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Technology · Sales

PayPal

paypal.com
SubscriptionPay as you go

PayPal is an online payments system supporting digital wallet checkouts, debit and credit card processing, and international money transfers.[1]

PayPal is a widely-used online payments system that facilitates secure money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional payment methods. It offers various services including online money transfers, mobile payments, and e-commerce payment processing for businesses of all sizes.

PayPal belongs toPayment processorscategory.

Card processing fee

3 plus fixed fee per commercial transaction[1]

Digital wallet fee

3 plus fixed fee for PayPal Checkout transactions[1]

Standard dispute fee

$15 assessed per transaction dispute claim[1]

58websites

use it — 2.3% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months

#1of 27

tools in its category seen in our scans (we recognize 173)

5public pages

on UptimeCard — open any of them to see how that site is doing

In short: Offers recognized buyer trust and simple checkout buttons, but charges higher per-transaction rates than developer-first gateways.[1]

2.95% of all websites we track run PayPal▼ 0.01 points since 20 Sep

Should you use PayPal?

The 10-second version, from the vendor’s own pages and what we see in our scans

PayPal fits if…

  • Stores wanting high conversion from buyers who prefer paying with their existing PayPal account balances or credit lines.[1]

Look elsewhere if…

  • Developers needing fully customizable, code-centric recurring billing APIs and lower standard card processing percentages.[1]
Standard dispute fees can reach $15 per customer claim filed against commercial transactions.[1]

Products

In the vendor’s own words

PayPal Checkout

This page

Branded checkout button enabling shoppers to pay with PayPal accounts, debit cards, or credit options.[1]

PayPal Pay Later

Financing option allowing customers to split purchases into installment payments.[1]

PayPal Payouts

Disbursement solution enabling businesses to send batch payments to multiple recipients simultaneously.[1]

How PayPal sites protect themselves

Share of the 58 sites we scanned that run each protection

HSTS66% · 38 sites

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) informs browsers that the site should only be accessed using HTTPS

reCAPTCHA17% · 10 sites

reCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse

Akamai Bot Manager12% · 7 sites

Akamai Bot Manager detect bots using device fingerprinting bot signatures

Protections add up, they do not replace each other: a site can run all of them.

How PayPal sites are built

Closest partners. The number says how many times more often the tool runs on PayPal sites than on an average website. Hover a partner for its share of sites.

Venmo44×Visa34×Apple Pay29×Shop Pay28×Shopify19×Emotion3×Amazon S33×Akamai Bot Manager2×

Stacks we see most. Tools that tend to run together with PayPal on the same websites. The percentage is the share of all 58 PayPal sites that run the whole stack.

11 stacks · swipe, drag or use the arrows
#1

PayPal + Shopify + Apple Pay + Visa + Google Pay

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#2

PayPal + Apple Pay + Shop Pay + Visa + Mastercard

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#3

PayPal + Apple Pay + Shop Pay + Google Pay + American Express

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#4

PayPal + Shopify + Apple Pay + Mastercard + American Express

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#5

PayPal + Visa + Google Pay + Mastercard + American Express

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#6

PayPal + React + DigiCert

10.3%6 of 58 sites
#7

PayPal + React + Emotion

10.3%6 of 58 sites
#8

PayPal + React + styled-components

10.3%6 of 58 sites
#9

PayPal + React + Contentful

8.6%5 of 58 sites
#10

PayPal + DigiCert + Amazon S3

6.9%4 of 58 sites
#11

PayPal + DigiCert + Akamai

6.9%4 of 58 sites

Usually installed alongside

The bigger the bubble, the more of the 58 PayPal sites also run the tool. Colour shows what the tool does. Hover or tap a bubble for details.

Google Analytics48%Facebook Pixel21%Microsoft Clarity17%Google Tag Manager40%Cart Functionality35%Shopify22%Microsoft Advertising21%OneTrust19%Apple Pay19%Shop Pay16%Venmo12%
AnalyticsTag managerOnline storeAdvertisingCookie consentPayments

Similar tools in its category

Payment processors: 173 tools known, 27 seen in our scans

Stripe23 sitesAlternativeBitPay10 sitesAlternativeKlarna Checkout7 sitesAlternativeAffirm6 sitesAlternativeAmazon Pay5 sitesAlternativePlaid5 sitesAlternativeRecharge3 sitesAlternativePayU Payment3 sitesAlternativeApple Pay17 sitesUsed togetherShop Pay14 sitesUsed togetherGoogle Pay9 sitesUsed togetherVisa9 sitesUsed together

Websites using PayPal

58 websites use PayPal: 2.3% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months. A selection is shown below.

Scores are out of 100: P Performance · A Accessibility · B Best practices · S SEO. Green 80+, yellow 65–79, orange 50–64, red below 50. The dot shows whether our last scan found the site failing (red) or not (green); Red, amber or blue: an active incident on the site's status page (outage, degraded, maintenance) or a failing scan; amber also means a certificate ending within 30 days. Hover the dot for details.

Who is behind PayPal

From its own pages and public records, with sources

Operated by

PayPal, Inc.[2]

San Jose, California · since 1998[2][3]

Its story

  1. 1998

    Original predecessor company established in December 1998 to develop cryptography software for handheld devices.[3]

  2. 1999

    Initial electronic payment system launched in 1999 to enable digital money transfers between web accounts.[3]

  3. 2002

    Initial public offering completed on NASDAQ in 2002 before joining the online auction marketplace.[3]

  4. 2013

    Mobile developer infrastructure expanded in 2013 through the addition of payment gateway Braintree.[3]

  5. 2015

    Corporate spin-off completed in 2015, returning the payment system to an independent publicly traded enterprise.[3]

  6. 2018

    In-store point of sale processing expanded in 2018 with the addition of European card reader provider iZettle.[3]

  7. 2020

    Shopping tools and price discovery joined the digital wallet in 2020 through the integration of Honey.[3]

Questions about PayPal

How many websites use PayPal?
We found PayPal on 58 of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months (2.3%). 5 of them have a public status page.
What is PayPal often used with?
Among the websites we scan, PayPal is often found alongside React (32.8% of its sites), DigiCert (22.4% of its sites), Shopify (22.4% of its sites).
What are the alternatives to PayPal?
Other payment processors we recognize include Stripe, Apple Pay, Shop Pay, BitPay.

Is your website built with PayPal?

UptimeCard checks it around the clock, tells you the minute it stops answering, and gives your visitors a status page.

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