Venmo for Business: Is It Right for You?

After you’ve set up a Venmo business profile, you can start accepting payments for goods and services. Your customer must have a personal Venmo account. If another business wants to pay you, it will need a Venmo business profile. If you want to pay another business, that business will also need a Venmo business profile.

You can accept Venmo payments from customers via the Venmo app, on your website or in person with a quick response (QR) code. Customers can also use a Venmo debit or credit card to pay a business:

• Paying via the Venmo app: If a customer pays you via the Venmo app, they’ll select your business, input the transaction amount and tap Send. If necessary, they can use Venmo’s search function to find your business, tapping the Business category (as opposed to People) to ensure they’re searching businesses.
• Paying via your business website or mobile app: Customers can also use Venmo on your business website or mobile app if they make an online purchase and you’ve set up Venmo as a payment option. In this case, they’ll log in to their Venmo account when completing the purchase. To use Venmo as a payment option on your website or app, you must integrate a Pay With Venmo button via a payment platform like Braintree or PayPal. You must set up an account with whatever payment platform you choose; you’ll likely need a web developer to integrate the payment button into your website or app.
• Paying in person with a QR code: It’s easy to accept customer payments in person by having them scan your Venmo business profile QR code. Customers can scan the code from your smartphone or tablet screen or you can opt to print out the code. Venmo offers business customers a QR kit to make it easier to accept QR code payments. Venmo’s $14.99 QR kit includes five stickers, a laminated wallet card with a lanyard and a plastic tabletop display with a stand (2 x 4 x 6 inches). After Venmo activates your QR kit, customers can scan the code to be taken directly to your Venmo business profile.

After the transaction, the money is transferred from the customer’s Venmo account to your Venmo account using the customer’s Venmo balance or linked funding source.

When there’s money sitting in your Venmo account, you can use it to make payments with Venmo or transfer the balance to your linked bank account. There is no cost to do this unless you request an instant transfer, which transfers funds within 30 minutes. There is a 1.75 percent fee for an instant transfer.

In Venmo, you can link only one bank account to receive money. You can’t funnel personal payments into your personal checking account and business payments into your business accounts.

However, you do have the option to transfer funds between your personal Venmo account and your business Venmo account. You can keep track of your business’s Venmo sales for small business accounting and tax purposes by looking at a listing of business transactions in your business profile.

Just like credit cards, Venmo charges a fee every time a business transaction is made. For payments made using the Venmo app and a QR code, the fee is 1.9 percent of the total amount plus 10 cents for each transaction made to your business profile. For payments that are contactless but not from a Venmo account, the fee is 2.29 percent plus 10 cents per transaction. The minimum fee per transaction is $1. Venmo deducts any applicable fees before your money arrives in your bank account.

Here are some examples for a purchase made from a Venmo account:

• $100 purchase: $100 x 1.9 percent = $1.90 + 10 cents = $2 fee
• $40 purchase: $40 x 1.9 percent = $0.76 + 10 cents = 86 cents, rounded up to the minimum $1 fee

Here are some examples for a contactless purchase not using the customer’s Venmo account:

• $100 purchase: $100 x 2.29 percent = $2.29 + 10 cents = $2.39 fee
• $10 purchase: $10 x 2.29 percent = 30 cents + 10 cents = 40 cents, rounded up to the minimum $1 fee

There are vast differences between payment processors. Check out our reviews of the best credit card processing services to compare fees and features.

Venmo Business transaction limits and bank transfer limits
The maximum transaction amount for a Venmo payment is $999.99. Users also have a total weekly spending limit to Venmo-authorized merchants of $4,999.99 if they verify their accounts. Unverified accounts have a weekly spending limit of $299.99.

For merchants, there is a weekly cap on the amount you can transfer from your business Venmo account to your linked bank account. If your identity has not yet been confirmed, the limit is $999.99 per week; if your identity is confirmed, the limit increases to $19,999.99 per week but in chunks of no more than $2,999.99 for each transfer.

Venmo is only one option for accepting customer payments. Other digital wallets exist that work like Venmo; there are also payment aggregators like PayPal and traditional credit card processors. PayPal owns Venmo, so when you use PayPal for credit card payment processing, you can still accept Venmo and PayPal as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay.

If you’re deciding between Venmo and a credit card processor, note that Venmo’s transaction fees are significantly lower and Venmo charges no monthly or other fees.

Meanwhile, many more people have credit cards than Venmo accounts. If you accept only Venmo and not credit cards, you’ll probably lose sales. However, if your market consists primarily of teens and millennials, this may not be that big of a problem since Venmo use is ubiquitous in those demographics.

Your business can accept credit card payments with PayPal, but you’ll need to get a PayPal Business account, download the PayPal Zettle app and get a PayPal card reader.