PayPal, Venmo and Cash App Fees for Selling Locally and Online

What each app takes on a $100 sale

Rates below were read on each company’s own fee page on October 5, 2026. Goods and services is the payment type the apps use for purchases; personal payments between friends are a separate category, covered further down.

Where the rates come from:

• PayPal (merchant fee page, last updated October 1, 2026) lists sending or receiving money for goods and services at 2.99% with no fixed fee, while PayPal Checkout, Guest Checkout and Pay with Venmo are 3.49% plus a $0.49 fixed fee, and standard card payments are 2.99% + $0.49. A buyer outside the U.S. adds 1.50%: on $100 that makes goods and services $4.49 and Checkout $5.48. PayPal’s consumer fee page sends personal accounts to the merchant page for selling rates.
• Venmo (fee page) charges 2.99% when a payment to a personal account is marked as goods and services, and 1.9% + $0.10 for payments to a business profile.
• Cash App (business fees) charges 2.6% + $0.15 on each payment to a Cash App Business account, and 3% for Tap to Pay in person.

On a $40 local sale the gap is about a dollar: Venmo business $0.86, Cash App for Business $1.19, PayPal or Venmo goods and services $1.20, PayPal Checkout $1.89, which is $1.03 more than the cheapest.

Which one fits which kind of sale

The cheapest rate on the list belongs to a Venmo business profile (1.9% + $0.10), which is a separate profile from a personal Venmo account. Cash App for Business is close behind on mid-size sales. PayPal Checkout and invoices cost the most because of the 3.49% rate and the $0.49 fixed fee, which weighs more on small amounts: on a $10 sale the fixed fee alone is 4.9% of the price. If a buyer pays from abroad through PayPal, the 1.50% international add-on applies on top. Whatever you use, put the fee into your price before you quote it, the same way you would a marketplace fee.

Worked example: how much to request to receive $100

The quick formula is (target + fixed fee) ÷ (1 − rate), rounded up. For PayPal goods and services that’s $100 ÷ 0.9701 = $103.0822, which rounds up to $103.09. But the fee is rounded to the cent too, so one cent less already works:

The same check gives $104.12 for PayPal Checkout (the formula says $104.13) and $102.82 for Cash App for Business (formula $102.83). Our payment app fee calculator tests each cent, so it returns the smallest amount that works; apps may round differently by a cent.

If you also want the money in your bank today, the instant-transfer fee comes out of what you receive. To land $100.00 in your bank through PayPal goods and services and a PayPal personal instant transfer, request $104.92: PayPal keeps $3.14, you receive $101.78, and the 1.75% instant fee of $1.78 leaves $100.00.

Instant transfers cost more than the sale

Moving money out is free on the standard option and costs a percentage on the instant one, as of October 5, 2026 (Cash App: October 28, 2026):

• PayPal personal account: instant transfer 1.75% of the amount, minimum $0.25, maximum $25 (consumer fee page).
• PayPal business account: instant transfer 1.50%, minimum $0.50 (merchant fee page).
• Venmo: standard transfer free, typically 1 to 3 business days to a bank; Instant Transfer 1.75%, minimum $0.25, maximum $25.
• Cash App: standard transfers to a bank are free and usually arrive within 1 to 3 business days; Instant Transfer costs 0.5% to 2.5% of the amount, with a minimum of $0.25 to $1 and at most $75, and the app shows the fee before you confirm. That is what Cash App’s help center and Terms of Service say, both read October 28, 2026; one Cash App how-to page gives a narrower 0.5% to 1.75%.

On the $97.01 you receive from a $100 goods-and-services payment, an instant PayPal personal or Venmo transfer costs $1.70 and leaves $95.31, so the sale plus instant cash-out costs $4.69 in all. If you don’t need the money the same day, the standard transfer keeps that $1.70.

Goods and services vs friends and family

Both apps draw the line by what the payment is for. PayPal’s consumer fee page defines a personal (friends and family) transaction as one that isn’t for goods or services or any other commercial purpose. Venmo charges nothing on personal payments and charges the seller fee when the sender marks the payment as goods and services. So a sale paid as a personal payment is outside what the apps’ own definitions describe, even when the buyer suggests it to avoid the fee. Check each app’s user agreement for what that means for your account and for buyer and seller protections.

Two other costs to know when a sale goes wrong, from PayPal’s merchant page: a $15.00 standard dispute fee and a $20.00 settlement fee for card chargebacks, each in specific situations described there.

When a payment app sends a 1099-K

Payment apps report goods-and-services payments to the IRS on Form 1099-K. The IRS’s 1099-K page, read October 5, 2026, says an app must send one when payments for goods or services total over $20,000 in more than 200 transactions, and that it may send one for less. Each app counts separately. Money from friends and family as a gift or repayment of a personal expense shouldn’t be reported on a 1099-K and isn’t taxable income. And whatever the form says, income from selling goods has to be reported on your return.

Some states set their own, lower filing thresholds. Massachusetts requires a state 1099-K at $600 or more in gross payments regardless of the number of transactions, and Vermont’s tax department says it receives them when a processor paid $2,000 or more. The 1099-K checker lists the state rules we’ve confirmed and checks your own numbers. This is general information, not tax advice: ask a tax professional, the IRS or your state’s revenue department about your situation, and see reseller taxes after the 2025 law for the full picture.

Next step

Put your sale price and payment method into the payment app fee calculator. Switch it to the want-to-receive mode to get the exact amount to request, with or without an instant transfer to your bank. For the cash-out alone, the Cash App, Venmo and PayPal instant transfer calculators show the fee, its minimum and maximum, and the free standard option.