Braintree Blog

We use Braintree (http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/), and I've never had a better experience with a service provider. They're consummately professional, know their product and category inside and out, and are eager to educate people on the ins and outs of credit card processing. I had heard at one point that they had a higher rate for services billing less than $1MM a year, but I've since heard that that doesn't apply to SaaS companies that are using Rails (I'm not sure what the definitive answer is on this; I know they were the best price we could find, and I looked extensively).

For recurring billing, we use a Rails-based billing framework called Freemium (http://github.com/cainlevy/freemium/tree/master), and have been very happy with it. It integrates with Braintree flawlessly. Also, its primary developer is a freelancer (http://cainlevy.com/) who is available for hire, if you're looking for someone to help you get set up. We hired him, and couldn't be happier with his work.

One thing to keep in mind when you're looking for a payment processor is this: How transparent are they with their costs? Do they complicate their fee structure with hidden costs? Credit card billing can be a really complex beast, and having a partner who's interested in helping you make sense of it is very valuable. That's what we found in Braintree. I'm sure there are others that are good, but I'm glad I haven't had to look for them, and that I've been able to just focus on building my…

Hey thanks a lot for the feedback.

On pricing: This is a real concern, so I hear you. We've considered the cost of data storage and are fairly confident in the model. In the unlikely event that 100 accounts use 10GB each, we'll be doing fine. A 1000 person company is also way out of our target demographic here, the app is purposefully not designed for that many users. What your comments on this subject say to me, at the core, is that we need to prioritize a full API so that one can easily take their data with them if an unfortunate situation like you describe ever arises.

On no-credit-card-for-signup: This is a big one. We argued and debated about it for a long time. It comes down to the fact that while requiring a credit card in order to start a free trial is common, we just don't like it. Conversion is harder, to be sure, but we feel that letting people try the service without a credit card is a good way to encourage as many people as possible to actually try it. Also, there's a great discussion on this at http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/blog/negative-option that heavily influenced our decision here.

Appreciate the comment!

Especially important for lean startups when considering payment providers for subscriptions is the ability to "take your customers with you" as you grow. When using Paypal, Clickbank, Fastspring/ Saasly, they are the merchant of record, so they "own" the customer data. If you ever want to move to a different provider, get your own or switch merchant accounts... the customers that signed up with these providers will need to signup for a new subscription and submit their CC data again to transition them to your new provider. The other option is you can continue to use these old providers for your existing subscribers, and use your new providers for new customers, but that adds a bunch of complexity for technology, customer support...

This isn't a unique issue with "merchant of record" companies, gateways like Auth.net have a real issue with this too, check out:
http://community.developer.authorize.net/t5/Integration-and-Testing/Any-way-to-export-data-from-CIM/td-p/6264

http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/blog/open-letter-to-the-ceos-of-paypal-and-authorize-net-help-end-the-credit-card-data-hostage-situation

Braintree is great, the API, docs, and client libraries are all great. I'm using it for a subscription based product and couldn't be happier with the choice, even if the minimum fees are a little higher than most, if you aren't going to be able to cover a $75 minimum per month then you probably have bigger issues with your business plan than your payments provider.

The fact that they give data portability is great and the "transparent redirect" is super convenient, knowing that i have practically nothing to worry about from the PCI DSS side of things. If I ever get to the point of needing it (which I may soon) it looks like they have the ability to manage multi-merchant accounts from the same system http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/services/multi-merchant

Although I have heard great things about Stripe, really want to check that out soon. Also, after looking at the prices for Chargify or Recurly, it really doesn't seem to be that much of a value add for something that can be easily accomplished with the Braintree API.

This advice is hard earned. Great write up.

We're on the opposite side of the spectrum as a company in that we're not well known, we're not well connected, we don't have outside capital, and we're not creating the next generation of search. We do, however, have similar goals of finding and retaining the best people, building an enduring and rewarding culture, and continuously exploring better ways to do things. We actually blogged today about what we've learned as a startup in trying to find the best people who are also the right cultural fit.

http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/inside-braintree/recruiting-for-a-start-up-when-youre-not-a-recruiter

I'd take a serious look at Braintree for credit card processing http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/. I'm not affiliated, we're a customer that uses them for processing. Reading stories like this, I'm glad we do.

When we signed up they gave us a heads-up on almost every one of these facts (i.e. warning us up front to authorize a minimum of a dollar or many banks would reject it). They called AMEX on our behalf to get the service hooked up so we didn't have to. They've also given us tons of technical advice, like how to improve accuracy on AVS checks and details on what some of the esoteric failure codes really mean.