Paypal Micropayments

Posts: 8
Joined: 03/22/2008

So I haven't noticed any discussion on this topic but thought some might want this info.

A lot of ubercarters are making sites that sell downloads (or whatever) for under $12...

Paypal's standard rate "macro payments" is 2.9% plus $0.30. If you are selling an mp3 for example at $1.00, they take 33% of your sale!

Micro payments charge 5% plus $0.05... so for that same mp3, paypal only takes $0.10.

Check it out at https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html

A quick comparison:
m=micropayments
s=standard "macropayments"

1.00 m=0.10 s=0.33
5.00 m=0.30 s=0.45
10.00 m=0.55 s=0.59
12.00 m=0.65 s=0.65 (the meeting point)
14.00 m=0.75 s=0.71
16.00 m=0.85 s=0.76
etc...

This isn't advertised on the paypal site at all so i thought people that are using paypal and selling stuff for under $12 would like this information.

Problem is you that if you want both macro and micro payments, you must have two seperate accounts. With Ubercart, at least for now, you can only use one account so you have to choose between the two.

Idea for the ubercart developers... a way to tell the checkout to go to your micropayments paypal account if sale is less than $12 and to the macropaymetns account for over $12. Until then, I'm going to give micropayments a shot.

Posts: 3959
Joined: 08/07/2007
AdministratorHead Code Monkey - I eat bugs.

Incredible! Thanks for the heads up on this. Regarding dual account info in Ubercart, I don't foresee any trouble setting it up... it'll just make the settings form a little more confusing. Sticking out tongue Is there anything that has to be done other than using a different business e-mail / API credentials?

Posts: 8
Joined: 03/22/2008

apparently not.
it just needs two accounts (two different business emails) for their side of things. i haven't actually tried the micropayments yet...after last post, a bunch of people bought hard copies of the cd's (14.95)... so i've been reluctant to make the switch.

man if you can make the two account thing happen, you will be my hero...

p.s. my site is live, but fine tuning things before i post.

thanks