Affirm heads into its fiscal fourth-quarter report with a narrative that has been building steam for two straight calls, and now comes the moment where that story either gets confirmed by hard numbers or runs into the same merchant-comp headwind management has been warning about for months. The setup is straightforward on paper: Wall Street expects revenue of $1.11 billion, up nearly 27% from a year ago, and earnings of $0.33 per share, a 65% jump from last year's $0.20. The Earnings Whisper number sits meaningfully higher at $0.39, suggesting the market is bracing for another beat rather than a mere in-line print.
Management's own guidance called for revenue between $1.08 billion and $1.11 billion, which means consensus is sitting right at the top of that range. That is worth noting because it raises the bar. A quarter ago, CFO Rob Linford told investors the company was incrementally more positive on the fourth-quarter growth rate embedded in its updated guide, and went further to suggest that this quarter's growth would not necessarily be a ceiling heading into fiscal 2027 as comparisons ease. That is a specific, testable claim. If revenue lands only at the low end of guidance, or merely matches consensus without exceeding it, the incrementally-more-positive framing from the last call starts to look more like hedged optimism than a genuine inflection point.
The deeper story here is about what happens as the top-three merchant sunset finally rolls off the year-over-year comparison. That headwind has been shaving points off GMV growth for several quarters, and management has repeatedly pointed to this period as the moment things get easier. Investors should be looking closely at whether GMV growth actually reaccelerates from recent levels, because that is the tangible evidence that would validate the confident tone from the last call. Equally important is whether the operating margin guide, which has already been raised twice this fiscal year from above 6% to above 7.5%, gets another lift or simply holds. A repeat raise would reinforce the operating-leverage story; a pause would suggest the easy gains have already been captured.
Other threads from the last call deserve scrutiny too. Affirm Card adoption, which reached 4.4 million cardholders as of the third quarter, needs to keep growing at a pace that supports the flywheel narrative Max Levchin has been selling, where card usage and merchant additions reinforce each other. The rising mix of 0% APR loans, which management has acknowledged dilutes revenue take rate even as it lowers credit costs, is another variable worth watching within revenue less transaction costs. A stable RLTC margin above 4% would show the trade-off is working as advertised; slippage would raise questions about pricing power.
Sentiment heading into this report has shifted from cautious to more optimistic, with bullish readings climbing from roughly 25% last quarter to nearly 36% now. The stock has also outperformed the S&P 500 by more than three points since the last report, trading well above its 200-day moving average and sitting comfortably within its post-earnings range rather than testing either extreme. That combination of rising sentiment and solid but not euphoric price performance suggests expectations have firmed up without becoming stretched.
The central question is whether the easier comps management promised actually translate into visibly reaccelerating growth, or whether the sunset headwind lingers longer than advertised. Given how much detail was deferred to the May Investor Forum last quarter, this report carries extra weight as the first real data-rich checkpoint since then.