What PayPal Charges US Sellers Today
PayPal's standard US commercial rate for goods and services payments is 3.49% of the transaction plus a $0.49 fixed fee. On a $100 sale, that removes $3.98 and deposits $96.02. The percentage covers processing and risk; the fixed fee covers authorization costs. The two pieces together are why the effective rate varies so much with ticket size, and why a single headline number understates what low-priced sellers actually pay.
PayPal publishes several schedules alongside the standard rate. In-person QR-code sales run 2.29% plus $0.09, registered charities pay 1.99% plus $0.49, cross-border transactions carry 4.49% plus $0.49, and the micropayment profile charges 5% plus $0.05 for small tickets. Each schedule applies to a specific channel, so pick the row that matches how the money actually arrives — the calculator mirrors all five.
These structures have changed before. The 2021 restructure raised the percentage and cut the fixed fee, shifting the burden toward small-ticket sellers, and PayPal can move the numbers again. Confirm current figures on PayPal's official fee page before you commit to published pricing, and treat this tool as a fast model rather than a fee contract.
How the Fee Math Works on Every Payment
Forward mode answers the everyday question: what actually lands in my account? The formula is simple — fee equals the amount times the rate plus the fixed charge, and net equals the amount minus that fee. On $1,000 that means $35.39 deducted and $964.61 deposited, an effective rate of 3.54% because the fixed fee dilutes across a bigger base.
The effective rate is where ticket size bites. The same schedule on a $10 payment costs $0.84, or 8.4% of the sale; on a $5 payment it costs $0.67, about 13.3%. The fixed $0.49 dominates small amounts — it is 9.8% of a $5 payment before the percentage even starts. Sellers of low-priced items should always price from the effective rate, never the headline percentage.
Payment processing is a real operating expense, not an afterthought. Fifty average transactions a month at the default settings burn $199, which compounds to $2,388 a year. Feed that figure into your cost of doing business calculator so fee load sits in the same model as materials, shipping, and labor when you judge whether a price actually works.
The Reverse Fee: What to Charge to Net Your Price
Invoicing works backwards from the fee. To clear a round $100 after PayPal takes its cut, divide instead of multiplying: charge equals (target plus fixed fee) divided by (1 minus the rate), which lands at $104.12. PayPal collects $4.12, and you net the $100 you quoted the client — no awkward change on the invoice.
The multiplication shortcut fails quietly. Charging $100 times 1.0349 gives $103.49, but PayPal's percentage now applies to the larger number, so the fee comes to $4.10 and you net $99.39 — sixty-one cents short on every invoice. The same gap scales with size: netting $500 needs a $518.59 invoice, and netting $1,000 needs $1,036.67. Run the reverse mode once and store the grossed-up price in your rate card.
Passing the fee to the buyer is legal in many places but regulated — some states cap surcharges or require disclosure, and card networks have their own rules. If you gross the fee into the price instead, quote from the reverse mode so the math holds. Collection speed matters as much as the fee itself; an average collection period calculator shows how long invoices actually take to turn into cash once sent.
International Payments and Currency Conversion
Cross-border transactions carry the heaviest schedule: 4.49% plus $0.49 removes $4.98 from a $100 sale before any conversion happens. Currency conversion adds a second layer — PayPal applies a spread above the wholesale exchange rate, commonly around 3% to 4%, whenever the payment settles in a currency different from your balance. The spread applies to the full amount, so it stacks on the same base as the schedule percentage.
The two layers combine predictably. A $300 international sale with a 3% conversion spread pays 7.49% plus the fixed fee — $22.96 total, netting $277.04 at a 7.65% effective rate. In reverse mode, netting $100 from that same structure requires invoicing $108.63. Sellers who quote international clients a flat price need both layers inside the gross-up or the gap lands on them.
You can push conversion costs around. Invoice in your own currency and the buyer's card issuer converts on their side of the transaction; withdraw in a matching currency where PayPal allows it. Before accepting any quoted rate, sanity-check what a fair conversion looks like with a currency converter calculator and verify derived cross-currency pairs through the cross exchange rate calculator.
