multiflow vs. Klarna

Klarna is a BNPL provider. When a customer picks "Pay in 4" at checkout, Klarna pays the merchant upfront (net of fees) and collects from the consumer over four installments. The merchant does not carry the installment receivable — Klarna does. This is valuable to the consumer (smoother cash flow) and to the merchant (higher AOV, higher conversion).

multiflow lives on the merchant side, above the card acquirer. We route sub-brand descriptors, we reconcile cross-brand, we isolate freeze risk. We have no consumer-financing product.

Operators run both. Klarna renders as a button at checkout for AOV/conversion lift. multiflow handles cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and everything not routed through Klarna — with full portfolio orchestration above the acquirer.

Klarna is ~3.29% + $0.30 per accepted transaction, higher than standard card processing. In return: Klarna takes the consumer-credit risk, funds you upfront, and consistently delivers AOV lift of 30–50% in apparel, beauty, home goods, and electronics. The math works when AOV lift > fee delta.

multiflow is 5.5–7.5% all-in on cards. Our fee funds orchestration work Klarna does not do. Operators running both see a blended cost: Klarna's 3.29% on Klarna transactions plus multiflow's tiered rate on everything else.

Klarna underwrites merchants for BNPL acceptance. This is different from card acquirer underwriting — Klarna is looking at fraud signal, dispute ratios, and category fit for consumer-credit extension. Some verticals that pass card acquirer underwriting get declined by Klarna (and vice versa).

multiflow underwrites through card acquirer partners. A portfolio can be approved by multiflow for cards but declined by Klarna for BNPL — that is common in verticals Klarna considers inappropriate for consumer financing (nutra, supplements in certain frames, adult).

Klarna is configured per merchant. A 4-brand operator either runs one Klarna merchant account with all four brands (brand names show up on Klarna consumer emails/statements per transaction) or opens four separate Klarna merchant accounts (four underwriting cycles, four sets of monthly statements).

multiflow handles the multi-brand layer above the card acquirer. Klarna sits at checkout per brand site. Operators usually run one Klarna account per brand for cleaner consumer-side branding and let multiflow handle everything below.

"Freeze risk" on Klarna means Klarna's trust and safety team pauses BNPL acceptance on your account because of elevated consumer disputes or fraud. It does not halt your card processing — customers can still check out with cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay. The conversion lift just disappears.

"Freeze risk" on a card acquirer (Stripe, Braintree, Square) means your primary processing halts. multiflow's freeze isolation is specifically about the acquirer layer — it does not extend to Klarna because Klarna is a parallel rail.

Klarna settlement reports arrive separately from card acquirer settlements. For a single-brand operator that is two CSVs to reconcile monthly. For a 4-brand operator running four Klarna accounts and four card acquirers, that is eight CSVs — most of the month-end finance time.

multiflow consolidates the card side into one ledger. Klarna still sends its own reports, but the card-side chaos goes away. Some operators further consolidate Klarna via the multiflow reporting API; that is optional and requires Klarna's merchant-side API access.