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Comment by nickjj | Hacker News Reader

At face value Stripe's API is about a billion times better (at least it was a year ago when I looked into using both).

I ultimately went with Stripe because I couldn't stand Braintree's API. So even with getting $50,000 at 0% revenue sharing and having PayPal support I still went with Stripe.

My condition was a bit different than yours tho. Most of my market had credit cards and it was an expensive item ($200). Part of PayPal's value is it's great for impulse purchases, so for an e-commerce site I recommend you integrate with them just because it will provide you more revenue in the end.

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Totally agree with this. Braintree will save you a little money but their documentation is horrible; some of the worst I've ever seen. Their email tech support can be responsive and somewhat good but I feel like I have to email them about every little thing cause I can't find the answer in their disconnected documentation.

Also Braintree's registration process was crazy when it came time to move past their sandbox and accept real payments.

They wanted so much personal information including my full social security # (not just the last 4), copy of my driver's license and a copy of a recent utility bill.

Then on top of that I got questioned because I don't have any credit (I purposely made a life choice not to use credit cards), so they demanded 3 months of my most recent bank statements.

It took days of this, combined with struggling with their documentation until I just gave up and went with Stripe. Never looked back since.

Stripe's registration process was painless and automated. They also requested the bare minimum to accept payments directly to my bank account. It was a flawless experience.

Then on top of that I got questioned because I don't have any credit (I purposely made a life choice not to use credit cards), so they demanded 3 months of my most recent bank statements.

That's not Braintree's fault. In fact, that's them being sensible. The problem is that having no credit records makes you harder to tell apart from a fraudulent user.

Yeah but Stripe just asked me for my bank account number and last 4 digits of my social.

There was no background check and having to send over copies of various bills, statements, license, etc..

I felt like Stripe requested the least amount of info to legally accept payments where as Braintree requested a million things to build up some type of profile that they'll benefit from later.

You know, it's like the guy who sends you to a form where you need to fill out 4 pages of crap when in reality all he needs is your name to perform the service you're requesting.

Ultimately they're both going to want the same information. If you had started processing more than, say, $10K per day, Stripe would freeze your account and demand the same information. The difference being that Braintree wanted that information upfront and without the stress of frozen funds at risk.

I can't speak from experience but I doubt Stripe would just freeze everything and demand my full social security number instead of the last 4 they requested.

If they ask for bank statements and other pieces of info, that's fine. The user experience is just better with Stripe because they know 99.999999% of people won't be doing 10k+/day.

Actually, they do run a form of background checks on you. It's a process called KYC. Both payment vendors have to get a certain amount of information before allowing you to process. Stripe has made it much easier however. I don't think either company is collecting your personal information for anything other that underwriting and would ask for less if they could.

If you think Braintree's docs are bad, you probably haven't had to implement Authorize.net!

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