Micropayments Gain Further Support: PayPal Joins The Frey

PayPal is extending its micro-payments service to support online commerce of low-cost digital content.

The digital content to be covered by the new PayPal offering will include news articles, video games, online greeting cards, mobile phone content, and music.

For this type of micropayments (less than $2), PayPal charges 5 percent plus $0.05 per transaction. Otherwise PayPal's transaction fee is typically volume-based, and ranges from 1.9 to 2.9 percent in addition to a charge of $0.30 per transaction.

For independent publishers, musicians,and other content producers wishing to efficiently sell their goods online, PayPal it's cheaper than working with credit cards and gives consumers a more convenient purchasing option than, say, signing up for subscriptions.