Venmo Business vs Personal: What’s the difference?

You may best know Venmo as a digital wallet used for easy peer-to-peer transactions. As of 2022, there were over 77.7 million active users of Venmo.¹

But Venmo also offers a business profile, allowing you to accept payments for goods and services. More than 2 million merchants accept payments via Venmo.²

This article will look at Venmo Business vs personal accounts, the pros, cons, fees and everything else involved.

Venmo Business vs Personal: Quick overview

Here’s a quick overview of Venmo personal vs business account features.

Is Venmo Business different from Venmo?

With a Venmo personal account, you can make peer-to-peer transactions. On top of this, you can make payments to authorized business accounts.

But, if you want to accept payments in return for a good or service that you offer, then you’ll need to open a Venmo Business account.

With a Venmo Business account, you can accept business payments.

Can you use regular Venmo for business?

You cannot use a personal Venmo profile for accepting business payments.⁵

Venmo forbids these transactions for two reasons.

Firstly, personal profiles don’t have the tax records necessary for business accounts. And secondly, there’s no way of ensuring customer privacy when accepting personal payments.

For these reasons, personal profiles on Venmo are unsuitable for accepting business payments.

What happens if you use personal Venmo for business?

If you accept a payment for a good or service on your Venmo personal profile, Venmo might review the payment.

During the review, Venmo may reverse the payment, causing you to lose it and the product or service you sold.⁵

Venmo fees: Personal vs Business

Let’s now take a look at Venmo business account vs personal account fees.

Venmo business accounts are charged a fee on every received transaction that is equal to or greater than $1.00 USD. This is known as the seller transaction fee and is 1.9% + $0.10 USD of the payment.

It’s the seller, and not the buyer, who has to pay this fee, which is in line with industry standards.⁴

So if a customer sends $200 USD to your Venmo business account, for example, then you’ll receive $196.10 USD.

It should be noted that these fees are non-refundable. With the help of these fees, Venmo can provide business specific features and services.⁴

Apart from the seller transaction fee, there are no extra Venmo business account fees.

Fees associated with both personal and business accounts include:

• Instant transfer fee for electronic withdrawals of 1.75% (minimum $0.25 USD, maximum $25 USD fee)
• Out-of-network (non-MoneyPass) ATM withdrawal fee of $2.50 USD
• Over-the-counter cash withdrawal (bank and other financial institution) fee of $3.00 USD

Aside from these, Venmo Business is relatively fee-free, with no account creation or monthly fees.⁶

Venmo Personal vs Business: Pros and Cons

The Venmo Business account comes with a range of business specific features. Venmo offers businesses tax reporting tools, enhanced payment features and dispute services.⁴

Offering Venmo as a payment option gives customers an easy, swift way to pay for your products.

You can integrate Venmo as a payment option in your business’ own mobile app or website.²

Customers can also pay using Venmo in-store by scanning your business’ QR code.⁷

In addition to this, Venmo businesses benefit from increased visibility in the app. Highly-engaged Venmo users can also refer your business, giving you increased marketing. Every time users buy one of your products, it will show up in their feed, giving your business effectively free marketing.

To create a Venmo Business account, you aren’t required to open a new account with Venmo. Instead, it will be linked to your Venmo personal account. This simplifies your life while keeping your personal and business finances separate.⁷

One negative for both accounts, is that Venmo international transactions are not possible.

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The main difference between Venmo Business account vs Personal

Need to send or receive international payments? Try Wise

One thing both Venmo personal and business accounts have in common, is that they don’t support international transactions. This is where a Wise Business account could be a great alternative.

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You’ll have access to the mid-market exchange rate, making your money go further. You can also get local account details for international currencies, allowing you to receive money like a local - with no messy cross border fees.

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15 million people and businesses already use Wise. You can easily create an account online, and start saving time and money for your business today.

All sources checked 7th February, 2023.