PPCalc, as I call it, is a free web-based tool that allows people to calculate what their PayPal fees would be to receive a certain amount or to reverse calculate their fees to determine what amount a person would have to send them for them to receive a certain amount after fees. This tool has actually been around a while. I originally wrote it back in May of 2005 as a way of learning HTML and Javascript for the first time. Back then it was very primative, crudely designed, and only supported a single fee rate. I’ve since improved it vastly and learned more about writing cleaner, more efficient HTML and Javascript code in the process.

Program Version;

http://www.rolbe.com/ppcalc2.2.zip

Visit PPCalc version 4.0 (January 26, 2009)

With this new re-design I decided to go for a more simplistic approach. I opted for a centered, fixed-width design, with large fonts and text boxes so that people could easily see and enter their amounts. I also completely eliminated the Calculate and Clear buttons, because both are unneccassary if you can have your fees calculated “on-the-fly” as you type. Also, rather than including built-in fee rates, where you would select your source country, destination country, and monthly sales volume from a drop-down list and the calculator would tell you your fee rate, I decided it would be easier just to include a large editable textbox that included the default fee rate for each country and a “help me decide” link that leads to PayPal’s fee page. That way people can easily find their fee rate on the official PayPal.com fees page if they don’t know.

To accomodate people from other countries I placed flag icons underneath the editable fee rate box. If you click on one of these flag icons the default fee rate for that country is loaded into the calculator. So for example, if you are from Australia, all you have to do is click on the Australia flag and your default fee rate of 2.4% + $0.30 AUD is loaded into the calculator. If you have amounts already entered in, the new fee rate is instantly reflected in them as well. From a usability perspective I think this is a lot easier than having to open and sift through a drop-down list of 100+ countries trying to find the country you’re looking for.

Online Versions;

http://www.rolbe.com/paypal.htm
http://www.rolbe.com/ppcalc.htm

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