PayPal Fee Calculator

PayPal takes 3.49% plus 49 cents from a PayPal Checkout payment in the US.

PayPal fee = payment × percentage + fixed fee
you keep = payment − PayPal fee

On a $100 payment, 3.49% is $3.49. Adding the $0.49 fixed fee makes $3.98, so you keep $96.02 and the fee is 3.98% of the payment.

The same rate applies when the buyer uses PayPal Guest Checkout or pays with Venmo. PayPal's fee page lists all three at 3.49% + 49¢.

Card payments through PayPal cost less than payments from a PayPal account.

PayPal charges by how the buyer pays, not by who you are. A card paid through PayPal's standard card payments costs 2.99% + 49¢, half a point less than PayPal Checkout. Advanced card payments cost 2.89% + 29¢. Pay Later, where the buyer pays in installments, is the most expensive at 4.99% + 49¢.

A buyer outside the US adds 1.5% to the fee.

PayPal's page lists an "additional percentage-based fee for international commercial transactions" of 1.5%, added to the domestic rate. A $100 Checkout payment from a buyer in another country costs 4.99% + 49¢, which is $5.48, $1.50 more than the same payment from the US.

Pick "Outside the US" in the calculator to add it. If the payment also needs a currency conversion, PayPal's page lists a separate conversion spread, which this calculator does not include.

The fixed 49 cents makes small payments the most expensive to take.

The fixed fee is the same on every payment, so it weighs more on a small one. Through PayPal Checkout, a $5 payment loses 13.3% to fees and a $500 payment loses 3.6%.

PayPal also offers micropayments pricing, which you apply for: 4.99% + 9¢. The lower fixed fee wins on payments under about $26.67; above that, the higher percentage costs more than PayPal Checkout.

To receive an exact amount, add the fixed fee and divide by what the percentage leaves.

amount to charge = (amount you want + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − percentage)

To keep $100 from a PayPal Checkout payment, charge ($100 + $0.49) ÷ (1 − 3.49%), which is $104.12. PayPal's fee on $104.12 is $4.12, and $100 is left. Adding 3.49% to $100 is not enough, because the percentage is taken from the larger amount.

On a $100 payment, Stripe's standard card rate costs 78 cents less than PayPal Checkout.

Stripe's standard US price is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful payment on a domestic card, which is $3.20 on $100. PayPal Checkout costs $3.98 on the same payment and a standard card through PayPal $3.48. PayPal's advanced card payments, at $3.18, come in 2 cents under Stripe.

Sources: PayPal, Merchant Fees (United States), last updated October 1, 2026; Stripe, stripe.com/pricing. Both read 16 October 2026. PayPal's fee page · Stripe's pricing page

To work out Stripe's fee on any charge, use the Stripe fee calculator. If you sell subscriptions on Stripe, 1Capture collects the first payment in the last 2 hours of a trial and retries it up to 10 times if it fails, as the payment capture page explains.