Using Braintree for Subscriptions and one-off payments
Updated January 04, 2017

Using Braintree for Subscriptions and one-off payments

Miguel Parramón Teixidó | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Braintree

It is used in the tech department, as our primary payment provider gateway. We use to to charge our customers for our service via a recurring monthly subscription, with discounts and custom plans. We also sell gift cards of our service, in 3, 6 and 12 month varieties, charged via Braintree as one-off payments.
  • Once it is set up, it has not given us almost any problem.
  • Allows customization of most parameters.
  • Offers drop-in forms (although we don't use them), and also custom ones.
  • They do not provide API access to discount and plan creation, so we have to do it by hand on their web console.
  • It's hard to configure the charge detail in the customer's bank statement.
  • Their web UI logs out really fast. It's annoying to have to re-login every few minutes.
  • Enables us to charge in multiple curriencies, which opens us for new markets.
  • The set up for new discounts and plans has to be done manually in the UI, so it means more cumbersome and error-prone setups which may influence our ROI.
We started using Chargify, but migrated to Braintree due to its more up-to-date libraries and easy integration with Paypal. We have not tried any other competitor, however, Stripe seems very interesting, specially now that their cross-country support is really broad. We are not aware of more competitors at this level of integration.
Braintree excels both for services that are suited for a recurring payment system as well as for one-off payments, so whether you offer a service or a product, it will solve your needs. Since it is highly customizable in terms of discounts and plans, promotions can be set up exactly the way you want them. They also support working with multiple currencies.

Using Braintree

6 - 3 from the backend team, which develops the integration with Braintree. 3 from the support team, which use it to cross-reference users' payments.
Once it is setup, there is really no support needed from our part.
  • Recurring subsriptions
  • One-off payments
  • Promotions/discounts
There's a huge cost in migrating payment providers, and we're very happy with Braintree so far.

Evaluating Braintree and Competitors

Yes - We replaced Chargify with Braintree, in order to have Paypal integration and multi-currency support.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Analyst Reports
The integration with Paypal is top-notch, since they are owned by Paypal itself. This is why we switched to Braintree in the first place.
I would check sites like TrustRadius to see third-party reviews about other payment providers before I chose one.

Braintree Support

Their email support is responsive and fast, solved our problems when we had them. We haven't tried phone support.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
I would like to, but I think the best support story is the fact that we seldomly have to ask for support in the first place!

Using Braintree

I would give it a 10 if they provided support for creating discounts and plans through their API.
ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Convenient
Lots to learn
  • One-off payments
  • Simple Subscriptions
  • Complex subscriptions with trial periods and discounts