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.
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.
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.
$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.