Micropayments: The Small-Ticket Problem
Below roughly $10, the standard fixed fee eats low-priced sales alive. A $5 digital download loses $0.67 to the standard schedule — 13.3% of the ticket — while PayPal's micropayment profile of 5% plus $0.05 takes $0.30, or 6.0%. On a $10 sale the split is $0.84 versus $0.55. That $0.29 difference is pure margin on volume businesses.
The break-even sits at $29.14. Below that line micropayments win; above it the standard 3.49% schedule costs less, and by $100 the micropayment profile is $1.07 more expensive ($5.05 versus $3.98). At $20 the schedules are nearly tied — $1.19 standard against $1.05 micro. Sellers with mixed ticket sizes should weight each schedule against their actual order distribution before enrolling, since the profile applies account-wide.
The other fix is structural: raise average order value. Bundling two $5 items into one $10 sale cuts the fixed-fee drag from $0.67 total to $0.84 on twice the revenue. Percentage-plus-fixed pricing is standard across marketplaces too — a commission calculator prices the same drag on platforms that charge per sale, which makes the comparison quick when you decide where to list.
Pricing Fees Into Your Margin
A fee of 3.98% sounds small until you measure it against margin rather than revenue. On a product priced at $100 with $70 of cost, the $3.98 fee consumes 13% of the $30 gross margin. That is the honest framing for pricing decisions — so build quotes with a markup calculator where the markup covers processing and payment channel costs, not only the cost of goods.
Track margin after processing, not before. Running your numbers through a margin calculator with fees treated as a cost line shows the true economics of each product. It also explains why large invoices look so much better: the effective rate drops to 3.54% at $1,000 as the fixed fee dilutes, so steering customers toward fewer, larger orders is a legitimate fee-reduction strategy.
Channel choice moves the number directly. QR-code in-person payments at 2.29% plus $0.09 save $1.60 on every $100 collected — 40% less than the standard card-keyed schedule — and registered charities cut their rate to 1.99% plus $0.49, saving $1.50 per $100. Neither change touches the product; both only change how the money arrives.
Friends and Family vs Goods and Services
Domestic personal transfers funded by a bank account or PayPal balance are free, which tempts some sellers to request Friends and Family payments on commercial sales. That violates PayPal's user agreement — it is a stated reason for account holds, reserves, and terminations — and it strips the buyer of purchase protection on a transaction that is plainly business. The savings are not worth the account risk.
Goods and services payments carry the fee but buy real protection on both sides: unauthorized-transaction coverage for the buyer, and seller protection against item-not-received and chargeback claims for eligible shipments with tracking. For a business, the fee is the price of a documented, dispute-handled payment rail — records that also survive an audit or a tax query, since every net deposit reconciles to an invoice.
Personal transfers are not even always free. Card-funded Friends and Family payments cost the sender roughly 2.9% plus a fixed fee, and many buyers decline to absorb that cost or refuse the request outright. Keep commercial money in the commercial channel, and let the reverse mode gross the fee into the quote where surcharging rules allow it.
Monthly Volume, Budgeting, and the Annual Bill
Fees scale linearly with volume, which makes them easy to budget and easy to ignore. The default scenario — 50 payments of $100 a month — costs $199 monthly and $2,388 a year. Put that line into your business budget calculator so processing sits beside rent and software as a visible, planned expense instead of hiding inside gross revenue.
At scale the number forces decisions. Two hundred $1,000 payments a month burns $7,078 — $84,936 a year — and at that level comparing processors, negotiating custom enterprise pricing, or adding an ACH option for large invoices is worth real management time. Fees also shift the sales volume needed to cover fixed costs; a break even calculator shows the adjusted target once processing costs are included.
Timing matters too: PayPal deducts fees at the moment of payment, so every reconciliation line should match the net deposit, not the invoice total. Tracking the difference through a cash flow calculator keeps the books clean and gives your accountant the monthly processing totals needed for the deduction. Review the schedule you selected against your mix of channels at least once a year.