Split bills over UPI

Paying someone back

1. Open Mull and tap the person you owe. You see one number, across every group you share.
2. Tap Pay. Your UPI app opens, Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm or whichever you use, with the amount and their UPI ID already filled in.
3. Check the name your UPI app shows, and approve the payment there with your UPI PIN, as you always do.
4. The balance clears once they confirm it arrived.

Why the balance waits for them

In Mull, a payment is claimed by the person who paid and confirmed by the person who was paid. Only a confirmed payment moves the balance, so nobody’s balance changes because of a tap they never saw. The person you paid gets a notification asking them to confirm.

Why their UPI ID comes from them

Everyone adds their own UPI ID to their own profile, and friends are added by a request the other person accepts, so you never type someone else’s UPI ID. That matters: a mistyped UPI ID doesn’t always fail. It can pay a stranger, and a UPI payment can’t simply be undone. The only person trusted to enter a UPI ID is the person it pays.

A payment app, or a splitting app?

A UPI app is built for one payment at a time. Splitting is about the running tally: forty expenses over a trip, rent every month, the dinner someone covered in June. Mull keeps that tally, one number with each person across every group, and hands the payment itself to your UPI app.

See it on a real trip in how to split trip expenses, or month by month in how to split rent with flatmates.

If Pay doesn’t open your UPI app

Mull opens whichever UPI app your iPhone offers, such as Google Pay, PhonePe or Paytm. If nothing opens, make sure one is installed. You can always copy the UPI ID and pay by hand, then record the payment in Mull. More help is on the support page.

Staying safe

• Check the name your UPI app shows before you approve a payment.
• Your UPI PIN goes into your UPI app and nowhere else. Mull never asks for it.
• Only put your own UPI ID on your profile. People will pay whatever UPI ID is on it.
• Someone bothering you? Report or block them from Friends.

Questions

Does Mull charge anything?

No. Mull is free, and it adds nothing to what you pay.

Does the money go through Mull?

No. It goes from your UPI app to theirs, like any UPI payment. Mull keeps the record of who owes what.

Which UPI apps work?

Any UPI app your iPhone offers to open, such as Google Pay, PhonePe or Paytm.

More guides

• Leaving Splitwise?. A Splitwise alternative for India, compared honestly, and how to move your group across.
• Split the trip. Sharing a trip’s costs as you go, splitting what isn’t equal, and settling up once you’re home.
• Split the rent. Rent, Wi-Fi and the maid with flatmates: bills that ask before they add, month after month.