Alternatives to Venmo

Looking for positive experiences that anyone has had with the transactional data for personal payment apps.

I’ve used CashApp and I like it, but I’ve never been able to set up third-party access.

I’ve used Venmo for a while, and it’s entirely annoying to work with. Back when I was using Mint, it duplicated the Venmo accounts, and transactions would show up in each account randomly. Having to validate every time it needs a refresh is tiresome, especially when I manage both mine and my wife’s accounts, and she’s not always available to provide the authentication code. And now our Venmo transactions aren’t even showing up in my Tiller spreadsheet.

I’m considering Zelle (never used it), but I wanted to get an idea of what services others have connected to their Tiller account that have been easy to update in Tiller and have consistent transaction records.

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@Zachary IME, Zelle brings in the name of the payee/payer consistently. (You don’t need to separately connect anything beyond the bank account Zelle is connected to.)

So you don’t need to connect Zelle to Tiller? That would be much more manageable if I could manage these types of transactions through the bank records instead of a separate program. That’s a whole other pain point with Venmo (transactions don’t balance).

With Zelle, the money goes straight out from or into your bank account (rather than like PayPal or Venmo where you can keep a balance, which causes the accounting issues if you can’t connect those accounts to Tiller), and in my experience the bank transaction will bring over all the info you need to categorize it easily. So, no, no need (and in fact I don’t think possible) to connect Zelle into Tiller at all. Zelle is the cleanest of the three (Zelle, PayPal, Venmo) for sure.

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Zelle is a no brainer for a ton of reasons. Payments land in your bank account instantly. No third parties are involved. Zelle is the banking systems ACH same way you get your paycheck, social security checks and tax refunds. You don’t share your banking info with others just mobile phone or email.

The only downside is both parties need to be using US banks.

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While i still use venmo for several people who use it regularly I’m also finding that i prefer to use zelle when possible because of having less steps to reconcile with Tiller. I never really tried to link venmo but did always try to remove the balance from there are each transaction which is a pain.

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Also, there is no fee involved in the transfer with Zelle. WIth Paypal and Venmo, the money stays with them and there is a fee to transfer to your bank account.

I use Zelle a lot when my hiking group plans a trip. We can instantly repay whomever books the accomodations.

Try it, you’ll like it.

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Thanks all for the insight. I tried Zelle for one of my monthly transactions and it is so much easier to cut out the middle man. I think the only difficult part in transitioning will be to get other people to use it.

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