Venmo vs Cash App: Which is right for you?

Life is just easier with apps, isn’t it?

From grocery shopping and depositing checks to signing documents and navigating traffic jams, apps give you fun, useful ways to knock items off your to-do list, no matter where you are in the world.

And with popular mobile payment apps like Venmo and Cash App, you can even send and receive money — quickly, safely, and digitally. Many mobile payment apps are free to download and use, too, letting you split checks with friends or make in-store purchases without charging you an extra cent.

But with so many of these apps on the market, how do you decide which one is best for you? Here’s a comprehensive look at two of the most popular mobile payment apps — Venmo vs Cash App.

Overview of Venmo

Venmo got its start in 2009 after its co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail forgot his wallet during a weekend visit in New York City with Venmo’s other co-founder, Andrew Kortina. Since then, Venmo has revolutionized how people send and receive money digitally. It’s easy to set up, free to use, and a bit of a social media platform, as friends and family — even merchants — can “like” or comment on transactions with fun emojis and GIFs.

Venmo even offers a business profile for its users (provided they have a personal account with Venmo first) — enabling small and medium-sized businesses to easily and conveniently accept customer payments and get noticed by the Venmo community. Venmo for business profiles don’t require setup or monthly fees and only charge a low seller transaction fee.

Overview of Cash App

Like Venmo, Cash App is all about sending and receiving money easily, conveniently, and securely. However, with Cash App, you can use its $Cashtag feature to do those things rather than using a bank account number, phone number, or email address (though you’ll need to share that information to register for an account). Once registered, all Cash App users automatically get a unique $Cashtag, or screen name, enabling them to complete online transactions as effortlessly as sending a text message.

Cash App users can also earn discounts and perks at various businesses, design a debit card to match their style, and buy and sell bitcoin and stocks.

Venmo vs Cash App: Features

For the most part, Venmo and Cash App are similar, especially since they’re both only currently available within the United States. They primarily only differ when it comes to spending limits, security, and customer support.

Spending limits

Until your account is verified, you’ll have a person-to-person weekly spending limit of $299.99 with Venmo and $250 with Cash App. Venmo’s verification process is more complex, as it requires a person’s full name, birthday, social security number, and physical address to compare to government data.

Once a user is verified by Venmo, they can send as much as $25,000 per week if they have a Venmo business profile. Cash App requires further identity verification to send or receive more than $1,000 per month.

Security

Both Venmo and Cash App use advanced security features like verification locks and data encryption to protect personal information and funds. While both Venmo and Cash App are highly encrypted and pride themselves on safely securing personal user data, Cash App takes it one step further by requiring a one-time login code every time a user logs into their account that they can only access with their smartphone.

Customer support

Though both Venmo and Cash App offer valuable online resources and helpful FAQs, Venmo has more options in terms of live agents available via phone, chat, and email for many hours throughout the day. Cash App offers similar options, though its help page directs users to try contacting them through their app or website first.

Venmo vs Cash App: The right choice for you

Though remarkably similar (even in terms of business account features and fees), the two apps differ when it comes to spending limits, extra verification steps, security, and customer support.

Ultimately, understanding your frequent transactions — how often and how much you send and receive on a weekly basis — will be one of the biggest factors in deciding which app is best for you. You can, of course, use both platforms if you truly can’t decide, as Cash App is perfect for transactions with strangers due to its $Cashtag anonymity, while Venmo is best for those you know personally as well as for sending frequent, recurring payments.

Regardless of whether you choose Venmo vs Cash App, you’ll be well on your way to sending and receiving money more quickly, safely, and conveniently than ever before.