A Affirm outage is not something you can fix, but how you respond in the first 15 minutes decides how much it costs you. This guide covers confirming the outage, limiting the damage, and keeping customers informed.
How do I confirm Affirm is actually down?
Check two independent sources before changing anything in your store. First, StatusBird's live Affirm status page, which is based on independent checks every 2 minutes. Second, Affirm's own status page at status.affirm.com. If the official page still shows green, do not assume you are wrong: vendors often acknowledge incidents well after they start. If both look clean, the problem is more likely your store's configuration or a specific integration.
What does a Affirm outage look like?
- Customers report errors or endless loading when choosing Affirm at checkout
- Affirm approval popup fails to open or crashes mid-application
- Monthly payment messaging widgets missing from product pages
- Drop in conversions on high-ticket items while card orders continue normally
- Affirm merchant dashboard unavailable or charge captures failing
What breaks in your store
When Affirm is down, shoppers who select Affirm at checkout cannot get approved or complete their purchase; the loan application flow errors out or hangs. Other payment methods on your checkout keep working, so the damage is concentrated on customers who specifically wanted installments, which tends to matter most on higher-priced items. On-site Affirm promotional messaging widgets may also fail to load on product pages, and pending loan captures or refunds through Affirm are delayed.
For context, Affirm has had no major incidents in the last 90 days of StatusBird's independent monitoring (100.0% availability), so a real outage is unusual. That makes it easy to mistake one for a problem on your end, which is why confirming first matters.
What to do during the outage
- Check status.affirm.com to confirm the outage before troubleshooting your own integration.
- Add a note at checkout that installment payments are temporarily unavailable and other payment methods still work.
- Point installment-focused shoppers to any other BNPL option you offer, such as Afterpay or Klarna.
- Offer to email hesitant customers a link to complete their purchase later once Affirm recovers.
- Delay capturing or refunding Affirm charges until service is restored to avoid duplicate operations.
Frequently asked questions
Can customers still check out while Affirm is down?
Yes, with any payment method other than Affirm. Cards, PayPal, and wallets are separate systems and keep working. Only shoppers who specifically choose Affirm installments will hit errors.
What happens to Affirm orders placed right before the outage?
Loans that were fully approved and confirmed before the outage are valid, and Affirm still pays you for them. Applications that were mid-flow when the outage hit were likely never completed, so no order or loan exists; those customers will need to check out again.
After the outage
Once Affirm recovers, verify the affected workflows end to end rather than trusting the status page. Note the start and end times while they are fresh: if you are on a paid Affirm plan with an SLA, documented downtime is what a service credit claim is built on. See how to claim SLA credits for the process.
How this data is measured
StatusBird checks Affirm's status every 2 minutes, around the clock, independently of the vendor. The availability figure counts major and critical outages only; minor degradation is excluded so numbers are not skewed by vendors that report small blips near-continuously. Grades run from A+ to F. See the live numbers on the Affirm reliability page and current status on the Affirm status page, or browse all 84 service grades.
Know before your customers do
StatusBird monitors Affirm and 83 other services online stores depend on, plus your own storefront, every 2 minutes. When something goes down you get an SMS, email, or Slack alert with plain-English context, usually before the official status page catches up. Start monitoring free, no card required for the free plan.