Deposits · August 2026
PayPal publishes its savings rate and blocks its account signup page
An AI agent ran five ordinary deposits tasks on the public pages of PayPal and scored what each page delivered.
Run 6 August 2026 · five tasks · public pages, logged out · Fintech
57/100
Mystery Agent score
Deposits · rank 16 of 25
Savings rate
92Served as text
Checking comparison
70Served as text
Fee schedule
90Served as PDF
Routing number
18Arrives after scripts
Application page
15Automated reader declined
Summary
- PayPal states its savings rate, 3.30% APY, in plain text with a clear effective date and no script required to read it.
- PayPal's agent index lists more than 200 categorized links, versioned and dated, covering consumer, merchant, and enterprise pages.
- An AI agent read PayPal's complete consumer fee schedule twice, once as HTML tables and once as a matching eight-page PDF.
- Letting the personal signup page answer a plain request would show agents the same openness the fee pages already carry.
PayPal also appears in the Credit Cards study, where it scores 68 and ranks 16 of 25.
See that scorecard.
Task by task
Each task is scored out of 100 on completion, answer quality and how directly the answer was reached. Each note describes what the page delivered, with a link to the page the answer was found on.
Task 01Savings rateServed as text92 out of 100
The savings page states in plain HTML text that PayPal Savings pays 3.30% APY as of June 16, 2026, describing the rate as eight times the national average and subject to change.
Task 02Checking comparisonServed as text70 out of 100
With no dedicated checking product, the agent compared the Personal PayPal Debit Card, which carries no card fee and no credit check, against the Business Debit Mastercard, which pays 1% cash back on purchases.
Task 03Fee scheduleServed as PDF90 out of 100
The consumer fees page serves a complete, dated fee schedule as readable HTML text and links a matching printable PDF that mirrors the same figures for buying, selling, and currency conversion.
Task 04Routing numberArrives after scripts18 out of 100
The direct deposit page stays focused on setup steps, while the dedicated help article meant to hold the routing number exists in the page's navigation and data yet returns an internal error instead of its content.
Task 05Application pageAutomated reader declined15 out of 100
The personal signup page answers a plain request with a DataDome challenge screen reading fifty four characters about enabling JavaScript, and its four input fields are hidden verification tokens rather than application fields.
PayPal states its savings rate as 3.30% APY, effective June 16, 2026, noting the rate can change.
The application page
What the account opening page states to a reader that runs no scripts.
5,754Bytes delivered
54Characters of visible text
4Form fields in the first response
After scripts runWhat an applicant needs
Strengths and opportunities
What is working
- The savings APY is placed directly in server-rendered marketing copy with a clear effective date and no script dependency, an easy win for any reading agent.
- The full consumer fee schedule is published twice in agent-friendly formats: readable HTML tables and a byte-identical downloadable PDF, both current to the same May 19, 2026 date.
- llms.txt is unusually thorough for a fintech, with over 200 categorized links, version history, and country-code guidance, showing real investment in an agent-facing index.
Opportunities
- Publish the direct-deposit routing and account number help article as server-rendered text. The article slot exists and is correctly linked, but its content currently reports an internal error instead of the routing number an agent or customer needs.
- Let the personal account sign-up page answer a plain GET without a bot-challenge wall, or publish a static requirements summary next to it, so agents can see eligibility, ID, and funding rules before a human takes over.
- Add an explicit monthly-fee line to the Business Debit Card page to match the clear 'no monthly fee' statement already given on the Personal Debit Card page, making the two products easier to compare side by side.
Access
Every page the agent requested was delivered on the first attempt. An llms.txt file is published, which gives agent traffic a documented entry point.
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