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Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

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Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#31

Post by Sholmesy »

thsowers wrote: post #26
Sholmesy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my company we use Stripe, and we have a rep that (I believe?) we have a direct line to. We started using them ~ 18 months ago, so maybe something has changed recently, but from my PM's perspective I think they have been quite responsive.

That's great to know for the future, i'll definitely keep that in mind going forward. I dug back and some of my last correspondence with them includes: >However, we do not offer proactive phone support for self-serve users who have integrated and whose questions do not require an immediate call. For further context, a large portion of our users are self-serve, and the majority of their questions are effectively handl…

Good info, thanks.

We are a decent sized company now, so maybe that's why we have a rep. I'd be surprised if Braintree offers reps to every 1 man start up though. From a scale perspective doesn't really make sense, and yeah you'd get plenty of 'web devs' that are stitching together some code they don't understand and then asking stripe why it doesn't work...

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#32

Post by Teichopsia »

As someone starting out (and still learning) what may be the recommended way of going about this?

I can't seem to find a payment processor that I trust to send payments to Central America (from the few I have seen - Braintree and stripe don't). There are a few caveats to this, unfortunately. My plan is to do all the legal work through the e-Estonia program but can't get started since I would need to fly out to pick up the identification card. Cash which will need to be generated through the business first.

Once that is set up it will be easier to get a payment processor (stripe, please add Estonia to your list first chance you get).

I'm wondering if it is sensible to accept payments online, generate some cash, start the e-Estonia process to have a legal business. But, I'm still stuck as to which processor to use to send the payments to to a personal account in Central America. Last I checked, I can't use paypal since that is a U.S only option. In either case, besides wondering which processor I could use, is this a sensible plan?

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#33

Post by taf2 »

thsowers wrote: post #20
teilo wrote: post #12

We moved from Auth.NET to Braintree, but not in the traditional sense. We use our own merchant account with Braintree's API, something that not many people know is even possible. Braintree's one-iframe-per-field integration is a beautiful thing. It gives us ultimate flexibility in formatting, bypasses a lot of PCI-DSS compliancy issue, and avoids the impression that the customer is leaving our website to enter paymen…

> We use our own merchant account with Braintree's API, something that not many people know is even possible. Could you elaborate on this?

The advantage here is with your own merchant account the fees can be significantly better. Also you get paid typically much faster with settlements happening daily instead of weekly. Assuming stripe PayPal still hold the funds in their banks longer? Before the PayPal acquisition of Braintree it was much more like authorize.net in that it was just a gateway for processing credit cards. Not being a bank account like PayPal and stripe.

There is an advantage to having your processor be both an account and a gateway in that you need only one relationship and it's much easier to get started.

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#34

Post by thsowers »

Sholmesy wrote: post #31
thsowers wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great to know for the future, i'll definitely keep that in mind going forward. I dug back and some of my last correspondence with them includes: >However, we do not offer proactive phone support for self-serve users who have integrated and whose questions do not require an immediate call. For further context, a large portion of our users are self-serve, and the majority of their questions are effectively handl…

Good info, thanks. We are a decent sized company now, so maybe that's why we have a rep. I'd be surprised if Braintree offers reps to every 1 man start up though. From a scale perspective doesn't really make sense, and yeah you'd get plenty of 'web devs' that are stitching together some code they don't understand and then asking stripe why it doesn't work...

I agree with you, I don't think Braintree offers reps to any small 1 person company, but we are mid sized and clear a fair amount of payments each month which is why I think we have a rep

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#35

Post by richardknop »

Braintree has built in PayPal support which is a big advantage compared to Stripe. This can be very strong argument if your employer already has a business relationship with PayPal as then legal work can be worked out faster as Braintree is a PayPal company.

But as a developer I also prefer Stripe because they have better API and SDK libraries.

Also subscription model is better in Stripe. You can create plans dynamically. With Braintree the API doesn't allow you to create new plans on the fly. Existing subscriptions cannot be upgraded/downgraded between different plans.

Also Braintree sandbox has been very flaky from my experience. In 3 months they have had several downtimes which slowed down development a bit.

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#36

Post by kuldar »

Teichopsia wrote: post #32

As someone starting out (and still learning) what may be the recommended way of going about this? I can't seem to find a payment processor that I trust to send payments to Central America (from the few I have seen - Braintree and stripe don't). There are a few caveats to this, unfortunately. My plan is to do all the legal work through the e-Estonia program but can't get started since I would need to fly out to pick u…

Another vote for Stripe supporting Estonia. As for e-residency, I believe you can also pick up the card at your local embassy.

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#37

Post by brandonbloom »

pc86 wrote: post #10
bpchaps wrote: post #6

I truly do not trust Braintree as a secure payment service. As a company, they host an asinine number of public events at their 100+ person meeting hall at Chicago's Merchandise Mart. To get to that hall, you have to walk about 200ft past all of their workstations and meeting rooms. Infrastructure diagrams and unlocked workstations are pretty much everywhere. Sure, they do a few things to mitigate the risks of people…

As an employee, how is walking away from your computer without locking it even remotely accessible? Granted most of my experience is healthcare and government but I've worked placed where leaving your computer open and unlocked if you were more than an arm's length away from it was a fire-able offense. I'm not saying that's an appropriate response, but come on... it's downright negligent, especially if you're dealing…

By all means, lock your machine when you walk away from it. Just don't pretend that would provide any protection against strangers walking through your office for even a few seconds.

Here's a USB dongle that's actually a key-logger with 2GB of storage and WiFi offloading for about $150 bucks available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Wi-Fi-Premium-Hardware-Keylogger-comp...

Options as cheap as $50 are available if you're willing to accept less storage and risk a second physical contact to recover your device (no WiFi).

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#39

Post by thsowers »

taf2 wrote: post #33
thsowers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We use our own merchant account with Braintree's API, something that not many people know is even possible. Could you elaborate on this?

The advantage here is with your own merchant account the fees can be significantly better. Also you get paid typically much faster with settlements happening daily instead of weekly. Assuming stripe PayPal still hold the funds in their banks longer? Before the PayPal acquisition of Braintree it was much more like authorize.net in that it was just a gateway for processing credit cards. Not being a bank account like Pa…

Ah I see, Thanks for the info!

Re: Why did we switch from Braintree to Stripe?

#40

Post by angryasian »

sparrish wrote: post #24

I'm confused. We've been Braintree customers for 6+ years now and they provide both "pro-rata pricing" and "discount model" based on more than time. I can provide screenshots that show both features for subscriptions and transactions. So confused right now.

Reading this article I thought the same thing. The reasons they decided to switch sounds like just a lack of understanding the the Braintree offerings. The title should be titled "We switched because Stripe's documentation was better and we didn't want to learn Braintree's"
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