When it comes to selecting a payment processor, Braintree is a popular name among merchants. Braintree is one of the biggest solutions in the industry offering an amazing selection of tools and features business owners would benefit from. The company has offices across the globe and appeals to businesses of all sizes.
In this review, let us discuss a few important things you must know about Braintree before deciding to use it for your business.
1. What is Braintree?
Founded back in 2007, Braintree is a merchant’s service provider currently owned and run by PayPal. Today, it is one of the biggest operators in the payments landscape, processing over 6 billion transactions every year. The company, despite its size, is primarily focused on eCommerce with little for retail merchants.
eCommerce merchants signing up for the payments service rate Braintree 5/5 for the excellent features one would expect from a modern payment gateway and the variety of customization options available. It is extremely easy to integrate and is a preferred choice for small businesses as well as enterprise solutions.
2. What Features does Braintree Offer?
Braintree focuses solely on digital and mobile solutions and is a great choice for those who work in eCommerce. It offers a wide range of features across two categories – payment gateway services & merchant accounts.
Those who open a merchant account with Braintree get a full-service solution with an attractive set of features, account stability, and a unique ID. As there are no minimum processing requirements, it suits smaller companies as well.
If you opt for a payment gateway service, you receive everything you need apart from payment processing. Here are some of the services you can benefit from:
- Braintree Direct – Designed for companies willing to sell directly on the mobile app or website, Direct allows accepting different payment methods including credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and digital wallets. This solution also offers several extra features like integration, fraud protection, recurring billing, and more.
- Braintree Extend – With this solution, merchants can share payment data with other platforms, merchants, service providers, etc. Bigger companies can use it to share data with reward partners, security services, loyalty partners, and vault providers.
- Braintree Marketplace – These solutions let you manage different aspects of your business seamlessly. You can even split the payments between yourself and your suppliers.
- Braintree Auth – This product is specifically designed for third-party providers that take care of invoicing, data analytics, and more. It offers a secure way of sharing merchant data.
3. What Currencies and Payment Types are Supported?
Being a global payment processor, Braintree supports a wide range of payment methods in every region. It also supports settlement in more than 130 currencies.
In most regions, it supports credit cards like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Dinners Club, and American Express along with alternative payment methods including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, PayPal, and more.
4. Is Braintree Easy to Use?
Talking about ease of use, it is important to consider the target audience as the solution is mainly designed for merchants and developers. Braintree is known to be easy to integrate with existing payment methods and providers.
Experienced programmers should find it easy to set up Braintree with an estimated time of 30 minutes. It offers well-designed, easily accessible documentation as well for setting up the features and tools.
5. What Products and Services are Offered?
Braintree allows customers to open a merchant account, so they don’t have to pay a bank. Here are some of the most useful products and services from the company.
- Credit Card Vault – The vault stores customer payment data securely and allows merchants to download the information to switch to another payment processor.
- Mobile – The service works with mobile applications from supported eCommerce partners. SDKs allow creating payment buttons as well as apps for smartphones.
- Recurrent Billing – As customer info is stored in the vault, it is easy to process subscriptions, SaaS fees, donations, and any other recurring payments.
- International Support – The service is available to merchants in Europe, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, and US. It supports more than 130 currencies.
- Data Security – Like any other credit card processor, Braintree uses PCI compliance for merchants to protect data from any theft or damage.
- Payouts – It allows accessing marketplace payouts for mass payment from the account to merchants selling on the platform.
- In-Store Payments – Braintree lets you process personal payments with PayPal as it integrates with POS applications and providers you want.
6. What are Braintree Fees and Pricing?
Braintree charges a competitive flat fee of 2.59% + $0.3 per transaction for digital wallets and credit cards. This is pretty much the industry standard for eCommerce transactions.
There is no additional charge like monthly maintenance or setup fees. ECommerce store owners can choose a custom pricing plan if they process a large volume of transactions per month.
Purchases made using an American Express card are charged at 3.5% with no extra fee. Chargebacks come at an affordable price of $15 each which is quite standard as well. It also supports ACH direct debit processing at a fee of about 0.75% per transaction.
7. How is the Braintree Customer Support?
Braintree makes support and assistance readily available with phone and email support though the live chat option is not available.
In case of emergency, you receive 24×7 support via email from on-call engineers and reps. The website gives you access to resources where you can find solutions to common problems. Overall, the customer support is quite responsive and easily accessible.
8. What are the Pros and Cons?
Here are the pros and cons of Braintree you must consider before you start using it.
Pros
- Multicurrency options
- Transparent, competitive pricing
- No contract or early termination fees
- Support for multiple payment types
- Extensive integrations available
- Powerful developer tools
- Customizable user interface
Cons
- Account setup can be a lengthy process
- Not suitable for high-risk industries
- Lacks responsive customer support
Final Thoughts
Braintree is certainly one of the highest-rated merchant services providers known for its affordability and consistency. Considering the impressive array of features and services available at no monthly fee or additional charges, it is easy to say that Braintree offers great value in the eCommerce payment processing landscape.
