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Learn how to use Venmo to take payments at your small business, from setting up your business profile to Venmo payment processing fees and transaction limits.
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Venmo for Business allows merchants to accept payments using the PayPal-owned peer-to-peer payments app.
While businesses can’t use Venmo (check out our full review) to avoid 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.
Venmo’s unique social features can also help boost sales or draw attention to particular products, as friends of your customers will be able to see their purchases on their Venmo accounts.
Table of Contents
Yes, businesses can use Venmo to accept payments, either online or in person. Venmo is actually one of the easier alternative payment methods businesses can implement without any credit card processing equipment.
Business transactions using Venmo are not free as they are with personal Venmo payments, but pricing is reasonable and similar to that of other payment service providers such as Square or PayPal.
You can set up Venmo for your business transactions by simply creating a business profile in the app. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to accept payments.
Once you have a Venmo Business Profile set up, you can accept Venmo payments in person with a QR code that the customer scans (from your device, a text or email that contains the QR code, or your Venmo signage with a printed QR code), and then completes in their own Venmo app.
Customers can also pay with a contactless card or digital wallet using Tap to Pay for iPhone or Android.
Finally, you can accept Venmo payments online by adding Venmo as a payment option to your website or mobile app checkout.
Here are some pros and cons of using Venmo for your sales:
Pros
Cons
Unlike personal accounts, Venmo business accounts have transaction fees. These are:
You’ll notice this is quite a large difference in fees. Venmo’s rates are pretty good for in-person transactions but very high for online payments.
So why wouldn’t you just use your personal account for business transactions? For one, it violates your terms of usage and could result in having your account suspended. For another, the IRS has stated an intention to start cracking down on peer-to-peer platforms for tax evasion.
Naturally, there are some Venmo business account limits on how much money you can send, receive, or transfer to your bank account.
Purchases have the following limits:
Transfers to your personal bank account have the following limits:
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.
A Venmo Business Profile allows you to separate business and personal transactions within your Venmo account. Venmo strongly discourages using personal transactions for business reasons. Therefore, if you’re going to be using Venmo frequently for that purpose, you don’t want to risk having your account frozen or running into problems with the IRS. You can toggle between the two accounts after you’ve created them.
To create a Venmo Business Profile, you’ll need to be a US resident and have a Venmo personal account. You’ll also need to be incorporated as a sole proprietor to add a Business Profile to your personal Venmo account. Note that partnerships, LLCs, corporations, etc., can still use Venmo, but they’ll need to establish a separate Venmo business account.
A Venmo Business Profile allows you to send and receive business and personal transactions from within the same account while keeping those two categories separate for record-keeping purposes. There are a few additional restrictions to keep in mind, however. Here’s a summary of the key differences between a Venmo Business Profile and a vanilla Venmo personal account:
Creating a Venmo Business Profile for in-person transactions is about as simple as it gets. Just open the Venmo app on your smartphone or tablet and follow these steps:
That’s it! The entire process can be completed in just a few minutes, after which you can begin accepting payments from your customers.
Once you have a business profile, you can begin accepting Venmo payments for your small business.
In the past, the biggest potential impediment to accepting Venmo at your business was that your customer needed a Venmo account and the Venmo app installed on their phone for in-person payments. With Tap to Pay, introduced in 2024, businesses can now accept in-person payments with Venmo as long as the customer has a contactless payment method (digital wallet or contactless credit card).
Businesses do not even need a card reader to accept Tap to Pay, as the functionality is already built into your iPhone or Android phone.
There are a few ways to initiate a payment. You can:
Of the four, the fourth option is probably the quickest.
The company does not offer a Venmo card reader of any type. In-person payments are made via QR code or with your smartphone’s built-in NFC reader.
What Venmo does offer is a free QR code kit that includes:
Your customers can scan these with their mobile devices to initiate a payment. While Venmo doesn’t exactly have payment links in the common sense of the term, you can send your QR code by text or email.
If you use the PayPal, Shopify, or Braintree gateway, you can integrate a Venmo button into the online checkout of your website or mobile app.
Keep in mind that accepting Venmo payments online negates the cost savings you’ll get with in-person transactions. You’ll be paying 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction to accept Venmo payments on your own website or app.
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.
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