Why PayPal Fee Calculators Disagree: 2026 US Fees Explained

Selling goods or services does not automatically mean the separate Goods & Services rate applies. If the customer pays through PayPal Checkout on a website, look up the Checkout rate.

“The customer paid by card” is not precise enough either. A card funding a PayPal wallet payment does not necessarily qualify the merchant for the separate standard card rate. Identify the PayPal product actually used.

These USD 100.00 results match the corresponding examples on our Goods & Services and invoice calculator pages. Goods & Services and Checkout differ by USD 0.99. Checkout and standard card payments both include a USD 0.49 fixed fee, but their percentage rates differ, creating a USD 0.50 gap.

Pay Later and invoice ACH differ even more, but they are not freely interchangeable: availability depends on the payment context and eligibility. Before calling a USD 2.99, USD 3.48 or USD 3.98 result wrong, check which payment path it models.

For a USD 10.00 Checkout payment, the USD 0.84 fee is 8.40% of the amount, not simply 3.49%. Fixed fees matter particularly for small transactions.

Do not treat several orders as one payment. Ten separate USD 10.00 Checkout payments cost about USD 0.84 each, or USD 8.40 total. One USD 100.00 Checkout payment costs USD 3.98. The same USD 100.00 total produces a USD 4.42 difference because the fixed fee applies ten times instead of once, with rounding per payment.

For the same reason, entering a monthly total of USD 1,000.00 into a single-payment calculator will not give an exact monthly fee. The number and size of individual payments also matter.

The international condition alone adds USD 1.50 to this USD 100.00 Checkout example. The UK-to-US row explicitly assumes receipt in USD with no seller-side currency conversion. If GBP, EUR or another currency must be converted, an exchange-rate spread may apply, so USD 94.52 is not necessarily the final balance.

The fixed fee is not USD 0.49 for every currency. The US merchant schedule lists USD 0.49, EUR 0.39 and GBP 0.39. Use the currency actually received rather than carrying the USD fixed fee across currencies.

For Checkout, the formula below gives a starting estimate. The reverse calculation must then account for cents and fee rounding, rather than stop at the division.

Target net = invoice amount − fee
Fee ≈ invoice amount × 3.49% + USD 0.49
Invoice amount ≈ (target net + USD 0.49) ÷ (1 − 3.49%)

Checking in USD 0.01 increments finds the smallest invoice that reaches the net target. At USD 1,036.67, the fee is USD 36.67 and the net is USD 1,000.00. At USD 1,036.66, the fee is still USD 36.67, leaving USD 999.99, one cent short.

Invoice: USD 1,036.67
Fee = round(USD 1,036.67 × 3.49%, 2) + USD 0.49 = USD 36.67
Net = USD 1,036.67 − USD 36.67 = USD 1,000.00

Invoice: USD 1,036.66
Fee = USD 36.67
Net = USD 999.99 (USD 0.01 short)

ACH has a USD 10.00 cap per transaction. A calculator that keeps multiplying by 1.00% without applying the cap can overestimate large invoice fees. Our invoice calculator separates these methods, but availability depends on the merchant account and checkout flow. Gross-up calculations are pricing estimates, not unrestricted permission to add card surcharges.