For non-business users, Venmo is a great way to send and receive money for small things like when you split the bill during dinner, you owe someone for lunch the other day, rent, bills, and so on. However, if you are a small business owner or if you’re doing some personal business on the side, you can soon use your personal account to sell goods.
This means that instead of having to set up a special Venmo account just for your business, you will be able to use a personal account. However, this isn’t for free obviously and charges will apply. These are the same charges that Venmo charges to business accounts, which means that you’ll have to pay 1.9% plus a 10 cents fee.
During the payment process, users can indicate if the transfer is meant for business. According to Venmo, payments marked as for business will be eligible for purchase protection. This is similar to what PayPal has done where they allow users to send invoices to other users and where a fee is charged.
Some have tried to get around that through the Friends and Family feature, but if you’re dealing with someone you’re not familiar with, it could be an easy way to get scammed since no protections are offered there. Venmo is expected to launch this feature on the 20th of July, so keep an eye out if this sounds like something you could be interested in using.