It seems like half of the internet hates PayPal nowadays. But, realistically there are not that many PayPal alternatives when it comes to making payments and online purchases.

When you sign up to PayPal, you can opt for either a PayPal Personal account, or a PayPal business account. You need to ensure that you sign up for the right one, as they’re actually quite different to one another.

Paypal business vs personal: What the difference?

How do these different types of Paypal account compare? Well, the basics are very much the same.

PayPal provides services for securely sending and receiving cash, as well as paying for anything in a web-based environment like e-commerce.

The system allows you to purchase products from participating stores on eBay and pay directly to the PayPal account via your debit card and bank account.

PayPal provides the intermediary service to protect the payments between the bank and a merchant by transferring payments. This is all the same for both Business accounts and Personal accounts.

However, here’s the key differences.

PayPal – Personal account

PayPal Personal is most commonly used when making simple cash payments to friends. It’s an easy way to send money to friends and family, or when making a purchase online.

From a seller’s perspective, using PayPal is a simple way of accepting payment from potential customers when the sale is occasionally needed.

If you’re a small eBay seller than only sells a limited amount of things each year, a personal profile would probably be perfectly find for their business needs.

When the buyer purchases something via a personal account, they usually get the name of the person. This means that you should know the personal well, as it’s pretty difficult to get money back once sent from a personal account.

However, a Personal account does not offer you the option of paying with credit/debit cards. This is just one of the differences between the two types of account, but there’s more.

PayPal Business Account

The PayPal Business account is pretty much exactly as it sounds – it’s for businesses. Some of the main features of a PayPal Business account are;

The ability to use the name of your company, which can then be used on all of your receipts and statements.
You can start to accept payments via bank transfer and both credit and debit cards online
You can get yourself a credit card for online purchases to charge it to your PayPal account
The ability to add your employees onto the account so they can use it too
Access to features like PayPal Checkout, which allows for a lot of other payment methods when you sell goods online

You can also create recurring shipments in PayPal Business accounts, which enable customers to order shipments in an instant and can also make offline transactions.

Up to 200 employees are able to access PayPal services and configure these shipping rates, use inventory tracking and profitability monitoring too.

A PayPal Business account is also an enterprise software solution that helps businesses monitor their revenues and sales.

PayPal is an excellent payment solution for some, especially as it’s so widely adopted by online and offline retailers.

The right account for you depends largely on how you use it, but it also varies between personal and business accounts.

The good news is that if you want to, you can switch to a personal account from a business account. So, if you’ve signed up for a Business account with PayPal, it’s extremely easy to switch back.