Calculators
PayPal Fee Calculator
Work out PayPal's US fee on any payment, then reverse it to find what to charge so the amount you need actually lands in your account.
What you receive after PayPal fees
Enter what the buyer pays. This works out PayPal's cut and what actually lands in your account.
$96.02
from a $100.00 payment, after PayPal's cut
Keep a running list of what you worked out, with a note on each.
$3.98
3.98% of $100.00
$3.49
3.49% of the amount charged
$0.49
charged once per transaction, whatever the size
(3.49% × $100.00) + $0.49 = $3.98, leaving $96.02
The flat $0.49 is why the effective rate — 3.98% here — is always higher than the headline 3.49%, and why it hurts most on small payments.
The buyer pays with their PayPal balance or PayPal account — the ordinary online checkout, and the same rate PayPal lists for all other commercial transactions.
United States rates. Fee schedule last verified 2026-07-30 — PayPal’s published US merchant fees. Currency conversion, chargebacks and other charges are not included.
Saved PayPal fee calculations
Kept on this device, and on your account when you're signed in. Add a note to remember which listing or invoice each one was for.
This calculator works both ways round. Enter what a buyer is paying and it shows PayPal's cut and what lands in your account; enter what you need to end up with and it shows what to charge so that figure survives the fee. Every rate it uses comes from PayPal's published US merchant fee schedule, and the date a human last checked that schedule is printed under the result with a link to the source, so you can confirm the working rather than take it on trust.
Reverse PayPal fee calculator: what to charge to receive a set amount
This is the calculation almost everybody gets wrong, and it is worth understanding rather than just reading off. PayPal charges a percentage of whatever the buyer pays, plus a flat fee per transaction. If you want $100 to arrive and you add the $3.98 fee on $100 to your invoice, you have raised the amount the percentage is charged on — PayPal now takes $4.12, and $99.86 arrives.
The correct move is a division. Add the fixed fee to your target, then divide by one minus the percentage rate: ($100 + $0.49) ÷ 0.9651 = $104.12. Charge that and exactly $100 lands. The calculator prints this line under the answer in reverse mode, alongside the figure most people reach for instead, because a number you can see the reasoning behind is one you will still trust when it disagrees with your mental arithmetic.
How much does PayPal take from $100?
On PayPal's standard US checkout rate — 3.49% plus a fixed 49 cents — a $100 payment costs $3.98 and leaves you $96.02. Paid by card, Apple Pay or another third-party wallet, PayPal's published rate is 2.99% plus the same 49 cents, so the fee is $3.48 and $96.52 arrives. The flat fee is why the effective rate is always higher than the headline percentage, and why it bites hardest on small payments: on a $3 sale the 49 cents is worth more than the percentage.
International PayPal fee calculator: the cross-border fee
PayPal's US schedule adds an international commercial transaction fee of 1.50% on top of the domestic percentage when the buyer is outside the United States. It is additive in percentage points, not a multiplier, and it leaves the fixed fee alone — 3.49% becomes 4.99%, so a $100 payment costs $5.48 rather than $3.98. Tick the box in the calculator and it applies in both directions, including inside the reverse division, which is where forgetting it costs the most.
PayPal micropayments fee calculator: when the small-payment rate is cheaper
Micropayments is optional US pricing that has to be enabled on the account. It charges 4.99% plus 9 cents — a higher percentage for a much smaller fixed fee — which makes it cheaper on small payments and more expensive on large ones. The two rates cross at about $26.67. Below that, the 40 cents saved on the fixed fee is worth more than the extra 1.5 percentage points; above it, the percentage overtakes the saving. If most of what you sell is under twenty dollars, the difference across a month of sales is real money.
What this calculator does not cover
It covers United States rates only, because PayPal publishes a different schedule for every market and quietly applying US percentages elsewhere would be wrong in the one way a fee calculator cannot afford. It also leaves out currency conversion, chargeback fees and payout charges: those figures were not read off the schedule this tool verifies against, and a fee page that guesses is worse than one that says what it does not know. Use the result as the transaction fee on a US dollar payment, and check the source link if your situation involves any of the above.
Questions
- How much does PayPal take from a $100 payment?
- On PayPal's standard US checkout rate of 3.49% plus a fixed 49 cents, a $100 payment costs $3.98 in fees and leaves you $96.02. If the buyer pays by card, Apple Pay or another third-party wallet rather than from a PayPal account, the rate PayPal publishes is 2.99% plus the same 49 cents, so the fee is $3.48 and you keep $96.52. Both figures come from PayPal's published US merchant fee schedule, and the calculator above shows which row it used along with the date the schedule was last checked.
- How do I work out what to charge so I receive an exact amount after PayPal fees?
- Divide, do not add. Take the amount you want to receive, add the fixed fee, and divide the total by one minus the percentage rate. To land exactly $100 on the 3.49% plus 49 cent rate, that is ($100 + $0.49) divided by 0.9651, which comes to $104.12. Switch the calculator above to "I know what I want to receive" and it does this for you, and prints the division under the answer so you can check it against your own arithmetic.
- Why doesn't adding the PayPal fee to my invoice cover it?
- Because PayPal charges its percentage on whatever the buyer actually pays, including the part you added to cover the fee. On a $100 target at 3.49% plus 49 cents the fee is $3.98, so adding it gives an invoice of $103.98 — but the fee on $103.98 is $4.12, which leaves you $99.86 rather than $100. The shortfall is small on one invoice and compounds across a year of them. Dividing instead of adding is what accounts for the fee charged on the fee.
- Does PayPal charge extra for international payments?
- Yes. PayPal's US schedule lists an additional international commercial transaction fee of 1.50%, added to whichever percentage rate already applies. It does not change the fixed fee. So a payment that would cost 3.49% plus 49 cents domestically costs 4.99% plus 49 cents when the buyer is outside the US — $5.48 on a $100 payment instead of $3.98. Tick "Outside the US" in the calculator to apply it in either direction.
- Does this calculator include PayPal's currency conversion charge?
- No, and that is deliberate. PayPal applies a separate currency conversion charge when a payment is converted from one currency into another, and that figure is not reproduced here because it was not read off the fee schedule this tool verifies against. Treat the result as the transaction fee on a US dollar payment. If your buyer pays in another currency, or your balance is converted before it reaches your bank, your real cost will be higher than the figure shown.
- When is PayPal micropayments pricing cheaper?
- Micropayments trades a higher percentage for a much smaller fixed fee — 4.99% plus 9 cents against 3.49% plus 49 cents — so it wins on small payments and loses on large ones. The two rates meet at about $26.67: below that the 40 cent saving on the fixed fee outweighs the extra 1.5 percentage points, and above it the percentage costs more than the fixed fee saved. It is optional pricing that has to be enabled on the PayPal account, not something that applies automatically.