PayPal Review 2026

The DDR Score™ is Data Driven Reviews' proprietary evaluation methodology, scoring products across four weighted pillars: Cost (40%), Core Features (25%), User Sentiment (20%), and Company Credibility (15%). Cost and Core Features are scored separately for each way of getting paid, so PayPal has a DDR Score for each one it's scored in; User Sentiment and Company Credibility are scored once and shared.

Where PayPal works best, and why: its DDR Scores are 7.31 in person, 7.21 online and 7.15 on invoices out of 10, all Strong Performer level, which makes it one of two processors DDR rates as all-in-one. In person it charges one flat rate (the same price for every card) of 2.29% + 9¢, about $2.38 on a $100 sale, with a free point-of-sale app. Online it has the most complete feature set of any processor we score: all five major shopping carts, plus PayPal, Venmo and Pay Later at checkout. Its online cost score assumes card payments through Advanced card processing; when customers pay with PayPal or Venmo, the rate is higher.

DDR's synthesis of recurring review themes is mixed, which is why Sentiment sits at 4.36 while PayPal's Cost and Credibility scores are much higher. The most consistent praise is that customers already know and trust PayPal, and like being able to pay with it. Sellers also value seller protection (PayPal covering some disputed sales that meet its rules). Setting up, linking accounts and sending invoices or payment links are described as easy, and money reaches the PayPal balance quickly. Reviews of the in-person app are split, with praise for phone and chat help alongside reports of card readers failing.

Fees are the most common complaint by a wide margin, though much of it concerns cross-border and currency-conversion fees that a US business selling at home may not pay. Complaints that do apply in the US include chargeback fees charged even when the original order was fraud, processing fees not returned when a sale is refunded, and a sense that fees aren't transparent. Support is often described as slow or automated, leaving complex issues open, and disputes as favoring the buyer. Holds, limits and frozen balances also recur, as they do across payment processors, where they are the most common serious complaint; in DDR's review synthesis they come up about as often for PayPal as for most.

Information is synthesized from recurring review data themes and sentiment.

PayPal has no plans to choose between for most businesses: each way a customer can pay has its own flat rate, and you pay only when you make a sale. Online sellers using Advanced card processing can ask to pay each card's actual bank fee plus a PayPal markup instead (Interchange Plus Plus, below).

Which rate applies to you: PayPal charges flat rates, so a rewards or business card costs you the same as a debit card. What changes the price is how the customer pays and which PayPal product takes the payment. On a $100 sale: in person on PayPal POS, a tapped or inserted card costs 2.29% + 9¢, about $2.38, and a card typed in by hand 3.49% + 9¢, $3.58, because typed-in payments carry more fraud risk. Online, paying by card, it costs 2.89% + 29¢, about $3.18, if your checkout page has PayPal's card fields built in (Advanced card processing), or 2.99% + 49¢, $3.48, if the card goes through PayPal's checkout buttons; your cart's PayPal settings, or whoever built your site, can tell you which you have. Online, paying with PayPal or Venmo (or PayPal Guest Checkout) costs 3.49% + 49¢, about $3.98, whatever product you use, and Pay Later 4.99% + 49¢, $5.48. Invoices cost $3.48 by card, $3.98 by PayPal or Venmo, and $1 when the customer pays from their bank account (Pay by Bank). Phone orders typed into PayPal's Virtual Terminal cost 3.39% + 29¢, $3.68. PayPal's pages don't say why PayPal and Venmo payments cost more than cards. Price your own mix in the PayPal fee calculator.

Interchange Plus Plus: businesses using Advanced card processing can ask PayPal to switch to interchange pricing (PayPal calls it Interchange Plus Plus): each card's bank fee passed through at cost, plus PayPal's 0.49% + 39¢, not 0.49% in total. On a $100 online sale that comes to about $2.93 in DDR's model, against $3.18 at the flat rate, and it has no surcharge for cards issued outside the US. It needs a separate agreement. Businesses with large annual sales can also ask PayPal's sales team for custom rates; no threshold is published. Card processing basics compares flat rates and interchange pricing.

Where PayPal is cheap, and where it isn't: in person, PayPal is third-lowest of seven processors in DDR's cost model at $10,000 a month of $35 sales (an effective rate, total fees divided by card sales, of about 2.63%), and fourth of seven at $50,000 and $150,000 a month (about 2.50% and 2.55%). It has no volume discount, so processors with volume tiers or monthly plans overtake it as sales grow. Online it is second of nine at $5,000 a month (about 3.37%) and third at $30,000 and $100,000 (about 3.25% and 3.28%), but only for card payments through Advanced card processing; at PayPal Checkout's 3.49% + 49¢ it would sit near the bottom of the nine. On invoices, with half paid from customers' bank accounts, it is fifth of eight for $800 consumer invoices (about 2.03%) and fourth for $2,500 business invoices (about 1.71%), helped by the $10 cap on Pay by Bank. Compare other processors in the fee calculator.

Volume discounts: PayPal's rates don't drop automatically as your sales grow. Besides Interchange Plus Plus (above), PayPal says custom rates and interchange pricing are available to established businesses through its sales team; it publishes no threshold or custom rates, so DDR's cost scores use the list rates. Registered charities can apply for a lower rate, from 1.99% plus a fixed fee.

Other fees: cards issued outside the US add 1.5% ($1.50 on a $100 sale), and currency conversion costs 3% to 4%. Optional products for taking cards on your own website have monthly fees: Payments Advanced $5, Payflow Pro $25, Payments Pro $30. Hardware: PayPal Card Reader $29 for your first (new users; PayPal says the offer may end), $79 after; Terminal $199, or $239 with a barcode scanner. Tap to Pay is listed at 2.29% + 9¢ on PayPal's pricing page but at 2.29% with no fixed fee on its Tap to Pay page.

Want to compare all plans side by side? PayPal Merchant Fees Page

PayPal works with all five major shopping carts. It is built into Shopify, where Shopify's outside-processor fee (2% on the Basic plan) is waived for PayPal orders only if Shopify Payments is your main payment provider; into BigCommerce, with no cart fee; and into Wix and Squarespace, where Squarespace's Basic plan adds its 2% fee. For WooCommerce, PayPal makes an official free plugin. See which processors work with which carts.

For bookkeeping, QuickBooks Online's bank feeds connect to PayPal through a connection Intuit builds: anything that changes your PayPal balance is imported every 3 hours for you to match, but PayPal's fees aren't shown as separate transactions. PayPal builds its own Xero app, which adds a "Pay now" button to Xero invoices. See QuickBooks payment integrations.

Getting approved, how fast PayPal pays you, and the hold terms to plan for:

Verified November 2026 against PayPal's help pages and US user agreement. Holds on new accounts are the most common complaint about payment processors in general, and come up about as often for PayPal as for most in DDR's review synthesis. Keep a cash cushion for the first months. How to avoid a hold.