Payments
PayPal fee calculator
Checkout, invoices and micropayments.
PayPal prices commercial transactions by how the buyer reached you. Its cross-border surcharge and, in particular, its 4% currency-conversion spread are where most of the surprise lives — the spread applies to the whole converted amount, not to the fee.
The sale
Optional — for profit
On a $51.00 sale, PayPal takes $2.27 — 4.5% of what the buyer paid — and $48.73 reaches you. You keep 95.5% of the order.
Every line of it
| Buyer pays | item + shipping | $51.00 |
Commercial transaction rate | 3.49% of $51.00 | −$1.78 |
Fixed fee | $0.49 flat | −$0.49 |
| Total fees | −$2.27 | |
| Reaches your account | $48.73 | |
On this sale, PayPal ranks 6 of 16 for what reaches you.
Compare all platformsWhat this calculator does not cover
- PayPal publishes a lower rate for Advanced Credit and Debit Card payments than for PayPal Checkout. This calculator uses the PayPal Checkout rate, which is the one most sellers are actually on.
- The fixed fee shown is the one for receiving US dollars. Receiving another currency changes it.
PayPal fees: common questions
How much does PayPal take from a $50 sale?
$2.24 on a $50 sale, leaving you $47.76 — an effective rate of 4.48%. On $100 it is $3.98, leaving $96.02. The rate differs between the two because PayPal charges a fixed amount per transaction as well as a percentage, so the flat part weighs more heavily on smaller orders.
What are PayPal's fees, exactly?
On a $50 sale, PayPal charges commercial transaction rate of $1.75 (3.49% of $50.00), fixed fee of $0.49 ($0.49 flat). That comes to $2.24 in total. There is no monthly fee.
Does PayPal charge fees on shipping?
Yes. PayPal calculates its percentage on the order total, which includes the shipping you charged the buyer. A $50 item with free shipping costs $2.24 in fees; the same item with $10 shipping costs $2.58 — $0.34 more, on shipping money that mostly goes to the carrier. Raising your shipping price raises your PayPal bill.
What should I charge on PayPal to keep $50?
Work it backwards rather than guessing: at PayPal's rates you have to charge more than $50 to keep $50, because the fee is taken from what the buyer pays. The what-to-charge calculator solves for the exact price, including the flat per-transaction fee, and rounds up to the cent so you are never left short.
What does this PayPal calculator not include?
PayPal publishes a lower rate for Advanced Credit and Debit Card payments than for PayPal Checkout. This calculator uses the PayPal Checkout rate, which is the one most sellers are actually on.
Are these PayPal fees up to date?
They were read from PayPal's own published fee schedule on August 28, 2026, and the source is linked on this page so you can check it yourself. An automated check re-reads every source page weekly and flags any that have changed. Fee schedules do move without notice, so where this page and PayPal disagree, PayPal is right.
That is what PayPal takes. What the unit actually earns is another question again, once shipping, advertising and the orders that come back are in the picture — work out the true margin.
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These calculators are free, and they stay free
There is no account, no email wall and nothing for sale here, which is deliberate — it is what lets the site publish what platforms actually charge and link to where each rate came from. Re-reading ten fee schedules every week is the unglamorous part, and it is what keeps the numbers worth trusting. If that saved you a bad listing decision, you are welcome to put a little toward the domain and the hosting. If it did not, please do not.
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