To send a payment or charge request directly from iMessage, you can follow the steps below:
To send a payment or charge request directly from iMessage, you can follow the steps below:
1. Open a conversation in Messages with the friend you’d like to pay or charge.
2. Tap the arrow to the left of the text field and choose the apps icon
to open up your apps that are connected with iMessage.
3. Swipe until you get to Venmo, or choose Venmo from the apps that you have connected by tapping the four grey bubbles in the lower lefthand corner of the keyboard. Learn about enabling the Venmo iMessage extension.
4. If this is your first time sending a payment or charge request in iMessage, you’ll see a tutorial and you'll need to accept our terms and conditions. Once you get through that (or if you’ve done this before), choose “Request” or “Pay”.
5. Type in the amount and note, and then tap the Pay or Request button to send just like you normally would in the app!
Money leaves your account the moment you send a payment. However, the recipient needs to accept the payment before money is added to their Venmo account.
6. Tap the send arrow to the right of the text field to send the iMessage payment bubble to your friend. Once they receive that message, they’ll be able to accept your payment.
Payment status
Just like in the Venmo app, the moment you tap the "Pay" button, funds will be taken from your payment method. However, payments sent in iMessage work a bit differently for the recipient than payments in the app. Specifically, your friend needs to accept the payment for the funds to be added to their Venmo account.
If your friend does not accept within 3 days, the funds will be reversed back to the funding source that you used to send the payment.
You can check to see if your friend has accepted the payment, or if it’s still pending, by opening up the iMessage payment bubble in the conversation. The status will be shown right at the top. You can always cancel the payment if it hasn’t been accepted yet by going to the Pending section in the Venmo app.
Accepting iMessage Payments
If you’ve received a payment via iMessage you’ll need to accept it for the funds to be added to your Venmo account (and if you don’t have a Venmo account, you will need to sign up first). Depending on your device, there are a couple of different ways to do this:
- iOS 13
- If you have iOS 13 installed on your phone, tap the iMessage payment bubble that your friend sent in your conversation. You may be prompted by Apple to update your Venmo app to the latest version before you can continue. Once you do, tap the blue “Accept Payment” button. You should see a thumbs-up emoji 👍 at the top of the screen indicating the funds were added to your Venmo account. From there you can either view the payment in the Venmo app, or continue your conversation with your friend!
- Android, web & older versions of iOS
- If you don’t have iOS 13 quite yet, good news - you can still accept payments sent in iMessage with an Android phone or other iOS enabled device (iOS 8+). If a friend sends you a payment using iMessage, you’ll see a link to accept the payment in the SMS thread. Tapping this link will launch the Venmo app or your web browser and take you to a screen where you can accept the payment. If you do not have a Venmo account yet, you’ll need to sign up first.
Canceling iMessage Payments