I always thought PayPal's fee calculator was lying... turns out I was just bad at math

For like 2 years I'd send invoices through PayPal and wonder why my deposits were always a couple bucks short. I kept blaming it on some random hidden charge or a glitch. Then last month I actually sat down and used their fee calculator on purpose and... yeah. I was just doing the 2.9% plus 0.30 wrong in my head every single time. Felt real dumb but at least now I add that into my quotes. Anybody else have a facepalm moment with fees like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

drews5513d ago

Did you ever try just charging a small flat fee on top of your quotes? I started adding a buck or two to cover that gap and it saved me the headache.

lisab3213d ago

I read somewhere that a contractor was doing this and calling it a "materials handling fee" so customers didn't think it was random... it worked for him. A flat dollar amount is probably easier to explain than a percentage too. Might be worth trying for the next few jobs to see if anyone pushes back.

rowanw9113d ago

Oof, I've been there too. It's embarrassing how long it took me to figure out I was the problem, not the calculator.