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PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

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Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#11

Post by Urgo »

This was actually announced in a easy to miss email with the subject "Upcoming change to your account" sent on June 30 2021. It did get a little press that day but on the fee increase day I saw little reporting.

These changes went into effect on August 2nd 2021. Here is a PDF that has a breakdown showing all the changes that happened that day [1]

To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long time if not forever. That said this is a huge new fee for merchants while not providing any new services, at least at this time, to justify it.

[1] https://www.paypalobjects.com/marketing/ua/pdf/US/en/feepage...

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#12

Post by brnt »

londons_explore wrote: post #6

It amazes me that despite not really modifying the core PayPal service for 10+ years, they are still a market leader. Parts of their business don't have much network effect, and competitors could totally rebuild the tech and eat away at the market share... Yet somehow that hasn't happened.

All this, and all that other Silicon Valley financial infra, because direct bank tranfers are (presumably?) not known or difficult or impossible.

From my northwestern European perspective, it's weird this straightforward solution that we've had since, well, the fifties? is overlooked.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#13

Post by pkulak »

dessant wrote: post #7

PayPal is awful for small transactions, I regularily get donations for my projects that are literally 0 USD, because all of it is eaten away by PayPal fees, and even for a 5 USD donation you end up losing around 15% of the transaction amount. Do you know of any other service that is suitable for microtransactions, besides cryptocurrencies?

You say no crypto, but Nano was built for exactly this. You're not gonna beat zero fees.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#15

Post by kaslai »

collectedparts wrote: post #10
kaslai wrote: post #3

I have seen absolutely zero coverage about this change so I wanted to make sure people knew about it. The change seems to have happened on August 2nd according to archive.org [1]. I checked my PayPal records to verify this was true and sure enough I've been paying the higher rate in fees starting after July. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210727095034/https://www.paypa...

They technically announced it [1], but I agree that it got next to no coverage. Presumably they deliberately "silently" put the announcement on their blog without circulating it to news outlets. HN discussion at the time [2]. [1] https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-06-18-Upcoming-Changes... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27560616

Ah, thank you for the links. I searched prior to posting but the title on [2] is very non-descript. I was expecting a lot more outrage considering the size of this hike is pretty massive for merchants that process a lot of smaller transactions.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#16

Post by arcticbull »

pkulak wrote: post #13
dessant wrote: post #7

PayPal is awful for small transactions, I regularily get donations for my projects that are literally 0 USD, because all of it is eaten away by PayPal fees, and even for a 5 USD donation you end up losing around 15% of the transaction amount. Do you know of any other service that is suitable for microtransactions, besides cryptocurrencies?

You say no crypto, but Nano was built for exactly this. You're not gonna beat zero fees.

Except it exhibits absolutely monstrous volatility.

[edit] That's a lot like saying you can't beat the "$0 commission" at the airport currency exchange - true, but misleading. They wreck you elsewhere (in that case, in exchange rates). The truth is if Nano were "just as good" as sending dollars back and forth except free everyone would be using it. The fact they're not, this many years in, means you're missing something in your analysis.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#17

Post by kaslai »

Urgo wrote: post #11

This was actually announced in a easy to miss email with the subject "Upcoming change to your account" sent on June 30 2021. It did get a little press that day but on the fee increase day I saw little reporting. These changes went into effect on August 2nd 2021. Here is a PDF that has a breakdown showing all the changes that happened that day [1] To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long t…

Yeah I definitely missed it and it caught me by total surprise today. I imagine many are in the same boat.

This also comes after they've adjusted their policy so that they keep all fees even after a payment has been refunded. They're getting less and less attractive every month.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#18

Post by Urgo »

kaslai wrote: post #17
Urgo wrote: post #11

This was actually announced in a easy to miss email with the subject "Upcoming change to your account" sent on June 30 2021. It did get a little press that day but on the fee increase day I saw little reporting. These changes went into effect on August 2nd 2021. Here is a PDF that has a breakdown showing all the changes that happened that day [1] To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long t…

Yeah I definitely missed it and it caught me by total surprise today. I imagine many are in the same boat. This also comes after they've adjusted their policy so that they keep all fees even after a payment has been refunded. They're getting less and less attractive every month.

Keeping the fees on refunds bugs me so much as well and is completely out of line. Sadly everyone seems to do this now.

We haven't gone live with it yet, but following this change I actually went comparison shopping a little. I'm planning on swapping my payment processing over to Braintree.. which is still paypal.. but actually does have less fees. It has the benefit of still being able to accept paypal payments (at the paypal fee rate) but lower fees for credit card transactions.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#19

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

shoto_io wrote: post #9

This is straight out of Peter Thiel's handbook. Create a monopoly and then take the profits.

PayPal doesn’t seem like a monopoly. Merchants can offer multiple payment processors, and customers can use a different one for each purchase without any lock-in. PayPal has strong competitors like Stripe and even Apple. They also lost their flagship client, eBay.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#20

Post by londons_explore »

brnt wrote: post #12
londons_explore wrote: post #6

It amazes me that despite not really modifying the core PayPal service for 10+ years, they are still a market leader. Parts of their business don't have much network effect, and competitors could totally rebuild the tech and eat away at the market share... Yet somehow that hasn't happened.

All this, and all that other Silicon Valley financial infra, because direct bank tranfers are (presumably?) not known or difficult or impossible. From my northwestern European perspective, it's weird this straightforward solution that we've had since, well, the fifties? is overlooked.

Address books in phones don't store people's Bank details, making it a pain to pay someone. Many people don't have their own bank details memorized either.

Being able to send money to someone just knowing their phone number is the real value-add.

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