My redbubble sales rolled in my paypal last Tuesday, on the 15th.
I have been looking forward to this today, because, well, bills got to get paid.
While the money I get from my online shop is tiny, the small amount I get is still a big help in my financial situation.
The minimum payout from redbubble is almost enough to cover a month’s electric bill, or a week’s worth of gas. Like I said, it’s not that large.
Withdrawing funds from paypal is subject to a processing fee. To minimize the cost, I take out funds when the levels are high enough. Generally, that’s when my redbubble payments come in each month (when I’m lucky enough that my sales reach the threshold.) My ko-fi account also is linked to my paypal.
I was looking forward to this day because I knew I met Redbubble’s minimum payout, and I got some bills to pay. The additional funds will be like a breath of fresh air in a claustrophobic situation.
I hurried to paypal when I saw the notification email… and proceeded to transfer the entire amount to my bank. However, my world crashed in on me when I saw this notification error…
From the last time I had transacted with paypal, I was able to withdraw an amount way less than this. I paid dearly for the fixed processing fee, but it was a price I had to pay because I really needed the cash and could not afford to wait.
Was there a change in paypal’s system?
I have been looking online for any news on the matter but found none. I checked their fees table and found nothing new or unusual.
Was this a silent update?
In any case, this situation has left me a bit distraught. This is another wall I have to go over to get my money…
I already have a lot of bad experiences with payment thresholds. I lost money to a handful of sites that had a minimum payout requirement.
Once, I was not able to collect the commissions for this networking business because the amount was too low. Well, I did not exert too much effort on it because it was not a job I really liked. Still wished I was able to cash in what I earned.
I also had a few money in upwork from an article writing gig I did. I was paid by the client, sure, but since it was for only one job, my funds on that site is too low to withdraw. I practically can no longer find work there because now, freelancers need to pay to contact clients. Great.
When this website essays.ph switched systems, my fee for, again, one client, got lost in the systems transition. I messaged them about it, but have not heard from them in months. I haven’t returned to that site ever since.
Well, you get the picture…
I messaged paypal about this issue, if they have done any updates to withdrawing funds or transferring paypal funds to banks, but they have yet to reply to me.
In any case, I am fretting over how I am going to earn more to be able to meet the payment threshold, and whether I will continue using paypal as a service, or find a replacement. Do you have any suggestions?
Well, that is all for today. I hope you have a nice day.
Jomz Ojeda’s Blog 
Unfortunately I do not have any experience with Paypal, or anything like this. I do want to say that as someone who is hoping to start doing more freelance work this is distressing. That is, I wonder how many places have minimum thresholds. From your experience, is this common? Is it something they usually have clearly stated in their TOS?
Upwork stated the threshold in their website, but I can’t really say if that was stated in their TOS when I first joined.
Redbubble did not used to have a threshold before, so I used to have my sales credited to my paypal even if I had very low sales.
Some sites may not have thresholds, but have a high processing fee that if your income there is too low, it would be useless to cash out on it at that level.