PayPal Micropayments Tool Is Now Available to All

PayPal has now rolled out its micropayments solution for all developers and websites. PayPal for digital goods is designed for small transactions, mainly for virtual goods or services. It is meant to tackle the growing market for virtual goods where PayPal's existing fees system and interface didn't fit in well.

"PayPal for digital goods comes out of Beta and is widely available to game developers, media publishers, or anyone interested in selling digital content on a global scale," Carey Kolaja from PayPal Digital Goods announced.

"When consumers pay for online content, PayPal for digital goods allows them to pay in as little as two clicks without ever leaving a publisher’s game, news, music, video or media site. It’s the online equivalent to dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a gumball," she explained.

PayPal for digital goods charges five percent plus five cents for any transaction worth under $12. That's actually quite competitive and, especially for higher figures, PayPal's cut is smaller than what other payments services and operators charge.

Facebook takes 30 percent of any transaction involving Facebook Credits. Of course, there's no direct comparison between PayPal's new system and Facebook Credits, but with a $5 transaction, for example, PayPal's cut would come in at just six percent.

Besides the small fees, PayPal has revamped the payment process as well, people don't want to go through several steps and websites just to pay a few dollars. Publishers or merchants using the digital goods payments tool also get access to the money as soon as the user pays.

PayPal for digital goods doesn't direct the user away from the page they were viewing, an overlay popup is displayed enabling them to pay for a number of things with just a couple of clicks. PayPal has the big advantage of a huge existing network, but it has some catching up to do in the market.