For the past 6 months, Google Checkout has been available free of charge. For those early adopters who have known about Google Checkout, we have been able to enjoy no monthly, setup, or gateway fees.

Google Checkout Fees

Beginning January 1, 2008, Google Checkout’s beta version will no longer be in Beta. In 2008, when you use Google Checkout to process your sales, you will be charged 2% + $0.20 per transaction. Google will continue its policy of no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees.

AdWords discounts for using Google Checkout

If you’re an AdWords advertiser, you will also be eligible for free transaction processing for some or all of your Google Checkout sales each month. For every $1 you spend on AdWords each month, you can process $10 in sales the following month for free through Google Checkout.

eBay’s Paypal Versus Google’s Checkout

This is going to be like watching two Sumo Wrestlers. As of this writing, Google, ranks #2 on Alexa and eBay ranks #20. For those of you unfamiliar with Alexa, www.Alexa.com was purchased by Amazon.com and monitors website traffic across the Internet. There are about a billion website across the Internet. Any website that ranks in the top million is considered relevant. Anything in the top 100,000 is worth watching. Anything in the top 1,000 is worth serious money, probably tens of millions of dollars. Anything in the top 100 is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Anything in the 10 is probably a billion+ dollar company.

So, my question is … if you were a betting man, who would you put your money on; Paypal or Google Checkout? PayPal has been specializing in financial transactions for about 10 years. This is their business. PayPal was purchased by eBay about 5-7 years ago. eBay, of course, spearheaded the market in online auctions and has broadened it’s circle of influence to include shopping and small business e-commerce. To facilitate the movement of money, eBay purchased PayPal, which allows individuals and small businesses to quickly and easily accept credit card transactions without the hassle of a merchant account, payment gateways and other technical issues.

Google, on the other hand, started out in search but has been broadening its scope to include a variety of non search focused entities. So, you have a hugely powerful company with an omnipresent, almost God-like knowledge and insight versus a still extraordinarily powerful player in the field, which has mastery and specialization of the market. Google Checkout is a direct threat and competition to PayPal. It will be an interesting match to watch.