PayPal business account Australia: Fees, features & alternatives

PayPal is a popular tool for businesses all over the world, providing a quick, easy and secure way to pay suppliers and get paid. PayPal offers a dedicated business account, plus solutions that can turn your website into an online store. There’s even a PayPal Business app for managing sales and issuing invoices on the move.

Here, we’ll delve into the details of the PayPal Business account, including the features on offer, fees involved and alternatives like Wise Business for global business transactions.

PayPal business account in Australia - An overview

Does PayPal offer a business account in Australia?

PayPal offers a dedicated business account, and there’s good news – it is available in Australia. It’s relatively easy to set up, but it does take a little time to confirm your email address, link a bank account and run through some security settings.

Once you’re all set up as a business user, you can then consider taking advantage of some of PayPal’s other business solutions if they meet your needs. For example, Website Payments Pro (a hosted solution), a PayPal Here card reader and the PayPal Business app.

PayPal for business - features

The PayPal Business account offers a number of features and benefits², including:

• Multiple ways to accept payments from your customers – including online via your website or PayPal Business app, or in person with a virtual terminal or PayPal Here card reader
• Mobile-optimised payment experience
• Access to a PayPal Working Capital business loan if you need it
• Send customisable online invoices
• Integration with third-party solutions such as accounting software
• mCommerce Index³ – insights into mobile commerce trends in Australia
• PCI compliant checkout.

PayPal Business account fees in Australia

When deciding whether a PayPal Business account is right for you, this is what it all comes down to – how much it costs. PayPal doesn’t charge any setup, withdrawal or cancellation fees, nor does it tie you into a long-term contract⁴. But it does charge individual fees for transactions and services when you use the account.

Let’s take a look at how the figures stack up when making transactions within Australia:

Now, what about international transfers with your PayPal Business account? If your business trades worldwide, these fees are going to be pretty crucial.

Here’s what PayPal charges for sending and receiving global payments, compared to an alternative provider such as Wise Business. Let’s us take a hypotehtical use case where an Australian business is looking to send AUD 1000 to it's logistic partner in France.

The true cost of sending USD to GBP

While Wise is not always the cheapest when converting money, it still offers the lowest possible rate with no hidden markup on the real exchange rate. As you can see, it could cost you far more at times to use PayPal when you factor in the mark-up on the exchange rate.

This is the amount that a provider like PayPal adds on top of the mid-market rate that you’ll find on currency sites like XE.com or on Google. It can make your transaction a whole lot more expensive.

Some alternatives for PayPal Business accounts

PayPal is a great tool for many businesses, but it is far from the online solution out there. It’s also not the cheapest for every type of transaction, such as sending and receiving money internationally, for example. Here’s a rundown of some of the alternatives to PayPal available.

Wise Business¹³

The Wise Business account aims to simplify international business payments where conversions are made at the mid-market rate with no hidden markups. It allows business to make international payments to over 140+ currencies with transparent and low conversion fees.

You can even receive payments in multiple currencies and only pay a small fee if you need to convert currency. When you factor in all fees and exchange rates, Wise can help you save up to 3x more than other providers when sending money abroad.

Here's what comes with a Wise Business account:

• Free to register — Hold and convert between 40+ currencies. Send to 140+ countries
• Debit and expense cards for you and your team, which you can use in 150+ countries
• Multi-user access for team members, with ways to control and manage permissions
• Pay up to 1,000 people at once with the Wise batch payments feature
• Integrate with your favourite cloud accounting solutions like Xero, Quickbooks, and more
• Get account details to receive in 8+ currencies for a one-time fee of 65 AUD

Sign up for the Wise Business account! 🚀

Braintree⁸

Owned by PayPal but seeming to operate fairly independently, Braintree offers both a payment gateway and a merchant account. As it offers discounts for businesses with larger monthly revenue through the platform, it’s best suited to larger and established online retailers, especially those that trade internationally. However, fees for international payments are a tad steep at 3.90% + $0.30 per transaction⁹.

Braintree supports digital wallets like Apple Pay and of course, PayPal, along with 130+ currencies. Sign up with Braintree and you’ll also get reporting functions, third party integrations and a choice of basic and advanced fraud tools.

OFX

OFX has business solutions for organisations of all sizes, plus options for online sellers. It’s geared towards helping businesses to save money on international transfers, offering fast and secure payments.

OFX offers what it describes as ‘bank-beating’ rates¹⁰, but these still include a margin added on top¹¹ so may still not be the cheapest out there. There’s also a minimum transfer value of $250, and a transfer fee of $15 if you transfer less than $10,000¹² – so it may not be the best choice for small businesses.

Making Wise decisions when it comes to cross-border business transactions

So now you have the full picture on the PayPal Business account, including all of its features and fees, you should have a better idea of whether it’s right for you. With the range of Remember that there are lots of alternatives available, it wouldmake sense to understand the type of account that fits your need and how you aim to leverage it.

Sign up for the Wise Business account! 🚀

Sources used:

Sources checked on 20-July 2020.