If you’re making money online, you’re probably using PayPal to receive payments, whether you’re selling directly to your buyers or receiving payments from affiliate networks. Did you know that PayPal charges the transaction fee to the recipient — you.
For every transaction that you process through PayPal, it charges you 1.9% to 2.9% of the transaction amount. That might not be a lot at first glance, but if you look closely and add up all those small service fees that you’ve paid throughout the years, you might realize that PayPal has already made a fortune off of you. It’s not that they does not deserve the service fees that we pay them. It’s that we, as online entrepreneurs, should try to save every cent that we could, especially in these financially trying times.
If you feel the same, then you’ll be happy to know that there is a way to receive money via PayPal for free. It’s called Mass Payment.
What is Mass Payment?
It allows a PayPal Premier or Business account holder to send payments to multiple recipients payments instantly. It’s primarily designed for ‘non-sales’ related payments, such as affiliate commissions, rebates, prizes, and incentives.
What’s so good about it?
If you’re the recipient, you pay no fees. That’s right, it’s free. Compare that with the regular payment method where you — the recipient — has to shoulder the transaction fee.
If the recipient doesn’t pay the transaction fee, who does?
The sender does. The transaction fee is very low for this payment method. It’s 2.0% of the payment amount, with a cap (maximum fee) of $1.00.
I bought a domain name for $335 and used Mass Payment to send my payment. Yes, I had to pay $1.00 for the transaction fee, but it saved my seller around $13.00, which made him quite happy.
What do I need to use Mass Payment?
If you’re the sender, you need a Premier or Business PayPal account. You also need an ounce of patience as sending payment using this method requires some work.
Is there anything else that I need to know?
There’s just one downside to using this payment method — no buyer (sender) protection. Unlike the regular payment method in which the buyer can reverse the payment or do a chargeback (after, for example, receiving a faulty product), Mass Payment offers no protection for the sending party. No worries though if you are sending the payment to a trustworthy recipient.
To learn more about the steps for sending Mass Payment, visit the PayPal Web site.
[alert color=”white”]Mass Pay can only be used by PayPal Premier or Business account holders.[/alert]
Very useful article? Do you know can I charge a customer who buys on my site and pay it to the customer who sells it, like amazon.com?
Thanks!
Hey, thanks for laying this cool info out so clearly. I'm exploring how to use PP payment for our teams so they don't get charged like 4%. Will be reading your 'some work' link right away!