How to do PayPal "Mass Pay" payments and avoid fees. Read and learn!

[Stian]

I stumble upon a lot of people all the time who does not know how to pay with PayPal's "mass pay" feature, which only costs $1 in fees, instead of the usual 4%. I will therefore try to write a quick guide on how to do this. It is quick, easy and as long as you're paying with PayPal balance, anyone can do it. Some people believe that PayPal is only charging fees if the buyer is paying from credit card, but this is not right. PayPal charges roughly 4% of the amount from the payee, even though it is a PayPal balance payment.

Mass pay can be made only from a Premier/Business account, not from Personal accounts. Paypal does not charge incoming payments from balance to private accounts, so if you pay someone with a private account, just send normal payment, its free.

I know most of the experienced domainers on this forum knows how to do a Mass Payment, but I thought this might be useful for all the new domainers out there. Here we go..

Mass Payment

According to PayPal's mass pay instructions, you are supposed to create an Excel file with the payment information and save the file as a text file with tab separated values. I believe there is a much easier way to do it:

I. Open up notepad (or any text/ascii editor)

II. Type the following information, separated by tabs (use tab key, not spaces).


An example of a payment text file:

payment@domainsale.com 999 USD

This textfile will, when uploaded to PayPal, process a payment of $999 US Dollars to the PayPal address payment@domainsale.com

Save the textfile as anything you'd like, just try to remember where you saved it for later.

III. Log in to your PayPal account the usual way, but instead of sending a payment the regular way, look for the small link on the bottom of your screen that says "Mass Pay". Found it? Good, now click it.

Mass Pay Screenshot

IV. You are now one step away from doing a mass payment. Browse to find the text file you just created in notepad and upload it to PayPal as directed. Type in the e-mail address you want the receipt to be sent to and perform the payment by clicking the button.



Voila! The PayPal recipient has now received his/her payment and it only cost you $1 in fees, instead of 4% !

Good luck with mass pay payments, it has saved me a couple of bucks as some deals involve adding the 4% fee to the final sales price.

[petrosc]

nice! thanks

[denny007]

Additional info:
Masspay can be made only from Premier/Businesss account, not from Personal accounts
Paypal does not charge incoming payments from balance to private accounts, so if you pay someone with private account just send normal payment, its free

[Argie]

Thanks for the info pcproffenno.

[Acro]

Wow, one saves 1.6 bucks per $100 (rate is 2% instead of 3.6%)

[denny007]

Wow, one saves 1.6 bucks per $100 (rate is 2% instead of 3.6%)

Well whenever I i.e. masspay Moniker $5K~$10K I save $200~$400

[Stian]

Wow, one saves 1.6 bucks per $100 (rate is 2% instead of 3.6%)

Fee is more than %4 to my premier account. Mass pay costs $1, fixed rate. That's a lot of money saved if you're thinking in the long term.

[italiandragon]

also, if you are paying someone who has their account in another currency , the fee is a little higher.

Problem is that I sometimes have to deal with people who don`t even know what "PayPal funded balance" means

Thanks for your nice post!

[netdevil]

This will save me lots and lots of dollars. I knew there will be something out there which can do it. But wasn't knowing how to save that money. So sad I lost a fortune till now in my career.

[simon]

i just tried sending Mass Payment it charged me 4 cents for 2$
that means it charged me 2% fee for Mass Payment and for your info- I have a business account

[Stian]

i just tried sending Mass Payment it charged me 4 cents for 2$
that means it charged me 2% fee for Mass Payment and for your info- I have a business account

Weird. I made a couple of $xxx payments and $x,xxx payment this week and I was charged $1 on all of them. I have a premier account, so that might be the difference here.

[Thomas Nash]

i just tried sending Mass Payment it charged me 4 cents for 2$
that means it charged me 2% fee for Mass Payment and for your info- I have a business account

It might be that they have a minimum amount for a 'Mass Payment', although I cant find it anywhere on their site.

[Yofie]

I have a business account and use mass pay daily.

What works best for me, is to create the "file" to upload at paypal using Microsoft Works, Spreadsheet, Email@ Account $11111 USD (has to be all caps) and then save as Text&Tabs.

No matter how much you send, it will cost the sender $1 and the person getting the money, will get the full amount.

Remember, you have to have the full amount IN your PP account, or the mass pay feature will not work.

Also, you can send Many, many payments all at once...

[simon]

will try in the future when i have to pay someone and will see how much they will charge

[katherine]

i just tried sending Mass Payment it charged me 4 cents for 2$
that means it charged me 2% fee for Mass Payment and for your info- I have a business account

I'm wondering if the fees for a German PP account are not different than a US account for example ?

[simon]

no idea. may be they charge 2% or 1$ (which ever is smaller)?
charging 1$ for 2$ payment is insane interms of percentage

[mediawizard]

I just made a payment for $55, charged me $1 and the other person was charged nothing.

Pretty good.

Thx a lot for the diy guide. Cheers!

[italiandragon]

I'm wondering if the fees for a German PP account are not different than a US account for example ?

There is a tab of the fees somewhere but if buyer and seller use different currency there are some little additional fees for currency conversion.

[Varchar]

Thanks... I was wondering how to do that.

Kawing

[Stian]

I'm glad someone found this post useful! Thanks.