Accepting Alma as a merchant

You can contract Alma directly. Alma activates the account once the identity of the company and its legal representatives has been verified, and you connect it through a plugin or the API, online and in store. Or you take it through a PSP that carries it, such as Stripe, Mollie or Adyen.

Some PSPs only carry the connection. Lyra and Pay. publish their own fee for Alma, with the cost of Alma itself on top: Lyra names a direct contract with Alma, and Pay. lists the costs of Alma next to its own fee. On those routes your price for one payment method sits in two places.

Alma lists eight countries. PSPs publish shorter lists for their own route: Stripe accepts Alma for business locations in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain, in euro only, and Adyen lists France. Alma shows instalments by default for baskets between 50 and 2,000 euro, and you can change the minimum in your account; Stripe states a range of 50 to 5,000 euro.

In store Alma works in two ways. Staff generate a payment link in a POS interface that is sent to the shopper by SMS, or the payment runs on an Adyen terminal, the V400M or P400Plus, for 2, 3 or 4 instalments. On the terminal route, Alma's documentation states that you reconcile Adyen's settlement report with your Alma export, so the instalment sale needs its own reconciliation step.

With one price per plan, your effective rate on Alma is a weighted average of the plans your shoppers choose. Take 2 million euro of Alma volume through Stripe at an average order of 300 euro, about 6,667 orders. With 40% of the volume in 2 instalments, 40% in 3 and 20% in 4, the weighted rate is 4.53%, so the cost is 90,600 euro plus 2,000 euro in fixed fees, 92,600 euro a year.

If 4 instalments is not shown and those shoppers pay in 3 instalments instead, the weighted rate falls to 4.26% and the cost to 87,200 euro, about 5,400 euro a year less. That assumes every 4 instalment shopper still buys. Whether that holds is measurable: compare conversion and order value for comparable traffic with and without the longest plan shown, and decide on the figures. Stripe states that cart ranges and the geographic availability of the plans are determined by Alma, so check which plans your route lets you control before you plan on it.

Alma states that in Belgium payment in 2 and 3 instalments is a payment facility, while payment in 4 instalments is credit. Payment in 5 to 12 instalments is available only to merchants that already offer payment in 2, 3 or 4 instalments, through a waiting list. Alma also offers sharing part of the fee with the shopper on payment in 2 instalments and payment later, and states that this is subject to regulatory constraints.

Directive (EU) 2023/2225 applies from 20 November 2026 and brings more short-term deferred payment within consumer credit rules. Your provider carries the licence; the effect reaches you through acceptance and through what the shopper may be charged. Ask Alma in writing which plans and fee arrangements it will offer in each of your markets from that date.

What you pay for Alma is set in your agreement, with Alma or with your PSP, not by a scheme. Start by establishing whether you are overpaying your PSP, and if Alma carries a material share of your French or Belgian volume, price each plan on your own instalment mix before you renew.

Relevant markets: France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal