Yeah, I can help ya with this. It actually took me a long time to learn how to do it, but I guess I didn't try that hard at first. I found the motivation though as finances grew tight, if you get my drift.
Your choice for account type is either Premier or Business if you want to gain the ability to receive money. Not a hard choice. Here's where to look for the differences:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/general/PayPalAccountTypes-outsidehttps://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees-outsideIf you expect to receive more than 5 people sending you money with their credit card, you really must just upgrade to Premier. (Note the "Receive payments funded by Credit Card, Debit Card or Buyer Credit" category.) As you can see, Paypal takes a 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD cut of whatever money you receive. E.g. if somebody sends you $5 bucks via their credit card, they take .45 cents of it.
For me, at first, I registered an account solely to be able to make purchases on ebay so it remained Personal. Then, like, I dunno, 2 years into having the account since 2001, they forcibly upgraded it to Premier. I don't remember what triggered that, but they said there wouldn't be any monthly or yearly charges so I didn't care. I do remember not appreciating having to provide a bank account (at first, I used a savings account), but I went ahead with it anyway. Actually, I think what it was is they wanted more "verification" of the paypal account holder to add more security/protection of all paypal users. Eh, this from their reputation overview page:
"U.S. Users are considered "Verified" if they have confirmed the bank account they have added to their PayPal account. Verification is a positive signal to the Community that a user has complied with Community security measures. " or "To become Verified, a PayPal member in the United States must provide us with proof that he or she has opened an account at a bank or other financial institution. Because these institutions are required by law to screen account holders, PayPal's verification process increases security when you pay parties you do not know."Anyhow, with Premier, you can add your checking account number and follow the directions to get it verified. Once it's verified, anytime somebody sends you money and it's stored in your paypal account as currency, you can from time to time initiate a transaction to deposit that money into that account. That's it. Rather easy.
As for getting a Donate link ready, when you're logged into your account, there's a link generator feature for that. The link for that is,
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick-donations-factory, but make sure you're logged into your account before clicking that.
So yeah, basically it's just:
1) Upgrade to Premier
2) Add a checking account number and get it verified (They'll make two small deposits of an unknown amount in cents to your account, and then ask you exactly how much they deposited which you'll find out next time you see your account report or you can go to your bank immediately and ask them. e.g. 10 cents, then 23 cents, etc.)
3) Use the link generator for the Donate button
