarna's installment products: the merchant still gets paid in full. Handling returns and refunds stays with the merchant, as with any sale.

6 October 2026

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Anyone searching "website with Scalapay" or "website with Klarna" usually already runs an online shop and is asking one thing: does adding installment payments to checkout actually sell more, or is it just another fee stacked on top of what's already paid on cards and wallets?

How much this already weighs in Italy

Buy now pay later isn't a niche anymore. According to the Politecnico di Milano's Innovative Payments Observatory, in its press release of March 12, 2026, BNPL transactions in Italy reached 9.9 billion euros in 2025, up 45% from 2024. No other online payment method is growing at that pace right now, which is why the question "is it worth turning on" increasingly comes from people running a shop, not just people buying from one.

The mechanism, from the seller's side

What matters to a business isn't the customer's checkout experience, it's what happens after they click "pay in 3 installments." Scalapay states this without ambiguity on its own merchant site: the shop receives the full order amount, and the provider "takes on every risk" tied to fraud or non-payment by the end customer. The same principle applies to Klarna's installment products: the merchant doesn't wait for the customer to finish paying to get paid itself, and it's the provider that chases a missed installment.

It's the exact opposite of what happens with cash on delivery, where the merchant is the one left exposed if the customer refuses the package: I cover that in website with cash on delivery: pros and cons. With buy now pay later, the risk moves in the opposite direction, onto the provider, not the shop.

Handling returns still sits with the merchant, as with any sale: if the customer sends the product back, it's the merchant who has to process the refund under its own sales terms, not the BNPL provider.

What it actually costs, and why a single number is hard to give

Transparency here is thinner than on other payment methods. Both Scalapay's and Klarna's official merchant support pages say the same thing: the fee applied to a specific shop is whatever is set in the contract signed with that merchant, not a public rate that's the same for everyone. The figure "4.99% plus a flat fee per transaction" circulates widely online, but it doesn't appear on any current official merchant support page: it's marketing material or an outdated reference, not a verifiable price list today.

For Scalapay there's a public regulatory document, the disclosure statement it must file as a payment institution supervised by Italy's central bank, which shows a much wider range than that single figure: the variable fee can contractually reach up to 10% of the order and the flat fee up to €1, and it also allows for an activation fee of up to €299, a cost that the "zero fees, zero activation" promotional material doesn't mention. That doesn't mean every shop pays those maximum figures, it means the real fee shows up in the contract offered, not on a public page.

Before running the numbers on a per-order margin, it's worth getting a written quote from both providers based on your actual sales volume, rather than trusting a percentage read on a blog.

Payout timing

Scalapay is clearer on this point: official merchant pages state payout within 7 business days of the transaction, with a bank transfer that bundles a day's sales into a single payment. Klarna doesn't publicly state one uniform timeframe for every market: another detail worth asking about directly, especially for anyone who needs predictable cash flow in a new shop's first months.

What changes from 2026 onward

Legislative decree 212/2025, transposing the EU's consumer credit directive known as CCD2, has been in force in Italy since January 10, 2026. The part that directly concerns anyone selling online: when the installment plan is offered through a third-party provider, the model Scalapay and Klarna both use, it now falls under consumer credit rules. The provider will have to assess the customer's ability to repay before granting the installment plan and give clearer information on costs and the consequences of missed payments. Full application is set for November 20, 2026, with a clause allowing an extension if Bank of Italy's implementing rules arrive after that date.

Left outside this tightening are free, short installment plans, under 50 days, when the shop itself offers them directly without a third-party provider in between: a different case from the one this article covers, and one that concerns merchants extending credit themselves, not those relying on an outside service.

For anyone evaluating Scalapay or Klarna right around now, the practical consequence is that the customer approval process at checkout may become a bit slower or more selective in the coming months, as the provider will have to run checks that weren't legally required before.

When it's actually worth turning on

Buy now pay later helps most where the average cart isn't tiny and the margin per order comfortably absorbs a fee that, whatever the exact figure in your contract, weighs more than a standard card payment. On a shop already running on tight margins or a low average order value, that fee can eat a disproportionate share of the profit per order, while the upside of converting a few more abandoned carts stays a guess until tested against your own numbers.

Anyone still deciding how to take payments at all, cards, wallets or bank transfer, before even getting to buy now pay later, will find the full breakdown of common fees in how much does an e-commerce cost.

The guarantee

Thirty days to change your mind.

In more than ten years I have never had a client unhappy with the work delivered. That is why I can afford to say this: you have 30 days from accepting the quote to stop, or until the shop goes live if that comes first. Within that window I refund everything you have paid and we part ways, with no further claim and no argument. There are no conditions to meet and nothing to prove: you decide.

You get me, within one working day.

No switchboard, no support form. If you write or call and I do not answer within one working day, you do not pay that month.

I take the risk at the start. It is the only way I have to say “trust me” and have it mean something.

Where to start

Before adding Scalapay or Klarna to checkout, get a written quote from both based on your real sales volume, not a percentage found online, and estimate how many orders a month that fee would actually weigh on your margin. If the numbers hold up, get in touch and let's work out together which of the two fits your shop better.