37% of Americans used buy now pay later in the last 90 days, and the four-installment split that makes a $150 payment feel cheaper than a $600 price tag reveals how the checkout button rewired spending

You have seen it hundreds of times: a price tag at checkout, then a second, smaller number just below it. Separate market projections put annual U.S. BNPL spending in the range of $107 billion to $122 billion for 2025, depending on methodology and scope. Four payments of $150 produces a smaller number. BNPL access increases both total spending levels and the retail share in total spending, with magnitudes too large for standard economic substitution effects to explain. It needed only the smaller number on the screen.