PayPal does not make its pricing easy to find, so here it is in one table, current as at September 2026, with worked examples in Australian dollars.
The fees that matter
Transaction type
Domestic sale (goods and services)
International sale
QR code payment (domestic)
Currency conversion
Fee
2.90% + $0.30
3.90% + fixed fee
1.20%
3-4% margin on the rate
On a $100 sale
$3.20
$4.20 or more
$1.20
varies
Two things surprise people. The percentage applies to the whole amount including GST and postage, and small sales hurt most: on a $25 sale the domestic fee works out near 4.1% once the fixed 30 cents does its damage.
Three facts worth knowing before you rely on PayPal
1
There is no monthly fee.
You pay per transaction, which makes PayPal genuinely good for businesses with occasional sales.
2
Buyers win most disputes.
PayPal's dispute process leans toward the customer, so keep postage tracking on everything.
3
New accounts can have funds held.
First-time sellers often see 21-day holds until a track record builds. Plan cash flow around it.
When PayPal is enough, and when it is not
If you sell a handful of things occasionally, or invoice and want a pay-now button, PayPal alone is fine. The moment you want a real product catalogue, inventory and shipping rules, you are shopping for an ecommerce platform, and the right one depends entirely on your size.
Selling a little: the easy options
For digital products (ebooks, templates, courses, gift vouchers), Payhip is hard to beat: free to join, 5% per sale plus normal payment processing fees, no plugins and no store to maintain. You link to it from your existing website and you are selling the same afternoon. Square payment links and Stripe payment links do the same job for services and deposits.
This is the honest answer we give clients: a small seller does not need WooCommerce bolted to their site. A link that takes payment beats a store you have to maintain.
This is the honest answer we give clients: a small seller does not need WooCommerce bolted to their site. A link that takes payment beats a store you have to maintain.
Selling a lot: get a proper store, and proper help
Past roughly 10 products, or with inventory and shipping complexity, you want Shopify or WooCommerce built by someone who does ecommerce daily. We build small catalogues up to about 10 products and refer bigger stores to specialists we trust, because a half-right ecommerce build costs more to fix than to do properly.
Not sure which bucket you are in?
Email us what you sell and roughly how much, and we will point you in the right direction, even when the answer is not us.