Card always; Venmo only if your customers buy from their phone
You end up with just the right checkout screen: card as the base, one local method if your customers buy from their phone, and not one extra box nobody uses.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
Which payment methods to offer, and which ones you don't need: here's the short answer. You open your payment gateway panel and see a long list of checkboxes: card, Venmo, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, bank transfer, cash on delivery, financing over three months. The first temptation is to check all of them, just in case someone asks for one. The second is to leave only card checked, since that's the one you already know, and the one every gateway turns on by default.
Neither one is the right call. The problem isn't offering too few methods or too many: it's filling the screen with options none of your customers actually use, and in doing so, burying the one option the person in front of you right now would have actually used.
Your customer decides, not the gateway's list of options
The real question isn't which methods exist. It's where and how the person on the other end usually buys from you. If customers book appointments with you over WhatsApp, that same person is going to pay without ever leaving their phone: a method built for mobile wins there before you even compare it to anything else.
But if you sell something with a high price tag to people you've never met, who might be in another city or outside the US, mobile stops being the deciding factor and trust takes over: they want to pay without typing their card details into the website of someone they don't know.
Card always makes the cut, no matter your business: it's the one method everyone understands, on any device. The real question is what you add alongside it, not whether you replace it.
- Instant: the money lands in seconds
- Only works for people who already have a Venmo account set up
- Built for the customer paying from the same phone they texted you from
- It doesn't work for most customers outside the US, since they don't have Venmo
- Works with customers from almost any country
- Whoever's paying doesn't have to type their card details into your website
- Charges a fee to the person getting paid
- Takes a bit longer to set up the first time
Which one should I pick: If the people who message and pay you are from your own town, turn on Venmo, not PayPal. If you sell to strangers or get paid from outside the US, it's the other way around: PayPal, not Venmo. Only turn on both if you genuinely have both kinds of customers.
What doesn't belong on the screen
Cash on delivery means the carrier collects payment at the door, and you don't see that money until days later, assuming the customer doesn't refuse the package when it arrives. Financing over three or six months only makes sense once you're talking about a price tag that really hits someone's wallet, not a $40 session. And bank transfer as your main method is, in practice, asking the customer to trust you without the screen confirming anything right away.
None of the three is bad on its own. They become a problem when they take up space next to card and Venmo, and make someone hesitate who had already decided to pay three seconds earlier.
With card, and Venmo if it fits, already checked off, there's one more box to decide on: whether it's worth letting people pay in three installments, and starting at what price.
What we've decided
- Card turned on always, no exceptions
- A second method chosen based on where your customer comes from, not both by default
- Cash on delivery, financing, and bank transfer left off the screen unless they fit your price point or the customer asks for them directly
- Next lesson: paying in installments, when it helps and when it scares customers away
In Yodai the store comes with the Free plan, with a catalog, a cart and orders. See how to create your online store for free.
NextPaying in three installments: what price makes it worth offering