4 Min. Read

What Are the Different Types of PayPal Accounts?

January 16, 2024

PayPal is a popular payment platform with a wide customer base.

It is used for payments both online and off and is used for personal bank accounts as well as business accounts.

Small businesses all over the world use PayPal as a form of taking online payment, and it is generally trusted by both sellers and consumers.

But what exactly does PayPal offer and what are the different types of PayPal accounts? We’ll take a closer look at this and more.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

The 3 Types of PayPal Accounts

Is There an Alternative to PayPal?

Key Takeaways

The 3 Types of PayPal Accounts

When PayPal first started in 1998, it offered two different types of accounts: Personal accounts and Business accounts.

Since then, they’ve added a third account type named “PayPal Payments Pro”. Here’s a breakdown of each account type:

1. Personal Account

Personal accounts are geared towards people who just want an online debit card or credit card payment processor. It’s ideal for sending and requesting money to family and money to friends.

It’s also perfect for receiving money if you sell goods and services on an online marketplace such as eBay or Etsy. This is because it only charges a very small fee.

The downside of using your personal account to sell is that your name will be shown on each transaction. This can affect your online privacy, especially if you sell under a pseudonym.

Using a personal account to sell also limits the form of payments you can accept. So it’s only a good option for people who occasionally sell goods or services.

2. Business Account

PayPal’s business account is tailored towards business users whose purpose is to sell products and services online. It can be used by E-Commerce businesses as well as brick-and-mortar stores.

A business account includes all of the benefits that come with a personal account, as well as the following additional services:

You can accept payments by credit card, debit card and from other PayPal accounts.
You can send and receive payments under your business name which helps secure your privacy.
You can allow up to 200 employees to have access to your business account.
It allows you to track payments, get live customer support and print labels.

These extra reasons are why setting up a business account is ideal for somebody who deals with payments on a regular basis.

3. PayPal Payment Pro Account

PayPal Pro is most suited for big businesses that have a large number of transactions every day.

It offers all of the benefits of a business account whilst also having the ability to receive further payments. You can receive payments by phone, fax and mail which opens up your options.

PayPal Pro allows you to benefit from lower rates, no set-up fees and no cancellation fees.

Is There an Alternative to PayPal?

We might be seen as biased here, but FreshBooks is a fantastic alternative choice to PayPal.

FreshBooks offers FreshBooks Payments. This is a solution that makes it easier for your clients to process online transactions. That means you can get paid twice as fast.

Its services are perfectly tailored for small business owners looking to accept all types of payments.

With invoices, payments, credits, and other financial information in one place, it’s easy to keep track of your employees and your clients.

Their software will alert you when your clients pay expenses. They also deliver customizable expense reports. This makes things easy for your accounting department.

They offer simple pricing, the software is easy to use and there are no hidden costs.

FreshBooks offers a free trial. This means you can try it out to see if it fits your business before putting any money down.

Once your trial is up, FreshBooks’ basic plan offers its ‘lite’ services for just $19.00 per month.