They are bound to your PSN account, so you have some portability across PS3 consoles. Not sure about the portability between PS3 and PS4 consoles on the same PSN account and license though. Think some users had posted they were having issues getting back in on their PS3 after activating the PS4 Beta. May have just been a glitch in the system though that they need to address. Not fully up to speed on the console releases, as I've decided to stick with the PC version on my PC and Laptop.

Fees are per account, and you have options for what type of account you get too. Be mindful of which one you choose--the more expensive one allows you to put more than one character on the same world, while the cheaper one restricts you to one per world. You can't make two characters on the same account and both of you play at the same time either--only one character can be logged in at a time from each account (only mention it because some have misunderstood that).