Venmo Review 2024: Pros, Cons, and More | The Motley Fool (2024)

Venmo is the peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app of choice, making it easy to send money to friends and family. It's widely used, you can send money by whichever payment method you want, and recipients get funds instantly.

How does Venmo work?

Venmo lets you send money from your debit card, credit card, bank account, or Venmo balance. When you receive money, it's added to your Venmo balance. You can transfer it to your bank account or leave it on Venmo.

Venmo lets you split bills and other expenses with multiple people. For instance, you and your roommate could use Venmo to pay your internet bill, or you and a few friends could use Venmo to split the check at a restaurant.

Venmo adds social media elements to money transfers. Venmo users can add each other as friends. On each payment, you can include a note, emojis, or animated stickers.

Venmo also offers privacy settings. If you don't want your payments to be seen by everyone, you can make them visible to only your friends, or to just you and the recipient.

Quick and convenient payments

Ease of use is a big part of Venmo's popularity. There's hardly any learning curve. You can download it and start sending or receiving money in minutes. Venmo also simplifies splitting expenses -- it offers an on-screen calculator when you send or request money. And if you're splitting a bill with a group, you can request the same amount from all of them at once.

Low fees

Venmo doesn't have regular fees, like monthly or annual fees. There's no fee to send money from a bank account, debit card, or your Venmo balance. Credit card payments have a 3% fee, which is standard among payment apps. There's no fee to receive money or transfer it to your bank account unless you opt for an instant transfer instead of a standard transfer.

Fast deposits

When you withdraw money from your Venmo balance, it can take one to three business days to transfer money to your bank account. If you need money faster, Venmo offers instant transfers for a 1.75% fee, with a minimum of $0.25 and a maximum of $25.

Can pay with Venmo at select businesses

You can pay with Venmo funds on several apps and websites, including Uber Eats, Hulu, and Poshmark, among others. Shopping at a business that accepts Venmo payments? The app can speed you through the checkout process.

Offers a debit card, teen debit card, and a credit card

Frequent Venmo users may be interested in one of its payment cards.

Venmo Debit Card

The Venmo Debit Card is tied to your Venmo balance. It doesn't charge an annual fee, and it offers cash back at some stores.

Venmo Teen Debit Card

Parents may be interested in applying for a Venmo Teen Debit Card on their teenager's behalf. The card gives parents insight into and control over underage spending, and it gives teens the power to pay anywhere Mastercard is accepted. There's no monthly fee, and it's free to sign up.

Venmo Credit Card

The Venmo Credit Card is a no annual fee rewards card. It separates your purchases into spending categories. Every month, you earn 3% cash back on your top category, 2% back on your next biggest spending category, and 1% back on everything else.

The Venmo Credit Card offers solid perks, but check out the best rewards credit cards before applying -- there might be a more valuable option available.

Receipts

Venmo lets you attach custom messages to each payment. It's an easy and fun way to track receipts. You can filter to specific users, so you never forget who paid who.

Buy popular cryptocurrencies

Venmo lets you purchase up to four popular cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, or Bitcoin Cash. Venmo charges zero fees for doing so, and you can buy in $1 increments.

Venmo offers users short educational content on crypto basics, such as how it works. It doesn't offer staking or advanced features -- for these, see the best crypto exchanges and apps.

No refunds

Once you make a payment in Venmo, there's no way to cancel. The recipient gets the money immediately. If you need a payment returned, Venmo recommends asking the recipient for the money back.

The other option is for Venmo's support to reverse the payment for you, but a representative can only do that if the recipient agrees, if their account is in good standing, and if they still have the money in their account.

U.S. residents only

International payments aren't an option with Venmo. To open a Venmo account, you must live in the United States and have a U.S. cellphone number. You can only transfer your Venmo balance to a U.S. bank account, and you can only log into the Venmo app within the U.S. If you want to send money outside the country, you need a different payment app (more on those below).

Popular with scammers

Venmo is extremely popular, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, a lot of people you know are probably on Venmo. This makes it easy to send them money or request money from them.

Unfortunately, Venmo scams are common. For example, imagine you get a random $500 Venmo payment from someone you don't know. They contact you, say it was a mistake, and ask you to send it back. A scammer often does this with stolen credit cards.

When the real cardholder reports the payment as fraud, Venmo takes the $500 from your account. If you've already sent $500 to the scammer, then you've lost your money, and Venmo can't help you.

Payments are public by default

The privacy settings on Venmo are unideal. By default, non-teen account payments are public -- any Venmo user can see them. While public, anyone can see your username, the username of the other person (sender/recipient), and the attached message.

You can change your privacy settings so payments are only visible to your friends -- or make them private. But some consumers use the app without even realizing that their payments are public. That can frustrate those who prefer to keep personal finances to themselves.

The Venmo app is free. You can send and receive money with Venmo free of charge. But Venmo charges for "premium" features. These include the following:

• Sending money on credit: Credit card payments have a 3% fee. You can avoid this by paying with a debit card, bank account, or your Venmo balance.
• Withdrawing money from Venmo to your bank account fast: Instant transfers have a 1.75% fee, with a $0.25 minimum and a $25 maximum. You can avoid this by opting for a regular withdrawal that takes one to three business days to settle.
• Buying and selling cryptocurrency: Venmo charges users to buy and sell cryptocurrency within the app. The exact fee varies, starting at less than $0.50 for small purchases and going up from there.

Venmo's fees are standard for payment apps. You almost always pay extra when sending money with your credit card or withdrawing money to your bank account quickly.

Venmo gets good reviews on both iOS and the Google Play store. Customers say the platform is super simple and a game-changer for sending money to family and friends. Some people complain about technical issues, such as Venmo balances not updating promptly.

• iOS app rating: 4.9/5 stars
• Android app rating: 4.1/5 stars

Venmo's app is simple to use. The homepage resembles a social media feed, listing recent transactions made by you and friends. You can navigate to the Pay/Request tab with one tap. From there, you can search for who you'd like to send money to or request payment from.

Venmo main screen showing options tab at bottom and friends' transactions. Image source: Venmo, captured by author.

Venmo Pay/Request screen to send or request money from others. Image source: Venmo, captured by author.

If you want an app with better banking payments: Zelle is a free alternative that lets you quickly transfer money from your bank account to another person's bank. You can also receive payments with Zelle. However, Zelle only supports money transfers funded from select bank accounts.

Stick with Venmo if you want more flexibility and like being able to fund payments with a credit card, debit card, and bank account.

If you want an app that does money management better: Cash App is a free alternative that lets you send and receive cash, stocks, and Bitcoin. Cash App also lets you invest, bank, and withdraw money from ATMs fee free.

However, Venmo is more social. You can easily track payments sent by those in your circle, and you can customize your receipts. If you want to lean into the social aspect of payments, Venmo is your best bet.

• You want to send and/or receive money from millions of Venmo users.
• You want to transfer money fast and free.
• You want custom receipts.