We use PayPal for payments here at Swappa because they provide protections for both sides of the transaction — buyer and seller. A bit more specific, Swappa uses PayPal for Marketplaces, which allows a buyer to send a payment to the seller, and to Swappa, in one payment transaction. While this simplifies things on the buyer side, from time-to-time, it can cause some confusion on the seller side due to what PayPal lists as the Partner Fee.
Does Swappa charge any seller fees?
Getting directly to the point here…Swappa does not charge any seller fees.
That is an accurate statement, but due to how PayPal for Marketplaces works, sellers see two fees listed in the transaction details for any payment they receive from a Swappa sale.
The first fee is the standard PayPal fee, which is charged by PayPal. The PayPal fee is always shown in the transaction details and those can be found in your PayPal account history. However, checking the details of the transaction is where a seller may notice the second fee, the Partner Fee.
What is a PayPal Partner Fee?
The Partner Fee is included as a part of a PayPal for Marketplaces transaction. This partner fee can mean different things for different marketplaces. On Swappa, the Partner Fee is a combination of the Swappa sale fee and sales tax (where required).
On Swappa, the Partner Fee is always paid by the buyer.
When a seller creates a listing on Swappa, one of the first pieces of information they enter is an Ask Price. The Ask Price is the amount the seller wants to get paid for the item they are selling. Once their item has been purchased — the Ask Price is the amount the seller gets paid (minus the standard PayPal fee charged by PayPal). As an example:
- If you want to sell an item for $100, you would set your Ask Price to be $100 when you create your listing.
- When your item is purchased, you get paid $100, minus the fee charged by PayPal, which at this time is 2.9% plus a fixed fee of $0.30.
Sounds simple enough so far. But due to how PayPal for Marketplaces transactions have the buyer sending a payment to the seller and a payment to Swappa in a single transaction — the buyer fees (noted as the Partner Fee), need to be shown as part of the overall transaction details. This is the point where there may be some confusion. Due to the way PayPal includes the Partner Fee in the seller’s transaction details — it may not always be immediately clear who paid the Partner Fee.
If you sold something on Swappa, and the PayPal payment doesn’t seem correct at first glance — think back to the Ask Price you set when you created your listing. The payment you received will always be your Ask Price (minus the standard PayPal fee). If you have any questions regarding the fee charged by PayPal, we encourage you to reach out to PayPal support.
