Google Pay is Google’s digital payment service that you can use to make mobile payments using your phone, watch or tablet. It’s connected to your Google account and lets you securely use your existing credit cards to pay for purchases at stores or online.
And while Google Pay is the name of the payment platform, you have a choice of which app you want to use to actually make mobile payments — Google Pay or Google Wallet. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google Pay’s redesign in 2020, saying the app made it “simpler to pay securely, organize finances, save money + more.”
Here’s everything you need to know about using Google Pay.
Getting started with Google Pay
To get started with Google Pay, you need to install either the Google Pay or Google Wallet app. Android users should choose Google Wallet; it offers a lot of additional features, such as the ability to store ID cards, loyalty cards, event tickets and passes, transit cards, and more. Not unlike Apple Wallet on iOS devices, it’s a convenient way to store almost anything you’d carry in a traditional wallet right within your mobile device.
Google Pay, on the other hand, is focused exclusively on letting you make mobile payments. The Google Pay app is being discontinued on June 4, 2024, so you should probably just go directly to the more useful Google Wallet. That said, Google Wallet isn’t yet available for iOS users. So for now, if you have an iPhone, you need to stick with the Google Pay app.
How to use Google Pay
One advantage of Google Pay is that it’s integrated with a number of other popular Google products. For instance, Google Flights offers a price guarantee where Google will pay you the difference if the price of your flight drops after you book it — you just have to have a Google Pay account.
The bottom line is that there are both pros and cons to using Google Pay. Not only is Google Pay a safe and secure payment system, but it’s broadly compatible with many retail stores — just look for the Google Pay or tap-to-pay symbol at checkout. And via the Google Wallet app, Google Pay does a lot more, letting you store transit cards and boarding passes, loyalty cards, and more all in one place.
Even so, there are some disadvantages to Google Pay as well. As pervasive as Google Pay is at retailers, especially in large cities, it’s far from ubiquitous. Especially in smaller locales and at independent stores, you might have trouble using Google Pay to make purchases. That means you still need to carry a physical credit card, at least as a backup, which can defeat the purpose of using Google Pay to begin with.
With the forthcoming end of the Google Pay app, Google is also leaving Apple users out in the cold. That means Google Pay could be an Android-only service starting in June 2024, unless Google releases a Google Wallet app for the iPhone.