BNPL volumes in Saudi Arabia hit $9.8 billion in 2024, but for the first time since the category launched in the Kingdom, the absolute increase in volume was smaller than the year before. The market is maturing.
This series breaks that down: GMV, market share estimates, revenue, growth rates, margin profiles, unit economics, and comparisons with international peers. Through the numbers of Tabby and Tamara.
GMV and market share
BNPL volumes in Saudi Arabia reached $9.8 billion in 2024, growing 38 percent year-over-year; down from a near-tripling to $7.1 billion the year before.
Transactions grew 49 percent, also slower than 2023’s near-triple, and faster than GMV; implying a decline in average order value.
More tellingly, in absolute terms both metrics contracted: GMV grew by $2.7 billion in 2024 versus $4.8 billion in 2023, and transactions grew by 21.3 million versus 27.7 million.
It is the first time since BNPL was introduced in the Kingdom that growth has decelerated on every measure simultaneously.
Part of this is simply scale; maintaining the same rates requires materially higher absolute volumes; but the deceleration is broad enough to signal genuine maturation.
Estimating GMV for 2025
The official numbers from the Saudi Central Bank for 2025 will not be released until the third quarter of 2026, but we can estimate the GMV.
Tabby and Tamara generated revenue run-rates of $229 million and $173 million respectively in 2024, based on their 9M 2024 numbers. The combined revenue run-rate for the two companies was $402 million.
About $15 million of this would have come from the fixed SAR 1 fee per transaction. Excluding that leaves $387 million in merchant fee revenue.
Assuming a blended take rate of 4.25 percent; against a headline rate of approximately 6–7 percent for smaller merchants, with large retailers negotiating meaningfully lower rates on account of scale; this implies a combined GMV of about $9.1 billion, which translates into roughly 93 percent market share.
Given the dominance of Tabby and Tamara on the checkout pages of most leading retailers in the Kingdom, this estimate seems reasonable.
There are other BNPL companies operating in the Kingdom; including Madfu, MISPay, Jeel (Study Now Pay Later), and Tasheel Finance’s Baseeta; but they likely account for a small share of the market.
Based on 9M 2025 numbers, Tabby and Tamara generated merchant revenue run-rates of $338 million and $245 million respectively.
At a blended take rate of 4.25 percent, after excluding fixed merchant fee revenue, this implies combined GMV of roughly $13.2 billion; or about $14.2 billion for the total market, assuming the two companies retained their 93 percent share. That would represent year-over-year growth of about 46 percent.
