I just accepted a credit card payment of $350 using my personal PayPal account. PayPal took $20.95 of it ( ) since I decided not to upgrade to a premier account ( Thought it might cost a one time big fee ). Nonetheless, I became curious and went on to investigate what a premier account really is. I pushed the 'Upgrade my account' button since I wanted to know more and see how much it costs. But then suddenly, my account was upgraded to a premier account! What does a premier account mean? Are there only fees per transaction? Will they EVER charge off my credit card due to some 'Premier account reasons'? Can / Should I downgrade if I don't accept credit card payments / sell things regularly?
Paypal Premier account are accounts you signed up with if you intend to use the account to receive money from sales of products or services. Since you are in business and that you benefitted from Paypal's services, they would need to collect a fee in order to pay for the services which they offer. Remember that Paypal is not a charity and they do have expenses to pay too. A Paypal Personal account are accounts designed for customers who want to use paypal to spend money from and thus no fees there as the vendors are the ones who benefits from the sales and would bare the fees. The Personal account is thus not to be used for making money through. It does not have merchant services. If you think the $20 fees is a lot, do you think the $350 you charge your customer to be excessive too ? Would you have made the sale if you did not use Paypal ? Of course, you can opt to downgrade to a personal account but by doing that, you would certainly need to stop using Paypal to collect money from any sales or to make money from.
Ok, I just wanted to know if it costs to have a Premier account ( e.g. they charge an annual fee of my credit card ) if it is not so, I'm fine with it.
Paypal charges fees per transaction, no monthly or annual fees at all. Go to the Paypal site and click on 'Fees' listed at the bottom of the page, that should tell you what you be charged per transaction.
I think it's worth it. Definitely cost a lot monthly if you receive more than thousands monthly like me through paypal. However, if I didn't upgrade I would lose many customers because personal accounts only allow 2-3 credit cards money transfer + no echeque every month. And yes there is away to avoid that high fee if the clients pay you through their paypal account instead of using subscription/donation button provided by paypal.
Actually the personal account can receie up to 5 credit card payments a year at a higher fees and you are restricted to people who have existing balance (ie other sellers from the 40 out of the 190 paypal supported countries provided that they did not withdraw their money yet).