Braintree, a PayPal service vs. PayPal Payments Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Braintree, a PayPal service
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Braintree, a Paypal service and subsidiary, is a billing platform which stores credit card data directly from the merchant’s systems on secure servers, and it allows for cards to be recharged or refunded . Braintree also supports international payments. Pricing is 2.9% plus a 30c transaction fee.N/A
PayPal Payments Pro
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
PayPal Payments Pro is an enterprise-class ecommerce payment solution, that provides payment processing security to build a professional-grade ecommerce site. It can be configured to meet business needs and works across devices. Users can tap into over 390 million active customer accounts around the globe.
$0.02
per transaction
Pricing
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Editions & Modules
Standard Pricing
2.9% +$0.30
per transaction
Custom Pricing
Contact for quote
QR code Transactions
1.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Charity Transactions
2.20% + fixed fee
per transaction
Commercial Transactions - In-Store
2.70% + fixed fee
per transaction
Commercial Transactions - Online
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
PayPal's pay later offers
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Venmo
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Considered Both Products
Braintree, a PayPal service
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
In my opinion, Braintree, a PayPal service, have a better user platform which makes it easier to see your daily/weekly/monthly revenue figures and processing refunds is simple to. Having functionality between Paypal & Braintree has been useful too which is why we opted to use …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
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 …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
Braintree allows our customers to integrate their existing merchant processor to the Braintree gateway, whereas the other options require you use their merchant processor (full stack).
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
We went with Braintree without trying or even investigating other alternatives which was a shame.
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
Paypal's Business plan has a monthly charge in addition to the per transaction charges if you'd like to use recurring billing. Braintree gives you recurring billing options without the monthly charge and automatically sends a transaction receipt to the client each month. Once …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
We used Braintree over Stripe because our developer was more familiar with Braintree and was able to integrate it the way we needed to. However, Stripe seemed like a good option but there wasn't any compelling reason in price or other features that made it worth taking more …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
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 …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
At the time Braintree was cheaper and much quicker and easier to implement then Barclaycard. Braintree will pay you in the currency of your choice (within reason) which is a distinct advantage over PayPal which is limited to your domestic currency.
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
We use Braintree because we got recommended by another user, it has no fees at the beginning and it's very well documented.
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
The price and quality has been a part of why we chose Braintree as our main payment method. We started with PayPal but as the business was growing, we needed a system that was easy to implement to get paid by cards. We looked into Stripe, but it was more difficult to implement, …
Chose Braintree, a PayPal service
Prior to Braintree, we used authorize.net which is actually great however authorize.net's rates were not as competitive as Braintree's. One advantage that I would have to give to authorize over Braintree is their incredibly robust system which has settings and customization …
PayPal Payments Pro
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
They are both great but the reputation of Paypal Payments Pro which has been around a lot longer is a significate difference when dealing with vendors. Paypal Payments Pro is a well respected name and known for making monetary transaction safe and secure . This gives us …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
It is an excellent alternative, with a great interface, however, we become much more familiar with PayPal Payments because most of our clients and business partners use it, it makes our work environment more pleasant, and we have no problems processing payments.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stipe is a little more complex to use but has better rates. In this particular instance, the client was more familiar with PayPal and wished to go with something they had heard of. They had already used PayPal (and had an account) and said that they felt more comfortable using …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use PayFast to accept local online payments in South Africa. PayFast works well to receive Rands although PayFast does not support invoicing. PayFast does however support recurring payments in the form of a "payment subscription". Payfast has fewer overall features however, …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I believe Cash App and Venmo are better ways to transfer money with better customer service and support and so many less restrictions.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
From my personal experience, PayPal Payments is by far the easiest to implement and better supported and documented. Other options are either over complicated or too expensive.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal is much easier to use and it gave me options to pay through PayPal directly when doing online purchases. Costs were also more advantageous as I wouldn't have large amounts of money to transfer.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stripe is not as robust as PayPal. PayPal offers way more services and features compared to Stripe. Stripe is a good platform that integrates well with other software. But Stripe doesn't have all the benefits that a giant like PayPal has. Stripe is a bit more difficult to set …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
For us, TransferWise was a very good option to be able to send and receive payments, it is a very reliable system and allowed our employees to receive payroll money safely, however, the reason we prefer PayPal Payments is because offers us a more instantaneous receipt of money, …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stripe has lower fees which I like better, but money takes longer to reach my bank.

I haven't heard of Stripe freezing people's funds either, which is a major concern of mine in continuing to use PayPal.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments, at the end of the day, was an easy sell to management and an auto integration with our eCommerce software. We already informally accepted PayPal for international customers to reduce risk, and taking it a step further was an easy next step. It was a one or …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use authorize.net on one of our other websites as the payment processor. It is good too but definitely took a while to integrate because of some issues. PayPal Payments was much easier.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I don't think there's really any competition here. There's Venmo (also owned by PayPal) who is now offering business accounts, but it still isn't quite the same.

