Everything you need to know before your first payment request — how the link is built, what your friend sees, and why nothing is stored on our servers.
Pick whichever app you want to be paid in. PayPal works worldwide in multiple currencies. Venmo is US-only and always in USD.
For PayPal, that's the handle from your paypal.me/yourname link. For Venmo, it's your @username. This is the only thing that identifies where the money goes.
Type how much you're owed and, optionally, a short note like "Dinner" or "Trip." The amount gets pre-filled automatically in the payment app.
Copy it and paste it in any chat — iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram DM, email, anywhere. Your friend taps once and pays.
PayLink never intercepts the payment. When someone taps the "Pay with PayPal" or "Pay with Venmo" button, they are sent directly to PayPal's or Venmo's own official website or app — using the exact same payment flow as if they had opened paypal.me or Venmo themselves and typed everything in manually. PayLink's only job was to pre-fill the recipient and amount so they don't have to.
| PayPal | Venmo | |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | Worldwide | US only |
| Currency | USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, and more | USD only |
| What you need | A paypal.me username | A Venmo @username |
| Best for | International friends, freelance-style payments | US friends, splitting everyday US expenses |
If you're not sure, PayPal is the safer default since it works for almost everyone. If you know your friends are all on Venmo (common among US college students and young professionals), that's usually faster.
Most tools ask you to make an account before they'll help you request money. PayLink doesn't, on purpose. Your username, amount, and note are packed directly into the link's URL and read by your browser — there's no database entry created, no profile, nothing to breach or leak. The trade-off is that PayLink can't "remember" your links for you across devices; the benefit is that there's essentially nothing about you for anyone to find.
Yes — that's intentional. It's the same idea as a paypal.me link with an amount attached (e.g. paypal.me/name/25). Nothing sensitive like your card, bank account, or password is ever part of the link.
No. A PayLink link is a request to pay a specific username you put in it — it can't be used to pull money from whoever opens it, and it can't be redirected to a different recipient.
The link itself doesn't expire — it's just a URL. If you lose it, simply create a new one at tossmoney.site/us; it takes a few seconds.
Create your first link now →