4 ms·

Hmm... So if I want to have $0.99 payments, it will cost me 32% to go with paypal or 26% to go with setting up my own merchant account, and both are only for

by YooLi 16y ago

Hmm... So if I want to have $0.99 payments, it will cost me 32% to go with paypal or 26% to go with setting up my own merchant account, and both are only for domestic payments. Suddenly Apple's 30% for payments from ~100 countries sounds like a bargain.

pitdesi 16y ago
That's true for $0.99 app purchases. Apple has a lot of power in that they can pool the transactions and actually charge your credit card not for $0.99, but for all your purchases over a certain time period. This is something an individual app maker couldn't do and makes perfect sense for Apple to do. Where I think Apple is egregious is in their subscription pricing... for example, 30% is a lot to take on a $15 kindle book or $8 netflix subscription
SwellJoe 16y ago
PayPal has micropayments. 5%+$.05 fee, so it'd be ten cents to process your .99 example. I haven't figured out how to actually get these rates yet, but I've just started looking into micropayments options, and PayPal looks like one of the best.
- YooLi 16y ago
  Those are only domestic. If you want international, though still not as many countries as Apple, it would be 3.9% + $0.30 or thirty-four cents on the .99 example.
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    According to the PayPal website: "PayPal offers support for Micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction." Then, there is a currency conversion fee of 2.5% and a cross-border fee of 1% for payments from outside your country and currency. So, total for a foreign currency payment would be 8.5%+.05, if I'm reading it right. Dramatically cheaper than Apple. You can see all that here: https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/ https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/ Though the popups and menus don't work in Chrome, making it impossible to see all this information. Firefox 4 works fine, though. Anyway, it appears impossible to revert to the standard rates/fees structure with PayPal micropayments.

by YooLi 16y ago

pitdesi 16y ago

That's true for $0.99 app purchases. Apple has a lot of power in that they can pool the transactions and actually charge your credit card not for $0.99, but for all your purchases over a certain time period. This is something an individual app maker couldn't do and makes perfect sense for Apple to do. Where I think Apple is egregious is in their subscription pricing... for example, 30% is a lot to take on a $15 kindle book or $8 netflix subscription

SwellJoe 16y ago

PayPal has micropayments. 5%+$.05 fee, so it'd be ten cents to process your .99 example. I haven't figured out how to actually get these rates yet, but I've just started looking into micropayments options, and PayPal looks like one of the best.

YooLi 16y ago
Those are only domestic. If you want international, though still not as many countries as Apple, it would be 3.9% + $0.30 or thirty-four cents on the .99 example.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  According to the PayPal website: "PayPal offers support for Micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction." Then, there is a currency conversion fee of 2.5% and a cross-border fee of 1% for payments from outside your country and currency. So, total for a foreign currency payment would be 8.5%+.05, if I'm reading it right. Dramatically cheaper than Apple. You can see all that here: https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/ https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/ Though the popups and menus don't work in Chrome, making it impossible to see all this information. Firefox 4 works fine, though. Anyway, it appears impossible to revert to the standard rates/fees structure with PayPal micropayments.