Accept Payments Online With PayPal

PayPal is a third-party payment processor that makes it easy for any website to collect payments online. Having been around since 1999, PayPal has widespread name recognition, is trusted by most online buyers, and has become very popular due to its partnership with eBay.

Originally, PayPal was not a practical solution because website customers would have to create a PayPal account. However, this has changed. Now, anyone with a credit card can send payments, whether or not they have a PayPal account.

Why Use Paypal?

There are many different options for accepting payments online. So you might be wondering why you should choose PayPal for your website.

Our answer? PayPal is relatively inexpensive, does not charge any signup or monthly fees, and offers a variety of different tools to help you get started.

PayPal fees breakdown

PayPal charges transaction fees for each payment collected. The current rate is $0.30 + 2.9%. And depending on your monthly sales volume, the rates can go as low as 1.9%.

PayPal seller tools

PayPal offers a wide variety of tools that include the PayPal shopping cart, Buy Now and Donate buttons, invoices, email payments, and an API for deeper integration into your website. PayPal also provides a developer sandbox for testing your website’s integration with their API.

What You Need To Get Started

To get started with PayPal, you will need to sign up for a "Business" account. This will enable you to accept credit cards. ("Personal" accounts do not give this flexibility.) You will also need to link your PayPal account to a bank account. This will enable you to have access to the full suite of PayPal tools as well as easily make withdrawals or add money to your account.

Once you have set up your account, PayPal provides extensive documentation to help you get started. Click here for more information on using your new PayPal account.

Alternatives To PayPal

While PayPal is a great choice for small websites, it is not the ideal solution for all websites.

One criticism that some sellers have is the unfairness of PayPal’s buyer protection policy. In the case that a buyer is not satisfied, they can request that PayPal open a "dispute”. And then for an indeterminate period (depending on how quickly the case is escalated), funds will be frozen in your PayPal account, with the burden of proof on the seller.

Additionally, sellers that have high sales volumes may find PayPal’s fees to be relatively high, and may opt for cheaper alternatives, often provided by banks or credit card companies.

If you are looking for a different payment processor, some other popular services are Authorize.net and Google Checkout. Both of these options feature lower transaction fees. In addition, Google Checkout gives sellers Google AdWords credits. So this is a good choice if you use AdWords to generate traffic for your website.