
PayPal Unveils Micropayments For Digital Goods, Facebook Signs Up - bjonathan
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/26/paypal-unveils-micropayments-for-digital-goods-facebook-signs-up/
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KevinMS
Phony announcement. I've been using this for almost a year now. I guess they
are unveiling that they are now promoting micropayments. A year ago you could
google micropayments, links right to their micropayments site, and then
request that your paypal account be switched over to micropayments, with no
hassles.

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jbail
Amazon FPS fees are practically identical to Paypal.

Paypal Micropayments, $0.05 + 5% for transactions under $12 Amazon FPS, $0.05
+ 5% for transactions under $10

Paypal Micropayments = Over $12, $0.30 + 2.9% Amazon FPS, over $10, $0.30 +
2.9%

I don't see any details from Paypal about debit transactions, but Amazon
charges $0.05 + 2.0% for bank debits.

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StavrosK
Do they accept this for people not in the US yet?

Also, does Amazon switch rates automatically based on the transaction, or do
they force you to pick an account as well?

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jbail
Amazon does --- but it costs 1% more for transactions outside of the US.

Also, Amazon's rates automatically change based on the amount you are
charging.

All of this info is here: <http://aws.amazon.com/fps/pricing/>

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StavrosK
Fantastic, thank you.

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bkrausz
It's worth noting that this is an either-or pricing: you either get the
micropayments rate or the larger rate. Why they don't give you the cheaper
option is beyond me...you're paying an arm and a leg to collect on anything
larger than $12.

Also, their labs website doesn't work in Chrome:
<https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/>

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jbail
PayPal says it's cheaper for the seller above $12 to use the $.30 + 2.9% fee.
You are skeptical, so let's do the math:

$12 x 2.9% = $0.348 + $.30 (flat fee) = $0.648 $12 x 5% = $0.6 + $0.05 (flat
fee) = $0.65

The "larger rate" is actually cheaper above $12.

Amazon (whose fees are identical to Paypal except their magic number where you
move between fee scales is $10) actually creates a "dead zone" above $10 and
under $12 where you're charged at the higher rate which is more in processing
fees than the lower rate would be.

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bkrausz
You misinterpreted what I said: Paypal is saying you can either have the 2.9%
& $0.30 rate, or the 5% & $0.05 rate, applied to every transaction in your
account. When I say that they should give you the cheaper rate, I mean
whichever one costs less for that particular transaction. Right now they force
you to choose one.

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jbail
I gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. I don't use Paypal, so I was just
reading their site where I missed the key sentence, "Each PayPal account is
associated with only one merchant processing rate."

That sucks. I think that makes Amazon a bit more attractive for micropayment
processing.

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frederikfleck
This seems to be just new payment terms for micro payments. Anybody know if
they also plan to release anything to make UI better and more seamless
integrated with the site's/app's experience?

