PayPal Sellers Singapore: How to Calculate and Avoid Transaction Fees

If you’re someone who regularly transfers to overseas suppliers and receives money from global clients, chances are you’d have heard of PayPal. PayPal is one of the most popular fintech companies in the world, providing online money transfers and international transactions through a fast and secure payment system. 

PayPal's reputation has risen quickly in the last decade due to its fast transfer time and safe accounts. As compared to traditional ways of transferring money, PayPal transfers can be completed almost instantly, with a small fee charged for most transactions. As such, their clientele has been steadily increasing.

PayPal Personal vs Business Accounts

As with traditional bank accounts, PayPal also offers business and personal accounts. Personal accounts are for online shoppers or for people who want to transfer small amounts of money for day-to-day necessities. 

On the other hand, the business account is mostly for merchants with or without companies, with additional features such as allowing up to 200 employees limited access to your account and customer service emails.

How to calculate PayPal fees in Singapore

Personal and business accounts are charged different rates. The rates for an individual consumer are much easier to calculate than for a business account. We have summarised them into two tables.

Personal account

Source: PayPal

Business account

Source: PayPal

How to Avoid PayPal Fees

PayPal fees can often add up to a large amount of money, especially when you transfer and receive money on a regular basis. The answer to whether you can avoid PayPal fees is yes. There are a few ways:

Request your payments in your preferred currency

On PayPal, one of the most effective ways to avoid paying extra fees would be to request your payments in your preferred currency. In this way, you’ll be able to avoid currency conversion and be able to receive your payments whole. While most currency conversions can seem like they don’t add up to much, they actually do, especially for larger transactions. 

Request payments from a friend

Another way is to request payment as a friend. Keep in mind that this only works for personal accounts. If you’re running a business through a business account, chances are that this method won’t work for you. It’d be best if you upgrade your personal account to a business account if you’re running a business, so that the transactions are clearly recorded between your personal and business accounts.

Last but not least, you can choose to use other payment platforms. We’ve listed some in the next section.

Alternatives to PayPal

If PayPal’s fees are too high for you, you can also look for other payment platforms such as Airwallex, Stripe, and Wise.

All three provide fast and secure transfers, whether local or overseas.

Airwallex

Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015 and strives to empower modern businesses to grow beyond borders by making payments affordable. Airwallex’s Business Account can also be integrated with Xero, which is an accounting software updated in real-time, allowing you to manage invoicing, payroll, reporting, and more without red tape, whenever and wherever you are.

Airwallex also helps facilitate both local and international transfers with competitive rates of 0.4% or 0.6% FX margin above the base rate. 

Worth mentioning is also Airwallex’s safe and secure world-class payment gateway, which can be integrated with shopping platform extensions like Shopify and Magento. 

Stripe

Stripe is an Irish-American company that offers an online payment platform for online and in-person retailers, with most of its customers being SMEs.

Stripe is known for its payment gateway and safe and quick payment processes, as well as its strong customer service. You can also customise your site using Stripe Elements. If you shop online frequently, you’d have encountered Stripe as a payment platform on many SME websites.

Wise

Wise is a London-based financial technology company offering cheap and easy money transfers. Wise is easy to set up and use, and they charge a transfer fee for foreign currency exchanges. 

However, Wise Business Account has an account opening fee of SGD 54, as compared to other alternatives, so you might want to take this into consideration. 

Conclusion

PayPal is a great payment platform, but sometimes its fees can come up to large amounts if you're someone who makes international transfers frequently. 

We've looked at the different ways one can avoid PayPal fees, and a few alternatives to PayPal, such as Airwallex and Stripe, as well as traditional bank transfers.