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PayPal Fees: Calculator and Plan Pricing for 2024

PayPal fees are inexpensive for in-person transactions, but its base-plan online rates can add up.
Edited byRyan Lane
Last updated on October 18, 2024

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⏰ Estimated read time: 4 minutes

PayPal’s payment processing fees for small businesses typically range from 2.29% to 3.49% of each transaction, plus a fixed fee ranging from 9 cents to 49 cents. The exact amount you pay depends on your customers’ payment method and whether you mostly accept cards in-person with PayPal Zettle or online through one of the company’s e-commerce checkout integrations.
Here’s a rundown of PayPal’s fees for small businesses, along with a calculator for estimating how much using PayPal might cost you.

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PayPal fees at a glance

PayPal’s merchant fees page has a dizzying number of pricing details on it. The table below focuses on the fees that are most relevant to small businesses.
Transaction type
Payment processing fee
In-person or via QR code
2.29% plus 9 cents.
Online
2.59%-3.49% plus 49 cents.
Invoice
2.99%-3.49% plus 49 cents.
Regardless of transaction type, you need to sign up for a free PayPal Business account to process payments with the company.

PayPal Zettle fees for in-person transactions

PayPal Zettle is the company’s POS system for accepting card transactions in-person. There’s no monthly fee to use it, but you do have to pay for hardware and processing costs. Here’s what each costs:

PayPal Checkout fees for online transactions

PayPal Checkout is an integration built for accepting online transactions on your business’s website. There are two different versions of it:

PayPal fee calculator

To calculate how much you’ll pay in processing fees with PayPal, plug in your business’s average transaction total and payment type (e.g., online debit or credit card, PayPal Payments or in-person).

PayPal payment gateway fees

In addition to payment processing services, PayPal offers payment gateways that connect your e-commerce site to your payment processor and allow customers to securely enter their card information online. This is mainly useful for businesses that use a different payment processor instead of PayPal, but need a way to accept payments online and want to allow customers to pay with their PayPal accounts.
Here are more details about each of PayPal’s payment gateway options:
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