PayPal publishes a separate rate line for each way a customer can pay — PayPal Checkout, a card, a QR code, Pay Later, an invoice, or a donation — and each line is a percentage plus PayPal's fixed per-transaction fee. The table below runs those published rates through the arithmetic for you, at four sale sizes, so you can see the dollar cost instead of just the percentage.
PayPal is looked at on its own here, not against Stripe or Square — that three-way comparison lives on a sibling page. One extra row covers what happens when a customer's card was issued abroad, since PayPal's plain percentage table does not show that surcharge on its own.
| $10 sale | $100 sale | $1,000 sale | $10,000 sale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PayPal Checkout | $0.841 6 | $3.981 6 | $35.391 6 | $349.491 6 |
| Standard credit or debit card | $0.792 6 | $3.482 6 | $30.392 6 | $299.492 6 |
| QR code (third-party integrator) | $0.323 4 | $2.383 4 | $22.993 4 | $229.093 4 |
| PayPal Pay Later | $0.995 6 | $5.485 6 | $50.395 6 | $499.495 6 |
| Invoicing via PayPal Checkout | $0.848 9 | $3.988 9 | $35.398 9 | $349.498 9 |
| Donations (PayPal Checkout for Donations) | $0.7811 12 | $3.3811 12 | $29.3911 12 | $289.4911 12 |
| International commercial transaction (PayPal Checkout + 1.50%) | $0.991 6 7 | $5.481 6 7 | $50.391 6 7 | $499.491 6 7 |
Each column is one sale size, and each row is one PayPal payment type, computed the same way across every column so the rows are directly comparable. PayPal Checkout, the standard card option and Pay Later each publish one flat percentage; the QR code row uses the rate and fixed fee PayPal states for a QR transaction processed through a third-party integrator, because that is the only QR row where PayPal states its own fixed fee. Invoicing carries its own row even though its published percentage matches PayPal Checkout, because invoicing is a separate product on PayPal's fee page — and, as the invoicing section below explains, it carries an optional add-on cost that a regular PayPal Checkout sale does not. Donations get their own row too, because PayPal charges a lower rate for a donation than for a commercial sale.
PayPal's rate has two parts, and only one of them cares how big the sale is. The percentage scales by definition — sell more and the percentage cut grows right along with it. The fixed fee stays put: it is the same 0.49 USD (or 0.09 USD on the QR row) no matter how large or small the sale is, so how much it matters depends entirely on the size of the sale. Read down any single row of the table above, from the smallest column to the largest, and you can watch that weight fall away on its own — the flat piece starts out as a real chunk of what PayPal keeps and ends up too small to notice next to the percentage.
PayPal publishes a different percentage for nearly every row in the table above, and PayPal's fee page does not explain why any one payment type costs more than another, and no guess is made here either. What it can say, from the published rates alone, is the order: the QR code rate through a third-party integrator (2.29%) is the cheapest of the payment types compared here, a donation (2.89%) costs the next least, a card payment (2.99%) costs more than a donation but less than a full PayPal Checkout sale (3.49%), and Pay Later (4.99%) is the most expensive of the six rows. Invoicing does not add a rate of its own — it carries the same rate as whichever payment type funds the invoice, PayPal Checkout in the row above.
The extra row in the table above answers one question: what changes when the payment is an international commercial transaction — a condition PayPal defines by the transaction itself, not by where the buyer's card was issued. PayPal's answer is a flat 1.50%, tacked on top of whatever domestic rate would otherwise apply, no matter which of the six payment types processed the sale. It is the same 1.50 points on every payment type alike, so a business that mostly deals with customers abroad pays that surcharge whichever PayPal option it offers at checkout.
An invoice sent through PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo or PayPal Guest Checkout is charged at the rate PayPal publishes separately for invoicing — but that rate turns out to be the identical percentage and the identical fixed fee as a regular PayPal Checkout sale (see the FAQ below for the exact comparison). The one cost that invoicing carries and a regular sale does not is optional: PayPal's Invoice Subscription Service costs 14.99 USD per month, on top of the per-invoice rate, for merchants who choose to subscribe to it. A merchant who never subscribes pays nothing extra for sending an invoice instead of a regular checkout link.
On a $100 sale paid through PayPal Checkout, PayPal keeps $3.98 — its 3.49% rate plus the 0.49 USD fixed fee it charges on a domestic commercial transaction.
Yes. PayPal's Standard Credit and Debit Card Payments rate is 2.99%, half a point below PayPal Checkout's 3.49% — both add the same 0.49 USD fixed fee on top.
PayPal adds an additional 1.50% on top of its domestic rate for international commercial transactions. On a $100 sale paid through PayPal Checkout with a card issued outside the United States, that brings the total to $5.48.
No. An invoice paid through PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo or PayPal Guest Checkout charges the same 3.49% rate plus the same 0.49 USD fixed fee as a regular PayPal Checkout sale. The only added invoicing cost is optional: PayPal's Invoice Subscription Service costs 14.99 USD per month.
Gathered with AI assistance; every figure was checked against the linked provider page and signed off by Seonrye Kim.