Braintree, a PayPal service vs. Cratejoy

Braintree is a lower cost alternative to many of the options business owners have through their bank. However, they will need to be techy or be working with a developer to set up. The setup and backend isn't as user friendly as alternatives. Braintree is a great option if you'll need to manually type in credit card details. Banks will sometimes charge a lot more for that option. The manual option is nice if your clients aren't as tech savvy and prefer to pay over the phone than to pay on your website.

Incentivized

I will not recommend Cratejoy to anyone I know because I had a very poor experience with them. Initially, in my research, I had contacted Cratejoy to understand their platform more. I was led to believe that selling on their 'marketplace' would allow me to take advantage of a lower selling fee. We discussed how I would set up my shop and they assured me that it was done correctly so I would pay the lower amount. It took me over a year to realize I was paying the higher fee, which is about 10 times higher than the lower one. Fees are not listed anywhere in the Cratejoy administrative panels. They are not being emailed and there is no information about them anywhere UNLESS you think to go into your payment processor and look at individual transactions. Clearly, it's my responsibility to look at these things and see why the math is not adding up. However, at the time I signed up this information was not clear and I was given incorrect answers to my questions. I was operating on an assumption that took me a long time to realize and ended up costing me thousands in fees.

Incentivized

• Braintree has excellent integration with the BigCommerce platform. The switch of our previous payment processing gateway to Braintree was very easy and only required a few clicks.
• Tying into Braintree's BigCommerce integration, for company's like ours that are on the BigCommerce enterprise plan, Braintree's rates for BigCommerce enterprise customers are extremely competitive and saved us money.
• Braintree has a pretty easy to use portal that can be accessed through the same login we use for PayPal which we are using in conjunction with Braintree with ease.
• I've only had to call Braintree twice and my customer service issues were handled extremely quickly and easily.

Incentivized

• Markets your boxes in their marketplace
• Sets up shipping so it's easier and cheaper
• Helps get your online subscription boxes started

Incentivized

• Not a very good subscription management platform for a Saas business, but they make up for it on the API with others that are
• Doesn't have a lot of additional features, but that's what you'd expect out of a payment processor
• Very expensive per transaction, but the reality is that any processor who helps early stage companies accept online payments are expensive.

Incentivized

• Fees
• Transparency
• Customer service

Incentivized

There's a huge cost in migrating payment providers, and we're very happy with Braintree so far.

Incentivized

It just works.

Incentivized

Their support is a joke. There's nothing "supportive" about them. Every time I call in with an issue no one has an answer or even a recommendation. I am put on hold and no one ever comes back. It's time to find another processor.

Incentivized

Whether it be their upper management or their customer support crew, they have always acted and treated me like they care. Probably because we make them a lot of money, but nonetheless they do a great job whenever any issue comes up. I even met them in person!

Incentivized

It is simple for a developer to do.

Incentivized

Braintree is better at handling international payments and supporting a variety of payment methods that can all be configured from the same dashboard. Braintree supports PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. in addition to simply credit cards like Stripe. Braintree has a vault of existing user payment methods so the user doesn't have to re-enter their information each time.

Incentivized

Cratejoy streamlines the process so there's less to figure out on your own.

Incentivized

• Simplified billing so we spend less time on it
• Saved $20 a month or more when compared to alternatives that have a monthly charge.
• It gives peace of mind because we know that any service we use in the future will likely integrate with Braintree

Incentivized

• Lots of sales!
• 10% commission paid to them

Incentivized