PayPal Fee Calculator

PayPal US merchant rates

PayPal merchant fees depend on how the buyer pays and which product surface you use. PayPal Checkout and Guest Checkout integrations typically run 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction. Standard card payments where the card is not stored with PayPal run 2.99% + $0.49. Peer-to-peer goods & services transfers are 2.99% with no fixed fee — useful for informal invoices but not most ecommerce carts. Cross-border commercial payments can add 1.5% on top of the base rate.

The $0.49 fixed fee makes PayPal relatively expensive on small tickets compared with Stripe’s $0.30. A $20 Checkout payment costs $0.698 + $0.49 = $1.19 in fees (5.9% effective). The same $20 on standard card rates is $0.598 + $0.49 = $1.09 (5.4% effective). Goods & services at 2.99% with no fixed fee would be $0.60 — but most storefronts cannot route all buyers through that path.

PayPal Complete Payments, QR code sales, Venmo for business, and micropayment pricing use separate schedules published on PayPal’s merchant fee page. Currency conversion spreads apply when you receive USD but the buyer pays in another currency, or when you withdraw to a non-USD bank. Those spreads are not percentage fees on the transaction line item but they reduce effective payout.

Refunds usually do not return PayPal’s original processing fee — plan margins assuming fees are sunk on returned orders unless your account agreement says otherwise. Chargebacks trigger dispute fees and can hold funds while cases resolve. PayPal Working Capital and Pay Later merchant fees are unrelated to standard checkout processing modeled here.

Worked comparison at $100: PayPal Checkout → $3.49 + $0.49 = $3.98 fees (3.98% effective), net $96.02. Standard card → $2.99 + $0.49 = $3.48 fees, net $96.52. Stripe-equivalent 2.9% + $0.30 on $100 is $3.20 — about $0.28–$0.78 cheaper depending on PayPal path. The gap widens on small charges because PayPal’s fixed fee is higher.

Round-trip sanity check: fee = amount × rate + fixed (when applicable); net = amount − fee. If you add rate × net instead of rate × gross, you will overstate payout. For cross-border, apply the extra 1.5% to gross before subtracting. PayPal’s invoice PDF sometimes shows fees net of tax — match the fee base PayPal displays in Activity detail.

Micropayments, nonprofit rates, in-person Zettle hardware, and PayPal Payouts mass-pay fees are not included. PayPal updates US merchant pricing periodically — Calcometry is not affiliated with PayPal. Download your live fee schedule from PayPal Business before annual price reviews.

PayPal Here and QR code in-person rates differ from online Checkout — street vendors comparing card readers should match product surface. Venmo business profiles and PayPal Pay Later may show buyer-side financing while merchant fees follow standard checkout tables. Multi-currency balances held in PayPal before withdrawal can face conversion on payout day even when the original charge was USD.

PayPal Working Capital and business loans are separate from processing — do not confuse loan repayment with per-transaction fees. Charity and donation buttons may qualify for reduced rates with PayPal Giving Fund routing. Mass Pay and Payouts API charge per recipient for disbursements, useful when paying affiliates after you already paid processing on the original sale.

Subscription billing through PayPal Subscriptions uses the same merchant rate tables as one-time Checkout unless your account shows a custom MRR tier. Digital goods and SaaS renewals still pay percentage plus fixed fee each cycle — model annual plans as twelve separate fee events, not one upfront percent. Confirm live rates on PayPal Business before annual pricing reviews.