> Speaking of fees... Stripe charges 2.9% + .30 cents per transaction. Some of the billers in the porn industry charge up to 30% per transaction. Yup, 30% (not cents; percent) PER CHARGE. So if we charge someone $1.00 for a 1 day trial, the biller gets 30 cents off the top.
This was a really bad example, as Stripe actually charges more than 30 cents for a $1 charge ;P. More reasonable companies (including PayPal) give you better rates for small receipts; PayPal offers 5%+$0.05 as a "micropayment rate". But yeah: with a better example, this is still clearly a point ;P.
The paypal route made you choose which type of processing the account would be. "microtransaction" account was indeed the 5% plus 5c, and the 'regular' was the 2.9%. One account didn't process both ways.
Would be nicer if paypal just ... adjusted your charges. I used paypal in a situation where some charges would be ~$5, and some would be $50+. The 5% rate applied to a $60 charge was comparatively crazy. I ended up creating 2 paypal accounts, and routed $5 charges to the 'micropayment' account, and others to the regular once. It was against paypal terms of service, technically, but... was also annoying. I was doing enough transactions that the 2% spread was... well... I wasn't raking in millions, but the 2-3k I did some months meant a difference of $50/month or so.
This was a really bad example, as Stripe actually charges more than 30 cents for a $1 charge ;P. More reasonable companies (including PayPal) give you better rates for small receipts; PayPal offers 5%+$0.05 as a "micropayment rate". But yeah: with a better example, this is still clearly a point ;P.