Venmo For Business Review

Pros

• No monthly fee or contract
• No contract
• Accept in-person payments via QR code or Tap to Pay
• Accept Venmo payments on your website or POS
• Accept crypto payments

Cons

• Not a dedicated merchant account
• Only available in the US
• No credit card reader offered
• High eCommerce transaction fees

What Is Venmo For Business?

Venmo allows businesses to accept payments using the PayPal-owned peer-to-peer payments app.

While businesses can’t use Venmo to avoid credit card processing fees altogether, Venmo business fees are simple, and the brand is familiar to customers. You also won’t have to worry about the hidden fees, long-term contracts, and cancellation penalties that often come with a merchant account.

What Are Venmo Business Profiles?

Venmo Business Profiles allow you to make sales through your Venmo account. They also offer some sales and customer analytics information for your business transactions. Additionally, the service has a social function, providing you with some free advertising for your business to friends of your customers, who will see those transactions in their feeds.

Venmo Products & Services

Venmo has an increasing number of features for merchants to accept payments, but you will not get as comprehensive of a feature set as you would get with a full-service merchant account. (Rather than giving users their own dedicated merchant account, Venmo uses an aggregated merchant account model, as is common with payment service providers.)

Some notable features businesses will get with Venmo include in-person payments via Tap to Pay, distanced payments with QR code or payment link, a recurring billing feature, and the ability to accept eCommerce payments by integrating a Venmo checkout into your website or app. Businesses can even accept crypto payments using Venmo.

Venmo also offers business users the option of instant transfers to your debit card or bank account (for a fee).

Venmo Business Account Features Overview

Venmo Business Payment Methods

Overall, Venmo’s business payment features are not quite as in-depth as those offered by Square, PayPal, and other mobile POS systems. For example, Venmo does not offer a mobile credit card reader or virtual terminal like Square or PayPal does. However, you can accept Venmo on various third-party POS systems, including PayPal Zettle, Toast, and Clover.

Fees & Rates

Unlike personal accounts, Venmo business accounts have transaction fees, which vary depending on the type of transaction. However, there is no monthly fee, and fees for payments initiated from your customer’s Venmo app are quite competitive.

Venmo Business Pricing Overview

Extra Costs

Note that Tap to Pay transactions you accept with your iPhone or Android are processed at a higher rate than transactions made from your customer’s Venmo app. The fee to accept Venmo payments on your website is even higher.

So why wouldn’t you just use your personal account for business transactions so you don’t have to pay processing fees? For one, it violates your terms of usage and could result in having your account suspended. For another, the IRS has started cracking down on peer-to-peer app transfers used for tax evasion.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Venmo is quite clear and transparent on its website, so it’s not difficult to find the information you need, pricing or otherwise. And Venmo doesn’t need use aggressive sales tactics because the brand is so well known. Virtually all merchants know what Venmo is, and they either want to accept it, or they don’t!

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Venmo has no long-term contract and no early termination fee. Contracts are month-to-month and you can stop using the service at any time.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Venmo does surprisingly well on the customer service front. You can call in for phone support from 9 AM to 5 PM Central Time, Monday through Friday. Venmo also allows you to access live chat or email support within the app. These online support options are available 24 hours/day, Monday through Friday, and from 8 AM to 10 PM Central Time on Saturdays and Sundays. This is pretty awesome, considering that Square’s competing product, Cash App, doesn’t offer live chat or phone support.

Venmo Customer Support Channels

While you can handle some security-related tasks yourself, you can also reach out to support to report suspicious transactions on your account or to get help with a lost phone. Venmo’s online help center has plenty of information to explain what you need to do in these circumstances, and it’s easy to find that information. It also has tons of helpful information about all of the other aspects of using Venmo. In fact, Venmo’s help center is more functional than PayPal’s knowledgebase.

User Reviews

Venmo is not accredited by the BBB and is currently unrated. The company has received 5,124 complaints over the last three years, with 1,694 of those complaints coming in within the previous twelve months. While this may seem like a very high complaint level, it’s actually relatively low considering that the company has a user base of over 83 million people. Representatives from Venmo respond to every complaint, offering remarkably extensive explanations for what went wrong.

Final Verdict: Should You Use Venmo At Your Business?

Here are some pros and cons of using Venmo for your sales:

For most merchants, deciding whether to take payments through Venmo will depend on the nature of your business. Venmo Business Profiles work great for sole proprietors, including freelancers and other independent contractors. Larger businesses can also use Venmo effectively, but you should be aware of the transaction size and volume limits before relying too heavily on this payment method.

In any event, Venmo For Business is a solid option for some business use and can be a great way to add alternative payment methods to your online checkout or your brick-and-mortar business. However, it should only be used as a secondary payment method for in-person sales, as you’ll still want to be able to accept traditional credit and debit cards as well.

If you need more comprehensive merchant account services than what Venmo can offer, check out our top credit card processing companies for small businesses.