The best way to transfer money depends on your needs; where, when, and how much you want to send.
Venmo is a popular way to send money online in the United States. In this blog, we are going to find out everything about Venmo and its alternatives.
What is Venmo?
Venmo is a peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer service that allows users to send and receive money.
The is owned by PayPal and was able to capitalize on the mobile wallet growth early on. Now, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, digital wallets and contactless payment platforms have seen an exponential rise.
It works by allowing users to connect multiple payment options like credit cards or bank accounts to send or receive funds directly on their mobile devices with a social media twist on the same business day.
The social media twist is brought by features such as; adding people in their network, reminders, messages, and emoji packed communications within the network.
How to Use Venmo?
You can continue to hold the amount you have received in your Venmo balance or transfer it to your bank account or card.
Venmo Fees
Venmo is a free-to-use App with NO monthly or annual fee but there are fees for some of its premium features and services.
Fee-free services are as below:
Premium services are as below:
How does Venmo work?
Venmo is a mobile-only service and is currently only available in the US. You can initiate transactions via the desktop app version, Mobile App, or through iMessage or with Siri voice command.
You can say goodbye to splitting bills and reimbursing family or friends for meals and outings. Venmo is not made for buying or selling goods with strangers, your recipient or the sender needs to be in your network like on social media sites like Facebook. However, it can be used to make online purchases from verified merchants.
Venmo Review
Mobile App - Venmo App has excellent ratings for both their iOS app (4.9 in the iTunes App Store) and Android app (4.7 stars in the Google Play store).
Customer Support - Contact Venmo by calling 1-855-812-4430 or you can just tweet them @VenmoSupport.
Security - Venmo uses encryption to help protect your account information and monitor your account activity to help identify unauthorized transactions.
Limits
Alternatives to Venmo for Domestic Money Transfer
There are multiple options for domestic money transfers. Fron big tech companies like Apple, Google, Samsung to financial service providers like Cash App, Square Cash, and Zelle (Read our review of Zelle). Even Facebook set to take a bite of the booming mobile payment space with its own digital wallet.
We have Google Pay vs. Samsung Pay vs. Apple Pay in our earlier blogs. And the common limitation all the mobile payment apps share is the non-availability of international money transfers.
If you are used to the online transfers and online payment, why would you want to go back to archaic fund transfer options? The cost of sending money through traditional methods or the high street banks is much more expensive.
Alternatives to Venmo for International Money Transfers
There are multiple options to send money online internationally to your friends and family at low to zero fees. Some of the popular ones are Xoom, Remitly, Skrill, Wise, formerly know as TransferWise, and Western Union. It is imperative to compare the exchange rates, transfer fees, and speed of transfer offered by different providers before narrowing down on an option. Instead of visiting multiple sites to find the best deal, use CompareRemit, a free-to-use platform to compare the top money transfer companies side-by-side.