PayPal MassPay is a very useful feature, in case you haven’t heard about it, which every paypal user should make use of whenever possible. Most people have wrong assumptions about paypal, that paypal charges the regular 4% fee only if you pay by credit card, but in reality it charges ~ 4% every time one receives money to their premier or business account even if the payment comes from the senders Paypal balance.
“MassPay” feature if used effectively will help you save tons of money over a period of time.
Most newbies would not have heard about or inspected in detail this feature because of which they’ll be loosing tons of money every single day. All experienced folks definitely will be using this feature, and hence this article targeted at the newbies who will surely benefit from this post. Here we go a short and simple guide which will explain:
1>What Paypal MassPay is?
2>Who should use Paypal MassPay?
3>Prerequisites to use Paypal MassPay,
4>How to use Paypal MassPay?
What is Paypal MassPay?
MassPay is a simple tool which lets you send paypal cash to any paypal member for a nominal fee.
In any regular transaction, if you send money to a paypal member who has a premier/business account, the receiver gets the money after a ~ 3.6 – 4% fee cut. This means if you send $100, then the receiver gets approximately a little above $96 and if you send $1000 the receiver gets somewhere around $960 + loosing approximately ~ $40.
If the same amount is sent using Paypal Masspay feature, then the receiver gets the money after a fee cut of 2% or $1 (which ever is lesser). This means if you send $25 then the receiver gets $24.50, for $100 the receiver gets $99, for $1000 the receiver gets $999 and so on.
Who should use Paypal MassPay?
If you are giving pay-to-surf rewards, or paying your affiliates their monthly share, giving your employees bonuses or any plain transaction within your known community, you should use Paypal Masspay.
Prerequisites to use Paypal MassPay:
The sender should have a PayPal Premier or Business account. Make sure the receiver also has a Premier or Business account.
Note : If you are sending funds to a personal account, then send it the normal way as there is no fee involved when it comes to Personal Paypal accounts.
The sender should have enough funds to cover the paypal fee and the amount to be sent. You cannot use funds from credit card for Masspay.
How to use Paypal MassPay?
This link will give enough information about how to use Paypal MassPay:
https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_batch-payment-works-outside
Paypal recommends you to use Excel or any similar software. If you are not comfortable using them you can use any plain text/ascii editor.
Type in the following details:
paypal@paypal.com 99 USD MassPayExample
If you are on windows platform then create a new text fie and save the above mentioned data in it. Make sure they are separated by tabs and not spaces. If on linux you can try using the VIM editor. I haven’t tested, so you can use it at your own risk.
When you are logged into your account, you’ll notice a MassPay link at the bottom of the page.
Click on it and you’ll end up in a page where you’ll find “Make a Mass Payment” button on the left side bar.
Clicking on this page will take you to a page where you can upload the file you’ve stored MassPay information in.
Add remarks if you want and send payment. You are done.
Few things to keep in mind while you are sending the payment:
Here unlike the traditional way, they buyer won’t pay the fee, instead the fee has to be calculated by the sender. If you are asking someone to send payment to you, then make sure that you calculate the fee before hand and tell them how much exactly they have to send you. If you are charging $100 for a service, then tell the buyer to send $99, $1 will be automatically deducted from the buyers account hence he’ll be charged $100.
If you are sending money to someone then ensure that you know the seller well enough. As the protection offered by MassPay is very minimal. You cannot cancel your payments and as far as I know there is no way of getting your money back once sent.
Safety wise, this seems to be a corner case. If in case you are dealing with a seller for the first time, then you are better off using the regular payment modes rather than risking your money.
I’ve put in all points I think anyone needs to know. If you know any extra points please do add to the list.