Pricing behavior — Payments & Billing APIs
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Pricing
Pricing for PayPal
How pricing changes as you scale: upgrade triggers, cost cliffs, and plan structure (not a live price list).
Sources linked — see verification below.
Freshness & verification
Pricing behavior (not a price list)
These points describe when users typically pay more and what usage patterns trigger upgrades.
Actions that trigger upgrades
- Transaction volume exceeds $100K/month - negotiate volume discounts available
- International sales growth - multi-currency pricing can reduce 3.9% international fees
- Need PayPal Payflow Gateway ($25/month) for direct card processing without PayPal button
- Require dedicated account management - available at enterprise tier
- Advanced fraud tools needed - PayPal Fraud Protection costs extra
What gets expensive first
- Account reserves unpredictable - PayPal can hold 10-30% of revenue for 90+ days
- Disputes favor buyers heavily - seller protection limited in digital goods cases
- Micropayments require separate pricing (5% + 5¢) - standard rates punitive under $10
- PayPal Credit financing costs passed to merchant (5.99% + 30¢ per transaction)
- API rate limits not publicly documented - can throttle at high volume
- Refunds do not return transaction fees ($0.30 lost per refund)
Plans and variants (structural only)
Grouped by type to show structure, not to rank or recommend SKUs.
Plans
- Standard Pricing - 2.9% + 30¢ domestic, 3.9% + fixed international - Instant activation, no monthly fees
- Micropayments - 5% + 5¢ per transaction - For transactions under $10
- PayPal Credit - 5.99% + 30¢ per financed transaction - Merchant cost for financing
Enterprise
- Enterprise - Custom pricing - Volume discounts, dedicated account management
Next step: constraints + what breaks first
Pricing tells you the cost cliffs; constraints tell you what forces a redesign.
Open the full decision brief →Sources & verification
Pricing and behavioral information comes from public documentation and structured research. When information is incomplete or volatile, we prefer to say so rather than guess.