The closest thing in terms of ease of use would be Apple Pay or Google Pay (and there are a handful of others out …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is probably the lowest-grade product compared to Wave Accounting and HoneyBook. It is very basic where Wave gives you more detailed reports about your income/expenses, the ability to track your expenses, personalize your account more, and other features. The …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
  • On the micropayments side, PayPal Payments was the clear victor, charging significantly less as compare to other payment gateways in past.
  • PayPal Payments used to return our original processing fee in the past.
  • PayPal Payments is currently available in over 200 countries/regions …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We chose PayPal Payments about 10 years ago because it was easy to get up and running. We had not considered using another provider until recently when we had a less-than-positive experience with PayPal customer service. Stripe is an up-and-coming competitor with PayPal …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
  • Paytm is an Indian competitor of PayPal Payments. Which supports UPI transactions, but not easy to make international payments like PayPal.
  • RazorPay is another product. I have tried to use it in one of my project, but later changed my mind to PayPal Payments because of some …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We didn't go for any other alternatives to PayPal Payments, as it's considered the gold standard for accepting quick payments.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is simple to implement and use. Most of the clients prefer to use PayPal Payments instead of other similar services, sustaining the choice of implementing the tool as a digital service for online payments. I would suggest adopting it as an additional service to …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use PayPal Payments largely because it's easy and all of our partners, on the supply side and the client side, can use it, too. It makes the payment process simple and fast, and many partners already use PayPal Payments, so it saves them time, too. We trust the name PayPal …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use other products for other situations, but as far as sending money PayPal is hard to beat. We've used Square POS at live events to collect donations and payments for tickets, simply because the swipe accessory for iPhone was convenient and easy to use. We haven't had live …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I have used Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, Amazon Pay, and others only because they are popular with other people who wished to be paid that way. I got PayPal first, years ago, have used it on our website for our customers, and still like it the best. I have another friend who runs …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal was one of the first companies to offer the swipe via phone equipment and feature for sales and easily integrated products from the e-commerce site. Although other companies began and do offer the same features, PayPal was/is the most well-known and established payment …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is probably my favorite payment app because it is the most intuitive, it is easy to use, and it is also one of the longest standing apps which has given ample time to become familiar with it and ensure that it works well. It allows employees to designate one …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I have not used any other payment apps other than PayPal.
Best Alternatives
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Small Businesses
Stripe Payments
Stripe Payments
Score 8.5 out of 10
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Checkout.com
Checkout.com
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.6
(0 ratings)
2.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Braintree, a PayPal servicePayPal Payments Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
Braintree is a good payment processor if you are looking to accept multiple payment methods across multiple geographies and localizations. It is also a good place to keep a single source of truth for customer payments and keeping payment methods on file. If you are only in one geography or would be fine with accepting only a single payment type, Braintree is not a good choice.
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Paypal is great for personal payments as well as business payments for ecommerce of for paying monthly memberships. It is a user friendly software that needs little expertise to get used to. For larger payments, the fees become high therefore it is more suitable for payments of upto few hundred dollars.
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Pros
  • Extremely reliable which is incredibly important for payment processing
  • Accepts all payments types we need to be able to accept from all around the world, which is very important for an international company like ours
  • Has a great, easy to use API for building out additional functionality that Braintree itself doesn't support
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  • You can Keep track of transactions and conform accounts daily
  • Require users set strong passwords
  • PayPal Payments also comes with an encryption feature that protects our customer’s and our data to the highest possible standard of security.
  • Like its desktop version, PayPal Payments has a mobile application that is super easy to operate.
  • PayPal Payments is extremely user-friendly and easy to use and comes up with a Great user interface.
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Cons
  • Not all companies support the use of Braintree. I wish there was more back-end support on some of the sites we wanted to use. This is more about the sites we want to use and less about Braintree, but it's worth mentioning.
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  • Sometimes the UX flow would not deliver the customer back to our site, leaving orders in limbo "Pre-approved" status. The customer would call days later asking why we hadn't shipped it.
  • The PayPal logo on the checkout page can be kind of large and obtrusive.
  • They mention new features and programs on their login page, but it's hard to find any details on them deeper in the software.
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Likelihood to Renew
There's a huge cost in migrating payment providers, and we're very happy with Braintree so far.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
As a product, functionality has been fine for us. In our experience, some issues during On Boarding but because we had a dedicated Account Manager assigned to us, these issues were dealt with. Now we are a customer, it feels like they have stopped caring about us or aren't interested in working with us to resolve any issues we have.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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Customer service representatives were unable to explain why customer in Australia were unable to make payments using our link. It turned out that customers in Australia must create an account. PayPal's user interface did not reveal this to our customers in Australia. There was plenty about this issue appearing in online forums and PayPal customer service couldn't explain this. This change in PayPal's usability happened between April and May of 2021 and was done without notice to vendors (like us).
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Implementation Rating
It is simple for a developer to do.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Paypal's Business plan has a monthly charge in addition to the per transaction charges if you'd like to use recurring billing. Braintree gives you recurring billing options without the monthly charge and automatically sends a transaction receipt to the client each month. Once it is set up it is completely hands off which saves a lot of time.

Bank of America merchant products. They charge extra for setups that include manually entered credit cards. They also have high start up costs that would take a while to pay for themselves due since we don't process enough transactions to make it worthwhile.
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For us, TransferWise was a very good option to be able to send and receive payments, it is a very reliable system and allowed our employees to receive payroll money safely, however, the reason we prefer PayPal Payments is because offers us a more instantaneous receipt of money, TransferWise made us wait several days for payments to be completed, we had to wait a long time for our employees to receive the money we sent them. PayPal Payments is very different, payments are completed instantly, the only delay is the one that is placed with the freezing of funds when sending money to a new employee.
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Return on Investment
  • The competitive rates we are receiving with Braintree through their program for BigCommerce enterprise customers have saved us quite a bit in sales costs.
  • Braintree's fraud detection is likely set to very high as when we switched to Braintree we only received 1 fraudulent transaction in 2 years which is a huge relief.
  • Prompt disbursements have granted us faster ROI than other payment processors.
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  • In the past year we've lost a couple hundred dollars due to cancelled payment agreements
  • Due to the large percentage who choose PayPal Payments, it's brought in thousands in sales that may have been abandoned otherwise
  • Customers trust PayPal Payments and some feel more comfortable with it rather than putting in their credit card info. It's allowed purchasers who otherwise wouldn't have bought to purchase with the security of not having to enter sensitive payment info.
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ScreenShots