Venmo makes money primarily through fees, but they also subsidize these fees with a paid subscription service. While this model may seem a little unorthodox at first, it can actually work out well for both the customer and the business itself. We’ll look more closely at how Venmo uses their fees and subscriptions to make money in the next section.
Venmo earnings from card transactions
Venmo is a peer-to-peer payments app that lets you send money to friends and family for free. The app has more than 25 million active users and processed $4 billion in total payment volume during the first quarter of 2019. Venmo makes money from two sources: processing fees from card transactions and from the optional Venmo card.
Venmo earns money on every purchase made through its mobile app, website, or third-party apps like Shopify. It charges a fee of 2.9% plus 29 cents per transaction when users pay with their debit or credit card through the Venmo app or website. The fee is 3% plus 30 cents when users use their Venmo balance.
For example, if you buy something online using your Venmo balance and it costs $100, you’ll be charged a fee of $3.20 ($100 x 3%). If you use your debit card to pay for the same purchase with Venmo, you’ll be charged a fee of $3.29 ($100 x 3.2%).
Venmo earnings from bank transfers
Venmo is a social payment platform that allows users to send and receive money from anyone in their phone contacts list. It’s also available as an app, which means you can use it to pay back your friends for that post-work happy hour or even tip your favorite bartender. The service is free to use, but Venmo has come up with a few clever ways to make money from its users. Here’s how Venmo makes money:
Venmo earnings from bank transfers
One of the most popular features of the Venmo app is that it allows you to send and receive money instantly from anyone in your contacts list without having to go through a traditional bank transfer process.
The service charges a fee of $0.25 per transaction, plus 3% of the amount sent if you don’t have a debit card linked to your account (which most people don’t). While this isn’t exactly cheap, it’s still cheaper than paying the typical 3% foreign exchange fee charged by your bank when making international payments.
Venmo earnings from credit cards
Venmo’s business model is fairly straightforward. The company does not charge a fee for transactions, but it does charge a small fee for credit card transactions. According to Venmo’s website, the company charges a 3 percent fee for payments made with credit cards. This is lower than the standard industry rate of 3.5 percent.
However, Venmo makes money from this because it also allows users to link their bank accounts and debit cards and pay through those channels instead of credit cards. This allows Venmo to avoid passing along the cost of processing credit card transactions to users.
Venmo earnings from international markets
Venmo began as a service for making payments between friends in the U.S., but now it has expanded its reach beyond American borders by allowing users in other countries to send money through the app as well (it’s currently available in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom).
The company charges fees for sending money internationally depending on where you’re sending money from and where your recipient lives: If you’re sending money from outside of the U.S., there will be an additional 1 percent fee on top of whatever other fees are charged by your bank or payment processor (e
Venmo earnings when you invest spare change
Venmo is a social payment app that allows users to send money to each other. The company was founded in 2009 by two friends, Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, while they were students at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, Braintree acquired Venmo for $26.2 million. In 2018, PayPal acquired Braintree for $800 million.
Venmo charges a fee of 3% on each payment transaction and $0.25 per transaction for withdrawals from your Venmo balance to your bank account or debit card. You can also add money to your Venmo balance using your credit card for a 2% fee (minimum $0.25).
The business model of Cash App is similar to that of Venmo
The company makes money by charging a small fee on each transaction. For example, if you send $100 from your bank account to a friend who has an account with the app, it will cost you $1.95. If you use your debit card or credit card, however, there is no fee at all.
It also makes money by charging interest on the money that users lend to each other through its peer-to-peer payment platform. Users can choose to lend out cash they have stored in their accounts and earn interest on it (3% annual percentage rate).
Conclusion
Venmo makes money primarily through fees, but they also subsidize these fees with a paid subscription service. While this model may seem a little unorthodox at first, it can actually work out well for both the customer and the business itself. We’ll look more closely at how Venmo uses their fees and subscriptions to make money in the next section. Transaction fees are determined by the type of transaction made, generally ranging from 1% to 25%, resulting in an average of 4%.