Artists argue for hours about charging $40 an hour or $45. That gap is 12.5 per cent.
Then the money moves. On PayPal's published US schedule, a converted cross-border payment can cost 8.99 per cent. Most of the raise is gone before it lands.
I run a four-person studio in Budapest. Clients and payouts sit on three continents. So I read fee pages the way other people read contracts.
Every number below comes from the provider's own page. I read them on 24 August 2026.
Where 8.99 per cent comes from
PayPal's US merchant fee page was last updated on 15 July 2026. A commercial transaction through PayPal Checkout costs 3.49 per cent plus a fixed fee. In US dollars that fee is 0.49.
International commercial transactions add 1.50 per cent.
If PayPal converts the currency, it adds 4.00 per cent above the base exchange rate. Some other transaction types get 3.00 per cent instead.
Stack the three lines. 3.49 plus 1.50 plus 4.00 is 8.99 per cent, plus the 0.49.
On a $3,000 invoice that is about $270. None of it is hidden. It sits on a public page that anyone can open.
Your country has a different page
This is the part that surprises people. The fee schedule changes by country, and so does the answer.
- Poland, updated 15 July 2026: 2.90 per cent plus 1.35 zloty, plus 1.99 per cent when the payer is outside the EEA, plus a 3.00 per cent conversion spread. That is 7.89 per cent.
- Brazil, updated 16 July 2025: 4.79 per cent plus 0.60 real, plus 1.61 per cent cross-border, plus a 3.50 per cent conversion spread. That is 9.90 per cent.
- India, updated 28 March 2024: 4.40 per cent plus 3 rupees to receive an international payment, plus 3.00 or 4.00 per cent to convert. That reaches 8.40 per cent.
Same invoice, same client, four different costs. Nobody tells you which page applies to you.
In some countries the question never comes up at all. PayPal stopped operating in Turkey in June 2016, after the regulator there refused its licence.
What this does to the rate argument
Take a job you quoted at $3,000. Winning that 12.5 per cent raise on it would add $375.
Under the Brazilian schedule, the rails take $297 off the same invoice. You won the argument and handed back four fifths of the win.
That is why I think the rate threads are the wrong fight. A rate is a negotiation you can lose. A fee schedule is arithmetic you can do tonight.
Three levers that move more money than your rate
- Who converts the currency. The conversion spread is the largest single line on every schedule I read. Being paid in your own currency moves that cost to somebody else. It does not delete it.
- Which rail you use. Wise and Payoneer publish their own pricing pages. Open them on the day you invoice, not the day a comparison blog wrote about them.
- Who absorbs the fee. That belongs in the contract, next to the licence terms. One sentence decides who pays the 9 per cent.
The third one is free and almost nobody writes it down.
Getting paid late is the other tax
A few per cent is annoying. Ninety days is worse.
In the EU, the 2011 late payment directive still sets the floor. Business to business terms run to 60 days unless both sides agree otherwise. A late invoice earns at least 40 euro plus interest, 8 points above the European Central Bank reference rate.
A proposed replacement with a hard 30-day cap has not become law. Do not build your cash flow on it.
What I actually do
I put the fee split and the payment date in writing before work starts. Every outsourcing job, no exceptions.
I check which country's schedule applies to the payer, not to me. The payer's page is the one that decides.
And I keep income on more than one shelf. ArtStation, BlenderKit, SuperHive and my own shop. I wrote about why that spread matters when KitBash bought ArtStation.
The number I still owe you
I have not yet run one invoice through three rails on the same day, at the same amount and the same currency pair. That single receipt would be worth more than every figure above.
Until I publish it, treat this piece as published rates only. They are still enough to change what you write into your next contract.
An hourly rate is an opinion. A fee schedule is a document. Read the document before you argue about the opinion.