Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree • Hacker News Board

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#21

Post by tylerrooney » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

xal wrote: post #18

tylerrooney wrote: post #16

Oh how I wish Braintree was accessible in Canada. We've haven't been very pleased with our payment processor as of late. About a year ago I actually managed to get someone from Braintree talking with someone from Chase Paymentech Canada (since Braintree supports Chase Paymentech). Unfortunately, BT is integrated with CP Salem whereas CP Canada only processes through CP Tampa. If anyone has tried to do this in the las…

We (Shopify) use braintree and are customers of Chase Paymentech. This is how we collect all our fees.

But I imagine you have a US domiciled merchant/bank account correct?

If you're doing that with a Canadian based merchant account, please send your account rep's info at CP or BT.

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#22

Post by alexjawad » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 6:55 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #17

I'm excited to give Braintree a go someday, but what I really wish is that someone would come up with a system that was orthogonal to and independent of the existing banking system. The banks and the regulations make all real credit card processing a major PITA, and while Braintree eases the process, they are not an exception as far as I can tell. They still have to underwrite and they still have to vet accounts for…

True, banking fees really do take up a significant post in the P/L, and the smaller you are, the more you're paying, why it's not optimal for startups. A startup bank would be a cool idea.

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#23

Post by tyrelb » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 7:24 AM UTC

tylerrooney wrote: post #21

xal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Shopify) use braintree and are customers of Chase Paymentech. This is how we collect all our fees.

But I imagine you have a US domiciled merchant/bank account correct? If you're doing that with a Canadian based merchant account, please send your account rep's info at CP or BT.

beanstream in canada is actually quite good, easy to setup, low fees, and has a good api (credit card data stored on their server). i looked at braintree, but couldn't use them b/c of canadian merchant. beanstream also lets you do funky things with canada/us currency (collect and settle in us funds, settle in US banks, etc.)

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#24

Post by yannickmahe » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:16 AM UTC

LiveTheDream wrote: post #5

stevenbrianhall wrote: post #3

"Who are the customers Braintree decided to write off? “It was a fool’s errand to try selling medicine to those who hadn’t yet experienced pain. Payment processing is complex. It’s difficult for inexperienced merchants to recognize value. We’d spend countless hours trying to explain ‘pain’ and our cure but some just didn’t care because they hadn’t felt it yet...'" That's money right there. And noted for the future of…

Perverse idea/thought experiment: what about creating two versions of some service X which are ostensibly competitors; one is a free/cheap version A with no support and one is a much higher-priced, supported and professional version B. The answer to support requests on A would mostly be "no", with the occasional "if you want that, use service B". Sort of an extreme take on freemium/market segmentation. A acts simulta…

That's a pretty common strategy for Open Source companies. For example, Magento (OpenSource PHP e-commerce solution) is free, with no support. Then there's the full-on enterprise edition at 10 000 Euros per server where you get complete support from Magento Inc, including guaranteed revenue in case Magento fails.

Pain is not built-in though, but close.

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#25

Post by tomjen3 » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 11:34 AM UTC

While this is valuable, it is really a company that shouldn't exist - banks needs to be forced to use a standard API and be barred from abusing their government monopoly.

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#26

Post by avree » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 11:50 AM UTC

These guys are awesome—they power all our payments. The one thing I wish they could somehow add support for is outgoing EFT/ACH transfers.

We do have one funny story about them from Getaround... one night, early in the morning, we got a call directly from their CEO. Apparently we had written some bad code that was just hammering their servers—basically, we were accidentally DoSing Braintree.

Got it fixed up quickly, and have loved them and used them ever since!

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#27

Post by pitdesi » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 1:38 PM UTC

tylerrooney wrote: post #16

Oh how I wish Braintree was accessible in Canada. We've haven't been very pleased with our payment processor as of late. About a year ago I actually managed to get someone from Braintree talking with someone from Chase Paymentech Canada (since Braintree supports Chase Paymentech). Unfortunately, BT is integrated with CP Salem whereas CP Canada only processes through CP Tampa. If anyone has tried to do this in the las…

Tyler - We're getting ready to launch in Canada... In a couple of weeks you should be able to use http://feefighters.com to compare payment processors apples-to-apples!

Re: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree

#28

Post by seanharper » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:32 PM UTC

haploid wrote: post #13

thematt wrote: post #9

For anyone who hasn't used them yet, it's the one-stop-shop and their API that really sets them apart from the competition. You submit one set of paperwork and they take care of all the accounts: merchant, gateway and api. No need to chase down different accounts and get them all working together. The fantastic API literally saved hundreds of hours of integration and build time, as the recurring billing, discounts an…

Well, the convenience sure does sound nice, but the rates are staggeringly high: V/MC Non-Qualified: 2.89% + $.30 Cybersource+WFB clocks in at roughly half that for V/MC( although Amex rates are around that level ), with per-transaction at 10 cents or less.

There is no way that Cybersource + Wells Fargo is charging 1.45% for non-qual transactions. More likely they are doing something called Marking Up the Downgrades http://feefighters.com/blog/marking-up-the-downgrades/ where they quote a low "qualified" rate that only applies to a small minority of transactions.

The wholesale rates for credit card processing (called interchange rates) are available online at visa and mastercard's websites (search for "visa interchange rates"). Without getting into details, all card-not-present transactions, regardless of card type, are more than 1.45%.

Braintree's pricing is not the lowest, but I bet if you looked carefully at your statement from Wells you would find that it is worse than Braintree - some of the worst processing deals I have ever seen are from Wells Fargo.

If you want to make sure that your processor is not pulling funny business with downgrades, insist on Interchange Plus pricing (http://feefighters.com/blog/interchange-plus/). Or just a completely flat rate with no downgrades.

And then monitor it closely, this is one of the most crooked industries on the planet.