Thanks to our smartphones, there’s no longer a need to put that drink purchase from a friend on an imaginary tab, or give them an IOU. From PayPal and Venmo to Square Cash, peer-to-peer mobile payment apps are perfect for friends and loved ones who want to exchange relatively small amounts of cash. If you are looking to download one of these apps but don’t know which one is the best for you we compiled a list of the top 5 best mobile payment apps today.
5. Zelle
The Zelle mobile payment app is the major banks’ way of saying they’re not content to sit back and let the red-hot peer-to-peer payment trend pass them by. So some of them banded together to make Zelle, a slick money-sending app that aims to go head-to-head with the likes of Venmo and Square Cash.
Zelle lacks the cool factor of an app like Venmo, but it’s got an ace up its sleeve: instant and free cash transfers. Enticing, but there’s a catch. You can send money to or request cash from anyone using Zelle, but the recipient will have to jump through a few hoops if they’re not already signed up with the service. If the intended recipient of your cash or money request is a customer of a participating Zelle bank, they’ll need to register using the Zelle app, their bank’s website, or their bank’s mobile app. If your friend’s bank doesn’t work with Zelle yet, they’ll need to download the Zelle app, enter their debit card info, and then wait a day or so for the money to land in their bank account.
To get free instant transfers, both your bank and the bank of the friend you’re exchanging cash with needs to be partnered with Zelle. If your bank isn’t partnered with Zelle, you’ll also be limited to sending no more than $300 over a rolling seven-day period. The Zelle app gives you the option of using touch ID to sign into the app, a fairly typical feature among the apps in our roundup.
4. Square Cash
Most users know Square as the service businesses use to process transactions. Square isn’t just for paying merchants using those little Square readers; it also lets you send personal payments to friends and loved ones, and that’s where Square’s “Cash” app comes in. Square Cash is both more simple and less flashy than Venmo, but it has some clever tricks up its sleeves, and it’s a good choice for users who want to send and receive money from anyone—even those without Square Cash accounts—with a minimum of fuss.
One of the best benefits of using Square Cash is that the person you’re paying doesn’t need a Square Cash account, so there’s no need for them to install another app or set up another account—all you need is their email address and your debit card. It’s free to use too, unless you’re a business, or you want to use a credit card (a three percent fee applies here).
Standard deposits show up the next day, while same day deposits cost a small fee (one percent) and you can link your account to a Visa card, MasterCard, or Discover debit card. Square Cash is difficult to beat for simplicity and ease-of-use, and you won’t have any problem keeping track of payments in and out. The app also lets you set up your own “$Cashtag” code that lets you get paid anonymously.
3. Facebook Messenger
If you’re a Facebook user and you enjoy chatting with friends using the Facebook Messenger app, you’re just a few taps away from exchanging cash with your Facebook buddies. Sending money through Facebook Messenger is certainly an easy, seamless experience, but you won’t find the robust bill-splitting features available in other apps, and you’ll have to settle for limited payment sources.
Paying money is as easy as typing out a dollar sign and an amount in a conversation window—it turns into a hyperlink that can be clicked to make the payment. You need to link a debit card to your Facebook account to send money in Messenger, though the service is free to use. Payments can take up to five days to process, but the obvious benefit is that pretty much everyone you know already uses Facebook (though anyone receiving money needs to enter their debit card details too). So there’s none of the hassle of asking friends to make an account just so you can pay them back for a pizza.
You can set Messenger to require a PIN or a password before you send cash. Just in case you’re wondering, your Messenger money exchanges aren’t posted publicly on Facebook. Instead, only you and the recipient can see the transaction and amount. If you’re on Facebook and you want to exchange cash with Facebook friends, there’s no easier way to do it than through Facebook Messenger, but those who want to tinker with split amounts or spend with a credit card will need to look elsewhere.
2. PayPal
PayPal, the pioneer of online payments, clearly wants in when it comes to the hip new world of peer-to-peer money transfers—after all, it did acquire Venmo back in 2013. But if you’re not so sure about sharing your personal transactions in Venmo’s social feed, you can still transfer money to friends and family using PayPal’s mobile app. PayPal boasts some distinct advantages compared to the more casual peer-to-peer money-sending apps, chief of which is its lax sending limits and buyer/seller protections for purchasing goods and services from strangers.
You need to have a bank account or card linked to your PayPal to draw the balance from, or you need a positive PayPal balance in your account, so some preparation is required. Sending money straight from your account or PayPal balance is free of charge, but if you use a linked debit or credit card there’s a fee of $0.30 plus 2.9 percent of the amount. That’s the costliest money transfer fee on this list, but PayPal is also the only app that lets you send money to people who aren’t in the US.
Similar to Square Cash and it’s “$Cashtag” web pages, PayPal offers public “PayPal.me” pages that let people pay you on the web, no PayPal account needed; all you have to do is share the URL of your PayPal.me page to get paid. Also, PayPal is currently beta-testing “instant” deposits for users with “eligible” debit cards, meaning your cash could be deposited in your bank account within minutes rather than the usual one to three-day wait. Nice, but there’s a catch: Each instant deposit will cost 25 cents. PayPal’s mobile app makes for one of the more secure ways to send and receive cash from friends or even strangers.
1. Venmo
The Venmo mobile payment app boasts a huge user base, a sleek interface, flexible payment options and agility at splitting bills. Owned by PayPal, it’s the peer-to-peer payment app to beat, as long as you don’t mind getting social about the tabs you’re picking up. Venmo is built around the idea of seamless mobile payments to friends and family, so you would expect it to be pretty good at its job, and it is.
To send or request cash, just tap the Compose button in the top-right corner of the main Venmo interface, add a name (or names, if you’re questing money from a bunch of lunch pals) from your list of Venmo friends (and given Venmo’s estimated 7 million active monthly users, you’ve probably got plenty), enter an amount, then tap Request or Pay. You can send money or request a payment from anyone, as long as you have their e-mail or phone number. That said, the other party must sign up with Venmo before they can receive money or pay you
You can send cash to friends from your debit card or bank account for free. If you use a credit card, though, expect to pony up a three-percent fee (unless you’re paying a Venmo-affiliated merchant, in which case the fee will be waived). Venmo has a $299.99 weekly rolling limit for transactions. Once you hit the limit, you can raise it up to $2,999.99 by confirming your identity with the last four digits of your Social Security Number, your ZIP code, and your birthday. You can set Venmo to require a PIN or touch ID before completing a transaction, handy from keeping a phone thief from draining your bank account via the Venmo app.
