Google Play now accepts Venmo as a payment method, letting US Android users pay for apps, games, subscriptions, and in-app purchases with their Venmo balance or any payment method linked to their Venmo account. The integration went live today, August 10.
To set it up, open the Google Play Store, go to your payment methods in account settings, and link your Venmo account. Once connected, Venmo appears as a checkout option across Google Play and also works for purchases on YouTube and other Google services tied to your Play billing profile.
Google Play Payment Options in the US
Venmo joins Cash App Pay and PayPal as third-party digital wallet options on Google Play, alongside traditional credit and debit cards, carrier billing, and Google Play gift cards. The addition is US-only in practice — Venmo itself does not operate outside the United States.
For users who already keep a Venmo balance from peer-to-peer transfers, this removes one friction point: money sitting in Venmo can now go directly toward Play Store purchases without first being transferred to a bank account. Whether that convenience is worth linking yet another payment surface to a digital wallet is a judgment call. Every additional billing integration is one more place your payment credentials live, and Google’s blog post — which markets the feature as “the secure, fast, and social experience you know” — does not address what transaction data, if any, is shared between Google and PayPal (Venmo’s parent company) as part of the integration.
Source: Google Blog
