Getting micropayments for your site

I’ve been researching micropayments for the games that we have.

The most obvious payment site that everyone usually starts with is Paypal, but since they have a flat fee of at least 20p on each transaction, taking smaller payments, even £1 is not worth it.

There are two things to consider, one is the transaction fees, the other is the accessibility of payments. The obvious problem with charging for a game is that a lot of users will not have a credit card yet (they are underage), and therefore payment is limited to bank account transfer or mobile payments.

In terms of credit card payments, the three companies to consider are Paypal, MoneyBookers and Amazon.

We will look at two examples, a customer paying £1 and £10

Paypal – Fixed fees for any amount

£1 – Fee: Approx: 23p – 23%

£10 – Fee: Approx: 54p – 5.4%

MoneyBookers

£1 – Fee: Approx: 21p – 21%

£10 – Fee: Approx 38p – 3.8%

Amazon

£1 – Fee: Approx 0.09 – 9%

£10 – Fee: Approx 54p – 5.4%

So, Amazon wins the micropayments battle, by a big margin, however differences are quite small at £10, with MoneyBookers being slightly better.