VRTO Survey of 2,038 US Adults: One in Four Will Finance Christmas With Rent-to-Own or BNPL, Nearly Half Have Used It

476 of 2,038 respondents plan to pay over time this Christmas; gaming leads and the PlayStation 5 is the most-named item. 949 (46.6%) have used rent-to-own.

COLUMBUS, OH, UNITED STATES, November 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Nearly one in four of the 2,038 US adults VRTO surveyed in August plan to finance part of Christmas 2026 through rent-to-own, virtual rent-to-own or buy-now-pay-later: 476 of them (23.4 percent, or 27.1 percent of the 1,758 who plan to shop for the holidays at all). The survey is an opt-in online panel and is not weighted, so every figure describes the people who answered, not US adults as a whole. The findings are published in VRTO's Christmas 2026 buying guide at https://www.vrto.com/research/christmas-2026-buying-guide.

Gaming leads the plans. Of the 476, 118 named gaming as the category they are most likely to finance and 99 named TVs and home electronics, a gap within the survey's precision. The PlayStation 5 was the most-named single item, picked by 39 of the 118; TVs of 43 inches and up, counted across sizes, reach 83. Among the 101 who expect to use rent-to-own, the order changes: TVs first (25), then gaming (22), furniture (15) and phones and computers (15).

Where rent-to-own planners expect to sign has shifted. Of the 101, 52 plan to use virtual rent-to-own, the agreement offered at a store or website checkout, 39 plan to go to a rental store, and 10 are not sure. At a checkout, the agreement is with the leasing company, not the store. For a group of 101 the range is roughly 10 points either way.

The items on the list cost more than last Christmas: Sony raised the PlayStation 5 to $649.99 in April, Microsoft raised the Xbox Series X to $799.99 in August, and Nintendo raised the Switch 2 to $499.99 in September. The guide also ranks the rent-to-own companies by Google search demand: Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group) is searched more than every virtual lessor combined, and searches for the virtual names, Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings), Katapult (Katapult Holdings) and Afterpay (Block) among them, peak in December.

The base is wide. Nearly half of the 2,038 surveyed, 949 (46.6 percent), have used rent-to-own, either at a rental store or virtually through a checkout. One in six, 329 (16.1 percent), used it in the last year, and 562 of the 949 (59 percent) say they are very or somewhat likely to use it again. Of the 949, 453 used a rental store such as Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group) or Aaron's (Katapult Holdings), 329 used a checkout option such as Acima (Upbound Group), Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings) or Katapult (Katapult Holdings), and 118 used both: 447 adults, 21.9 percent of everyone surveyed, have signed a virtual rent-to-own agreement.

Asked which company they would choose first, 29 of the 476 named Rent-A-Center (Upbound Group), ahead of Katapult (Katapult Holdings) with 15, Aaron's (Katapult Holdings) with 9, American First Finance (FirstCash) with 9, Acima (Upbound Group) with 7 and Progressive Leasing (PROG Holdings) with 6. The buy-now-pay-later names led overall: PayPal Pay in 4 (PayPal Holdings) with 114 and Affirm (Affirm Holdings) with 106.

Spending plans are mostly flat. Of 1,669 holiday shoppers who answered, 47.7 percent expect to spend about the same as last year, 26.3 percent more and 25.3 percent less. Rent-to-own planners most often expect a weekly payment of $20 to $49 (62 of 101); buy-now-pay-later planners, whose named providers were PayPal Pay in 4 (PayPal Holdings), Affirm (Affirm Holdings), Klarna (Klarna Group) and Afterpay (Block), most often expect an item costing $500 to $999 (125 of 375).

VRTO's guidance to shoppers: wherever the agreement is signed, ask for the total cost to own and compare it with the cash price.

How the survey was done

VRTO commissioned and paid for the survey of 2,038 US adults, drawn from an opt-in online panel (Prolific) and fielded August 22, 2026. Results are unweighted and describe the people who answered. The sample is the same order of size as the 2025 holiday surveys from Bankrate (2,567), NerdWallet and Harris (2,083) and LendingTree (2,032); the 949 respondents with rent-to-own experience are about 1.8 times the 532 customers in the Federal Trade Commission's 2000 rent-to-own survey. Questionnaire, method, tables and the anonymized respondent file, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: https://www.vrto.com/research/christmas-2026-buying-guide/data.

Companies referenced in this report: Affirm Holdings, Block, owner of Afterpay, FirstCash Holdings, owner of American First Finance, Katapult Holdings, Klarna Group, Microsoft, Nintendo, PayPal Holdings, PROG Holdings, Sony Group, Upbound Group.

About VRTO

VRTO (vrto.com) is a rent-to-own comparison site in Columbus, Ohio. It publishes rent-to-own store locations across companies, in store and virtual, with product and tire shopping opening in January 2027. Shoppers and store listings are free, no company can pay for a higher rank, and its method is published. VRTO does not rent, lease, sell or finance merchandise.

Media contact: press@vrto.com

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