You Can Now Make In-App Purchases With Venmo

Mashable
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PayPal is finally beginning to make money off of Venmo.

The peer-to-peer payments app so popular among millenials can now be used to make in-app purchases, PayPal announced Wednesday. The company is initially partnering with two iOS apps, Gametime and Munchery, but plans to work with other developers in the future.

See also: The Beginner’s Guide to Venmo

With the update, Venmo will now appear as a payment option within Munchery, a meal delivery app, and Gametime, a ticketing app. Once you’ve connected either app with your existing account, you can make payments through the accounts linked to your Venmo account and you can publicly share the transaction through the app’s social feed as you would with other purchases.

Venmo, of course, is primarily known for its social aspect in making it easier for friends to split cab fares, bar tabs and other transactions. Braintree’s Jay Parekh points out that this stands to be one of the biggest advantages for in-app payments since you’ll also be able to split these purchases with friends, just as you would with a typical Venmo transaction.

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Image: GameTime

For PayPal, the update means the company will finally be able to monetize Venmo. Though the app doesn’t charge fees for peer-to-peer transactions, it will charge merchants a fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per each transaction. That likely won’t translate to a huge amount during the initial rollout, but given Venmo’s popularity, stands to be a significant amount once the company partners with more services.

The move also makes Venmo a direct competitor or Apple Pay and Google’s Android Pay, both of which are also used for in-app purchases. (Both Munchery and Gametime also support in-app purchases via Apple Pay.)