Affirm Holdings, Inc. AFRM

Key data

What the plan pays for

The consumer, volume and margin levels inside the network size index are not disclosed, and neither are the fiscal 2026 cash measures, which arrive with the next proxy. Half the weight sits on volume and half on profit, so the operator grows the network right up to where growth threatens the quarterly gate.

That ladder decided his outcome.

What the record shows

Fiscal 2023 is when the plan bit. The gate was revenue, revenue came in short, and three officers took nothing, the largest target $356,250. That September the weights changed, volume went from 42.5% to 50%, and the gate moved off revenue onto profit, a change dated immediately after the measure that zeroed the bonus. Call that supporting evidence, not proof.

The fiscal 2024 profit bar then sat at $27.1M against a prior actual of negative $72.3M, and the company delivered fourteen times the bar on a scoreboard that caps each line at 150%. The board raised the bar after that, and fiscal 2025 cleared the higher one. Until fiscal 2026 the other officers' equity carried no performance test, only service, and service always pays.

The stock never averaged $132.30 over ninety days inside the window, so six tranches died where they sat.

What they do next

The constraint is funding, not appetite. Equity capital required was $896.3M against a $20.2B platform portfolio at June 30, 2026, guided to stay at or below 5% of it, so another leg of volume has to be paid for. Both performance-share measures move without one.

Sell loans sooner. Gain on sales of loans reached $596.6M in fiscal 2026 against $381.6M a year earlier and $197.2M before that, now 14% of all revenue. It pulls tomorrow's interest into today's revenue less transaction costs, what the plan grades. Watch that line and the $19.7B of proceeds from loans held for investment.

Pay enterprise partners in equity. The profit metric excludes warrant and share-based expense granted to those partners, $211.2M in fiscal 2026, and excludes the $179.8M of stock compensation capitalized into software along with the depreciation it becomes. Watch both lines.

Year one is banked at 41% and 59% growth and the plan averages three years, so fiscal 2027 guidance of GMV above $64.0B and adjusted operating margin above 30.5% is a slower year the average absorbs. The board's own targets are not disclosed, so no street estimate can be set against them. Levchin holds no live long-term award.

Levchin exercised 1,318,379 options at $49.00 and disposed of all 1,318,379 at an average $84.89 under a plan adopted March 17, 2025, keeping none of what he exercised. He parted with none of the stock he already owned and still held 44.41% of the vote at September 30, 2025. All four below him sold less than they exercised, the president none at all.

Closing thoughts

Affirm paid its founder in share price and nothing else, and the price did not show up. What remains pays the people around him for the money left after funding and credit costs, and for a profit number that excludes the three largest non-cash costs in the business. The cheapest ways to move both are the timing of loan sales and the form in which partners are paid.