BrainTree

[Eric]

I'm in the process of designing an app with Ruby on Rails and from
what I've read BrainTree is the way to go for payment processing. I
found this link which shows the various levels of service:

http://developer.getbraintree.com/articles/4-signing-up-with-braintree

After I signed up I received this email:

Dear Eric,
Again, thank you for your interest in Braintree. After reviewing your
inquiry, we believe that we are currently not the best option to meet
your needs. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. We
wish you the best and welcome you to check back with us in the
future.

Kind regards,

Braintree
877-434-2894


So, I called the number to see why I could not use their service.

The response was: BrainTree is looking to work with larger companies
and in order to keep customer service at it's best BrainTree will not
be taking on smaller companies.

I asked what the definition of a larger company is and they replied;
$100,000/month in transactions.

After reading this board and following the link they have on their web
site I thought this was a bit odd.

Does any one have any thoughts on this?

Thanks for your help.

Eric

[Jonathan Younger]

Hi Eric,

On May 23, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Eric wrote:
<snip>

> So, I called the number to see why I could not use their service.
>
> The response was: BrainTree is looking to work with larger companies
> and in order to keep customer service at it's best BrainTree will not
> be taking on smaller companies.
>
> I asked what the definition of a larger company is and they replied;
> $100,000/month in transactions.
>
> After reading this board and following the link they have on their web
> site I thought this was a bit odd.
>
> Does any one have any thoughts on this?

I guess that does seem a little odd that they'd set the bar so high
for requirements to use their service.

I've been using PaySimple[1] for about a year now and have recommended
several people to them. I've found their customer service and
developer support to be very responsive. Give them a look over if
BrainTree doesn't work out.

If you do decide to give PaySimple a try I've also written a plugin[2]
to use their API. I believe there might also be ActiveMerchant support
as well but haven't looked at that at all.

-Jonathan

[1] http://www.paysimple.com/
[2] http://github.com/daikini/paysimple/tree/master

[cainlevy]

That must be a recent change, as we had no problems signing up with BrainTree a few months ago (and we certainly aren't pushing 100k/mo in transactions during beta).

Other options: TrustCommerce, Beanstream.

Also see: http://github.com/cainlevy/freemium

--
rails blog: http://codelevy.com
co-founder: http://uservoice.com

[Benjamin Curtis]

Braintree is also happy to take on customers who are using my SaaS
Rails Kit (http://railskits.com/saas/), as (I think) they are
interested in promoting their platform as SaaS-friendly. So you might
want to provide more info to them on what you'll be doing and that
you'll be using ActiveMerchant.

----
Benjamin Curtis
http://railskits.com/ - Ready-made Rails code
http://catchthebest.com/ - Team-powered recruiting
http://www.bencurtis.com/ - Personal blog

[Shawn Cheatham]

I've exchanged emails with BT over the past week or so and they
haven't mentioned any 'limits'. I just received the application info
this morning and picked up RailsKits-SaaS (thx Ben!) last night...
It'll be a shame if I find out in the last mile that BT rejects the
app on a basis of spend - Yikes!

Regards,
Shawn

[Eric]

So I did a little more digging and sent a few emails to BrainTree. It
turns out that the $100k cutoff doesn't apply if you are a developing
in Ruby. I will say that BrainTree definitely lived up to their
reputation for customer service. I received a phone call within 2
hours of sending my emails. I was told that I would be receiving the
information I need on pricing and setting up an account shortly.


Thanks for the info Ben. I told them about your rails kit, active
merchant, and I got what I needed.

Thanks to everyone else that posted as well.


Eric

On May 23, 11:32 am, Shawn Cheatham <shaw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've exchanged emails with BT over the past week or so and they  
> haven't mentioned any 'limits'. I just received the application info  
> this morning and picked up RailsKits-SaaS (thx Ben!) last night...  
> It'll be a shame if I find out in the last mile that BT rejects the  
> app on a basis of spend - Yikes!
>
> Regards,
> Shawn
>
> On May 23, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Benjamin Curtis wrote:
>
>
>
> > Braintree is also happy to take on customers who are using my SaaS
> > Rails Kit (http://railskits.com/saas/), as (I think) they are
> > interested in promoting their platform as SaaS-friendly.  So you might
> > want to provide more info to them on what you'll be doing and that
> > you'll be using ActiveMerchant.
>
> > ----
> > Benjamin Curtis
> >http://railskits.com/- Ready-made Rails code
> >http://catchthebest.com/- Team-powered recruiting

> >http://www.bencurtis.com/- Personal blog

[Josh Schairbaum]

My name is Josh Schairbaum, I'm an employee of Braintree Payment
Solutions, and like most of you, I am also a Rails developer. I want
to clarify and apologize for the experience that Eric has had with
us. In an industry that seems fraught with companies that provide
underwhelming support for their customers, we're trying to provide a
level of customer service that goes above and beyond. The challenge
for us is providing that level of service as our customer base
continues to grow. Braintree is growing to be the best payment
processing platform in the industry, not necessarily the biggest. We
do not have any hard and fast rules on processing volumes, but if your
volumes are smaller we try to evaluate you on a number of other
factors, programming language being one of them.

Eric, I want to publicly apologize to you for being initially declined
to work with us, we're taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen to
other Rails developers.

We've received some tremendous kudos from people in the Ruby and Rails
community and we've found them to be exactly the type of customers
that we want to work with. Ruby and Rails developers are always
welcome with us. Braintree wants to be the ubiquitous choice for the
discerning developer. If anyone has any questions or concerns, please
feel free to contact me directly at josh.schairbaum AT
getbraintree.com

Regards,
Josh Schairbaum

[Eric O'Connor]

Thanks for the info Josh. I appreciate the insight into your process.

Eric

[Jay Amster]

+1 on being clear with your business practices.