the fee should always be 2.9% plus 30 cents or 3.9% plus 30 cents for cross border payments. If they are taking more, I would call. Here's a good site to figure out what fees should be:
http://www.rolbe.com/paypal.htm

On a transaction involving $9.70:

2.9% = .029
.029 x 9.70 = $0.28
$0.28 + $0.30 = $0.58

$0.58 / $9.70 = 0.059793814 = 5.98% of the total transaction

On a transaction involving $3.71:
.029 x $3.71 = 0.10859 -> 0.11
$0.11 + $0.30 = $0.41
$0.41 / $3.71 = .1105 -> 11.05% of the total transaction

The fee "hurts" the most on the very low dollar transactions.

Thanks for the math, Bear. It really puts their fees in perspective. This is why I don't sell on Ebay, since with all the fees, it adds up to a ridiculous amount of the sale lost.

Etsy is getting to be just as bad, too.

I do thank you for the PayPal fee info - I had no idea how the fees were calculated.

Yeah, it's that 30 cents that kills you on the small transactions. A flat percentage would be a lot better for sellers.

It depends on the type of account you have. I never pay to print out postage there. I have a business account with debit cards for me and my husband. While there are fees involved for receiving money, it evens out when I use the card as a charge card to buy postage at www.usps.com for those who paid by check, or for groceries, fabric and just about anything else -- the give cash back.

And that is part of why I no longer sell on eBay. They have very limited ways to get paid and Paypal is the major one. eBay owns Paypal.

I don't know anything about business accounts, but personal accounts do accrue fees now. They didn't used to but they have changed all that. I used to have a personal account and a premiere account and would ask people (not ebay but other sales) to send to my personal if they were using bank/existing funds and to my premiere (with fees no matter what the transaction) for credit cards.

Do you have to have a certain amount of activity with a business account? Also the issue is not fees for printing postage but fees for receiving payments.

From the PayPal site:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees-outside]https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...y-fees-outside[/url]

Interesting. So unless you do more than 100K of business, fees are the same.

As I understood the site - the only way to get a lower rate is to do more than $3,000 (USD) per month and apply for their business rate.

I didn't read much further than that, because it didn't apply to me - - - -

The 1.9% rate applies to those that do MORE than $100,000 business PER MONTH.