@Tallia: that’s what I figured.
PayPal, Venmo basically the same company, PayPal owns Venmo
Originally Posted by sweet_k47
Yes, I’m aware. I use PayPal to make purchases and don’t pay a fee. I assume the seller has some small merchant fee they pay, but I don’t know the fee structure on their end, if any. I don’t recall if I had to pay a fee for person-to-person transactions, but it’s been awhile since I’ve done so and don’t recall any.
Venmo wants to charge me a fee for any transaction that doesn’t involve money in my Venmo cash account or using a Venmo-affiliated credit card. If someone sends me cash through Venmo I’ll keep it there so I can use it without paying a fee. I think the most I’ve ever kept there is $300 and I’ve used up most of that.
Zelle doesn’t charge me anything and it’s easy to transact from my banking app. Most of my friends who used to use Venmo have switched to Zelle, presumably for the same reasons.
Back to Venmo and PayPal: I think the fee structure is different between the two because PayPal is focused on e-commerce. Most online retailers offer PayPal as an option alongside Visa and Mastercard. Venmo appears to be focused on replacing cash payments among individuals, and if they can get you to borrow to do so (via credit card) they are more than happy to make their money that way given how many people carry over balances and pay the big credit card interest rate.