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Contributors: Drew Corbyn (GOGLA), Lucia Spaggiari (MFR)
In 2025, GOGLA and MFR expanded the PAYGo PERFORM Monitor to include cohort-level performance data, enabling a deeper look at how PAYGo portfolios evolve over time. For the first time, several companies operating across multiple countries have shared consistent data spanning 2022 to 2025, offering a rare opportunity to analyse performance trends across cohorts rather than snapshots in time. [1]
This article draws on data from 16 leading PAYGo country-firms [2] —seven in East Africa and nine in West Africa—to examine how contract structures and repayment outcomes are changing. The analysis reveals a clear pattern: recent cohorts are associated with smaller, shorter contracts, higher deposits, and improving repayment performance trends through this prism.
These shifts matter. They point to an industry that is learning from early challenges and gradually refining its operating model. Improved repayment performance not only strengthens company balance sheets, but also supports better customer outcomes—suggesting that parts of the PAYGo sector may indeed be “on the cusp of becoming a mature industry”.
On average, across both East and West Africa, PAYGo contracts are getting cheaper and shorter. While PAYGo contracts in West Africa are much larger on average due to the type of products being sold (larger SHS are more common in West Africa), the trend is similar in both regions. This can be explained by multiple factors such as lower costs of goods sold, lower cost of finance or smaller products representing a bigger share of products sold. In East Africa, the average contract size in 2025 was 11% smaller than in 2022. For West Africa, that number is 14%. In parallel the average contract length decreased by four months in East Africa and three months in West Africa. While contracts have been getting smaller and shorter, deposits have grown.
Analysis of the PAYGo PERFORM Monitor data for all reporting country-firms, shows that smaller, shorter contracts and higher deposits see better repayment rates.
The charts below look at repayment rates at contract term, as well as at one and half and twice the contract term by contract size, term and deposit.
At contract term, contracts smaller than 250 USD have a repayment rate that is 20 percentage points higher on average than contracts larger than 500USD. At twice the contract term, the gap is 25 percentage points.
Contracts shorter than a year record a repayment rate that is 8 percentage points higher than contracts longer than two years do at contract term.
Contracts with a deposit higher than 10% of contract value see a repayment rate that is 21 percentage points higher at contract term and 14 percentage points higher at 2x contact term than contracts with deposits lower than 5%.
Among the 5 companies that did not fulfil at least two conditions, three are seeing lower repayment rates in more recent cohorts. The other two companies are operating in Nigeria where repayments rates are much higher than in other markets (25 percentage points higher at 2x contract term). Companies in Nigeria have benefited from subsidy programs which have helped drive performance but also make it less comparable to other markets as the timing of subsidies, the eligibility criteria and more can have major effects in shaping the market.
The evidence from the PAYGo PERFORM Monitor points to a consistent message: cheaper products, shorter contract durations, and higher deposits are associated with stronger repayment performance. While price remains a critical driver, the data also shows that very low deposits tend to correlate with poorer outcomes, and that longer repayment periods introduce additional risk over time.
Although contract size and length are often linked—larger systems typically require longer repayment periods—the findings suggest that time itself is a risk factor. Longer horizons expose both customers and companies to greater uncertainty, increasing the likelihood of repayment challenges.
Against this backdrop, the shift observed among leading PAYGo companies toward smaller, shorter contracts with higher upfront contributions is an encouraging sign. While progress is uneven across markets and firms, the fact that most companies adopting at least two of these adjustments are seeing improved cohort performance is notable.
There remains significant room for improvement across the industry. However, these results indicate that market leaders are beginning to translate hard-earned lessons into better portfolio quality. As PAYGo companies continue to refine their product design and credit strategies, these insights can help guide efforts toward financial sustainability—and ultimately, more reliable and affordable energy access for customers.
[1] All analysis in this article is based on country-firm performance. For example, an average repayment rate after 3 months for East Africa will be the unweighted average of the repayment rate after 3 months of the 7 country-firms reporting data for East Africa.
[2] To simplify the analysis, companies primarily selling larger productive appliances such as solar water pumps or fridges and freezers were excluded from the sample.
[3] Latest data point available for all cohorts
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