If you’re a small business owner or solopreneur, dealing with taking payments from your clients can be a headache. Have you ever had a situation where a client owed you money? Or where you needed a quick way to receive money from someone? We’ve all been there before.
If you don’t know about it yet, PayPal.me is a great free service to address some of these issues. There are several benefits to using PayPal.me. First, you’re giving your clients/customers another payment option. Second, PayPal.me doesn’t require users to put in their email address, mobile phone, or have the PayPal app on their phone. Finally, it’s fast and easy. You can send or receive money in a matter of seconds.
Here’s my short 2 min video that explains how PayPal.me works:
Millions of people around the world use PayPal to transact business and send money to friends or family. Look at these recent statistics:
- 295 million active accounts
- Available in more than 200 markets and more than 100 currencies
- In 2018, PayPal’s annual payment volume was 578 billion U.S. dollars
(data from https://www.statista.com)
Your Personal Payment Page
Basically, Paypal.me acts as your own personal payment page. It’s a quick and easy way for your clients, customers, friends or family to pay you. Upload a picture of yourself and customize the colors to fit your style.
Here is an example of my own PayPal.me page (this is also called a Vanity URL).

https://www.paypal.me/christinahills
Even if you already offer other payment methods, many people prefer using PayPal over entering their credit card information online. International customers also tend to have an easier time paying with PayPal.
Once you create your own PayPal.me page, people can pay you easily from that URL. Here are some examples of what your page may look like on a mobile device.
(from https://www.paypal.me/)
If you’re already using PayPal to bill your clients, I’m not suggesting that you change that method. I am suggesting you add a PayPal.me page as well. That way, when someone owes you money or you want to ask someone to pay for something, you can give them a simple URL. The page looks great when they click on the link, and they can easily pay you what they owe. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to log in and get any codes. You can just give people the link.
Ready to get started with it?
How to Create and Start using PayPal.me
- Open a PayPal account, if you don’t have one yet. Opening an account is free and easy. Just got to https://PayPal.com
- Then go to https://www.paypal.me/ to create your own unique link. For example paypal.me/yourname, or paypal.me/yourbizname
- Send your link to people who need to pay you. They simply visit that link to make payment.
That’s it! Simple enough?
Important things to note with PayPal.me
- PayPal offers different types of accounts, and PayPal.me works a bit differently depending on which one you have:
- People with Personal account: can get paid from friends or sell their goods & services
- People with Business accounts: can only accept goods and services payments
- PayPal.me allows you to specify payment amount if needed (ex. Use paypal.me/yourname/50 to request $50)
- Service is not yet available in all countries although they are adding more and more.
Learn more details here: https://www.paypal.me/pages/faqs
Do you already have your own PayPal.me page? If so, how are you using it?
Leave any comments below.
(this article first appeared on this blog 6/21/16)
Thanks, Christina, for pointing this Paypal.me feature out – and showing how to get started. I am going to sign up right away1!
Mary,
that’s great! grab your name before another ‘marygilbert’ gets it
Thank you! I never knew about this service until your post. I just signed up :-).
Natalie,
yes with these things, you want to grab your name, cause there is only one URL for that and only one person can get it
Hi Christina, Thank you for the email sharing this info. I don’t need this yet but I will, when I do I have my name ready to go.
Thank you again,
Carl Phelps
Carl,
smart thinking!
Thank you Christina. I secured my name for paypal.me and collected my first payment within an hour.
Axel,
Now that’s a great case study! Good job 🙂
Thanks, Christina, I’ve just set up the link. Great idea!
Si je veux envoyer de l’argent à l’étranger ex: un compte aux U.S. que dois-je faire est-ce que je dois avoir un compte Paypal ou j’ai seulement besoin du no du compte mon ami? Diane
Pouvez-vous m’expliquer les étapes de ce paiement? Merci
Diane G
Vous devez leur demander quelle est leur adresse e-mail PayPal, puis leur envoyer de l’argent via PayPal de cette façon.
Hi. Thank you for posting this, good information. But perhaps do you know too if whether someone has to use their real full name (so not your shop name, nick-name, etc) on the paypal.me link? Thanks
I think you can use any name you want. But do check with PayPal
Thank you very much Christina, I really appreciate your expertise and willingness to help others (like me!)
Roy,
Glad it helped you!
I already have a regular PayPal account (maybe a business PayPal account- I’m not sure) & have been using it for my business for over 10 years. Can I still get a PayPal.me account? And is it a good idea to get the additional PayPal.me account? Or would that complicate things for my clients or for me to have 2 different PayPal accounts?
Patti,
It’s not an additional account, it’s a free addon to your existing account. So you do NOT setup a new PayPal account. Follow the steps in this blog post video
Thank you for this information… I was just wondering how this worked…