Google Checkout Fees Now Identical to PayPal

March 12, 2009

Google Checkout will increase their fees to the EXACT same structure as PayPal, beginning May 5, 2009:

http://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html

for reference, here are PayPal’s fees:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside&countries=

Interestingly, since PayPal offers an eCheck option, limited to $5 per transaction, max, customers spending over about $250 by eCheck make PayPal the cheaper option for the vendor.

And the Google-waived fees for related AdWords spends are now totally gone.

Sellers are not happy about this coming change, here are some thoughts:

Was nice while it lasted.

I imagine we’ll remove it as a payment method in May. I never really liked how they forced you to integrate it, anyway.

I moved away from paypal as Checkout Fees were cheaper. Now I’ll go back to offering both options. I think this is a premature move for G – at least here in the UK. Don’t know about elsewhere but I think here in the UK the average business and the average punter are more familiar with Paypal and are happier to pay by Paypal. There is now no incentive for businesses to favour Checkout. Paypal will be laughing right now.

Right – for me, it’s one more point of confusion and maintenance and a potential to redirect customers elsewhere. Plus, it gives them the option to opt-out of marketing emails, which I don’t see as a positive for my company.

I’m pretty sure we’ll drop them on 5/5 also. If we hear from customers that this is an issue, maybe we’ll reconsider, but I doubt it.

Frankly, since GC and PayPal now use the same tiered pricing, financially, I should only take one so that I can try to get as many of these off-site payments into the same basket and get the best tier. So, of course, I’ll go with the one with more sales currently. That’s PayPal, hands-down.

I wonder if PayPal will be the big winner here. They’re probably pretty happy with this news.