Sezzle Brand Guidelines: Minneapolis Pay-in-4, a Nasdaq Move & a Strict Merchant Kit

A payments start-up that changed its model.

Sezzle was founded in Minneapolis in 2016. English Wikipedia names Charlie Youakim, who had previously led Passport Parking, as its founder, together with Paul Paradis, Killian Brackey, Emmanuel Isaac, Mia Peroff and Rishi Mukherjee; Renaissance Capital’s company profile also gives 2016 and Minneapolis. Its first product, English Wikipedia says, was next-business-day bank payments with a cashback reward. In 2017 it switched to a buy now, pay later model and launched in the United States that August. English Wikipedia describes the original plan as four instalments, the first paid at purchase and the other three over the following six weeks, and says its underwriting assesses each order, taking in a soft credit check, the shopper’s order history with Sezzle and the size of the purchase.

It grew across North America. In 2019 Sezzle partnered with Bank of America Merchant Services and expanded into Canada, opening an office in Toronto. On 30 July 2019 it listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, English Wikipedia records. At the end of 2019 California’s Department of Business Oversight ruled that its service there had to be offered as loans, and on 17 January 2020 the department approved Sezzle’s application for a California lending licence.

On 1 June 2020 Sezzle reincorporated as a public benefit corporation, English Wikipedia says, and its own company description, quoted in Renaissance Capital’s profile, says it was certified as a B Corporation by B Lab on 22 March 2021. In 2021 the retailer Target announced Sezzle as a buy now, pay later partner, English Wikipedia records.

A deal with Zip, then Nasdaq.

In February 2022 Sezzle agreed to be acquired by the Australian company Zip through a statutory merger. The two companies ended that agreement by mutual consent in July 2022, English Wikipedia records, and Sezzle stayed independent.

It then moved its main listing to the United States. Sezzle’s common stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker SEZL on 17 August 2023 through a direct listing, according to Renaissance Capital. Nasdaq halted trading the same day, because most of the company’s shares were then held as depositary interests traded on the ASX, and trading resumed on 14 September 2023, FX News Group reported; at that point the ASX line continued under the code SZL.

The product range has grown beyond the first instalment plan. Its website lists Pay in 4, Pay in 5 and monthly payment plans, with loans originated by WebBank or Sezzle. It also offers Sezzle Up, an opt-in programme that reports payments to credit bureaus, and Sezzle Anywhere, for US purchases wherever Visa is accepted, along with rewards and an Express Checkout button for merchants. A company press release of October 2026 describes an app in which users “shop, earn, and learn.” Its mission page says it aims “to financially empower the next generation of change-makers,” and lists five values, among them “Have Fun” and “Act Like an Owner.”

A bank application followed. On 22 October 2026 Sezzle announced that it had applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter a national bank, Sezzle Bank, N.A., and to the FDIC for deposit insurance; the company said approvals were not guaranteed, and the application was pending at the time of writing.

How buy now, pay later brands present themselves.

Buy now, pay later providers sell a way of paying rather than a product, so most of their design work happens on other companies’ pages. A shopper meets the brand as a small wordmark beside a price, a badge in a row of card logos, or a button at the end of a checkout. Many of these marks are short, rounded names set in bright mint, pink, purple or plain black, and several providers publish kits for merchants with approved logos, lockups and banners in light and dark versions.

The second surface is the app. Providers show purchases as instalment schedules: a row of dates and amounts, a progress marker for payments made, and reminders of what is due next. Many also run shopping directories of participating merchants, with categories, deals and store pages, which turn the payment brand into a place to browse.

The third surface is explanation. Providers typically keep a page on how payments work, usually a sequence of three or four steps, and most carry dense small print: who the lender is, which licences apply, what fees and rates can be charged and where to go for help with hardship. In several markets these disclosures are set by regulators, and merchant kits often spell out which phrases need a full disclaimer and which claims may not be made at all.

The last surface is the investor page. Several providers are listed companies, in Sydney, New York or both, and publish results, presentations and announcements alongside their consumer sites. This guide sets out what can be checked about each provider — who founded it, who owns it, where it operates and how regulators have treated it — and gives company statements as the company’s own.

A kit with rules.

Sezzle publishes a detailed co-branded marketing kit for merchants. Its Merchant Brand Kit makes the Sezzle Badge the primary logo for co-branded use and the wordmark a secondary option where the badge will not fit, with a minimum digital width of 80 pixels. Both come only in dark and light versions: the kit says never to recolour, stretch or add effects to the logo, and never to recreate the wordmark in another typeface. Co-branded lockups come in horizontal and stacked forms, divided by a one-pixel rule at 25 to 50 per cent opacity that is “never colored.”

The kit also sets the words. Approved lines include “Pay Later with No Hassle” and “Select Sezzle at Checkout”; phrases it rules out include “No credit check,” “Guaranteed approval” and “Buy now, worry later.” Phrases such as “Pay in 4” count as trigger terms under Regulation Z, the US lending-disclosure rule, so the full disclaimer must appear on the asset itself. Its checkout buttons and on-site widgets come in light, dark and flat black or white themes, and its display banners in dark, the preferred version, and light.

For a design guide, Sezzle shows how a payment brand can manage its appearance on other companies’ pages through a strict kit of badges, lockups and approved phrases. The same discipline runs through its product names, Pay in 4, Pay in 5, Sezzle Up and Sezzle Anywhere, each of which pairs the brand or a number with a plain word, so a shopper can read the offer at a glance on a checkout page. Compare Zip, which agreed to buy Sezzle in 2022 before the deal was called off, and Affirm, another US buy now, pay later provider. For this guide we use a deep plum, a soft lilac and a mint with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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