How to take orders with Cash App, Venmo, PayPal or Zelle
You do not need a card reader to sell. Here is how to take orders and get the exact amount through the payment apps your customers already have.
Utilica3 min read
Plenty of small sellers already get paid through Cash App, Venmo, PayPal or Zelle. The payment itself is the easy part. What goes wrong is everything around it.
Where it usually goes wrong
- The total is worked out by hand. Two coffees, one with oat milk, plus tax. Someone does the sum in their head and someone else types it into an app.
- The wrong amount gets sent. A typo turns $18.50 into $1.85 or $185.
- Nobody knows which payment is which. Three payments of $12 arrive in a row and there are four people at the counter.
- There is no record of the order. The payment app knows money moved. It does not know it was two tacos with no onions.
What a good setup needs
- One list of what you sell, with prices, that customers can read on their own phone.
- A total worked out for them, with tax, to the cent.
- The payment app opened with that amount ready, so nobody types a number.
- An order number that ties the payment to the order.
- A way for you to confirm once you have seen the money arrive.
How it works on Utilica
You add your products to a page: names, photos, prices, sizes and sections. You add the name people already pay you at, like your $Cashtag or your Venmo username. That is the whole setup.
From then on:
- A customer opens your page from a link or a QR code and adds what they want.
- The page adds it up, with sales tax if you charge it, and shows one total.
- They choose how to pay, and their app opens with the amount filled in.
- The order appears on your Orders screen with its own number.
- You see the payment arrive in your own app, tap confirm, and the customer gets a receipt.
Utilica never connects to your payment accounts and never holds the money. It goes from your customer's app straight to you, and there is no fee per sale from us.
What each app can and cannot do
The four apps do not all work the same way, and it is worth knowing the differences.
| App | Amount filled in | Note filled in |
|---|---|---|
| Venmo | Yes | Yes |
| Cash App | Yes | No, it is copied for the customer to paste |
| PayPal | Yes | No, it is copied for the customer to paste |
| Zelle | No pay link exists | The customer sees who to pay and the exact amount |
Zelle payments are sent from inside the customer's banking app, so there is no link that can open it with an amount. The customer is shown your Zelle details and the exact total to enter.
Why you confirm each payment yourself
None of these apps tell anyone else that a payment happened. Only you and the customer can see it. So an order has three stages:
- Awaiting payment: the order is placed.
- Customer says paid: they have told you they sent it.
- Paid: you have seen it in your app and confirmed.
That last step is yours on purpose. It means a customer cannot mark their own order as paid.
Before you start
Each payment app has its own rules and fees for taking payments as a business. Check what yours asks of sellers, and use the kind of account it expects a business to use.
Start with five products
The free plan includes one page with 5 products and full checkout, which is enough to try it at a market stall or a counter this weekend. If you sell in person, print a QR code that opens your page and put it where the queue forms.
See how it fits market stalls, food trucks and restaurants.
