The 'No Credit Needed' Button at Checkout Isn't a Loan. Acima's Own Page Says It Can Cost Double.

If you’re buying a sofa, a set of tires or a phone this fall and the checkout offers “no credit needed,” read the button carefully. It’s usually a lease, not a loan. Run the full term and you can pay twice the sticker price.

That isn’t our estimate. It’s on the leasing company’s own website.

What the companies say

Acima approves leases from $300 to $5,000 and needs a checking account and $750 a month in income. Its standard agreement runs 12 months to ownership, “which may cost more than double the cash price.”

Progressive Leasing says “credit is not required to apply.” It also says ownership through its lease “costs more than the retailer’s cash price.” Its cheapest exit, the 90-day purchase option, is “the cash price plus lease cost.” Except for a 3-month option in California, even the early buyouts cost more than the cash price.

Neither page quotes an interest rate. You get a cash price and a lease cost, and the gap between them is the price of the money.

What regulators found

In July, the DC attorney general announced a $4 million settlement with Acima. The office alleged that Acima advertised “90 day same as cash” and then put customers into 12-month plans with high added charges. It also alleged a hidden markup of up to $100 over the retail price, and agreements that cost many customers more than 200% of retail. Acima partners with more than 15,000 stores.

New York’s attorney general sued Acima in 2024, alleging that its “leases” were really loans under state law, with interest rates the office put at “100% or higher.”

The math

Take a $1,000 couch. If the full lease costs double, you pay about $2,000 over 12 months. Spread over 12 monthly payments, that’s roughly a 150% annual rate, by our math.

A federal credit union’s payday alternative loan caps the rate at 28% and the application fee at $20. Borrow $1,000 for 12 months at the cap and you pay about $158 in interest plus the fee, so about $178. Even a 36% personal loan costs about $206 in interest.

That’s roughly $1,000 extra on the lease against about $200 on a loan. On those numbers, lease-to-own is dumb math.

The move

Timing matters. PayPal’s survey found two in five shoppers plan to start holiday buying by the end of October, so this button is about to get pushed a lot.

Before you tap it, ask the store for two numbers in writing: the cash price, and the total cost to own on the full term. Then call a credit union near you or your job and ask whether it makes PALs. Check what a regular loan would cost, too, with our loan calculator, and see the rest of our loans coverage.

If you lease anyway, put the early-buyout deadline in your phone the day you sign. And never pay a renewal you could have skipped by paying the buyout on time.

How Candid Yak makes money. Some of the products we write about pay us if you apply or sign up through our links. That never changes our verdict, our rankings, or the numbers in this article. We call a bad deal a bad deal whether it pays us or not. Some brands shown in our comparison tools are placeholder examples while we finalize partner agreements, and we label them as such.