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Comment by bdickason | Hacker News Reader

I just sent them an e-mail. I'm hoping this is a payment gateway :D Have a call with Braintree, but they require monthly minimums and a setup fee. If there was a scalable solution as follows, I'd jump onboard immediately:

-Create an account (Free)

-Start accepting payments at a slightly higher percent (3.5%?)

-Percentage goes down as volume increases

End the negotiation, setup fees, etc that are stuck in this archaic business please :(

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The big turn off for me with Braintree was the ridiculous application requirements. You could imigrate into the US five times and provide less documentation.

I know why they ask for that info (to cover their asses), but it was enough for me to avoid them.

A really simple (and fast!) application process could be a very big selling point. People are impulsive, and when evaluating processors I'd probably go for the easiest/fastest all other things being roughly equal.

"Start processing credit cards today (really, seriously)!"

People are impulsive, but businesses aren't. If you're some guy wanting to start transaction, you might need a smaller solution. For businesses, I think they want a big set up process because it makes the managers feel safer.

Businesses are run by people.

Small businesses are run by people.

Large businesses are run by processes and paperwork.

For application requirements, we (Braintree) work with Visa, MasterCard and the sponsoring banks to make sure that all our merchants are in compliance. There are other payment providers that will turn a blind eye to these requirements in addition to postponing proper due diligence and underwriting until it's a problem for a merchant. We regularly have merchants approach us that are in some sort of bind (e.g. violation of card association rules, account was frozen / shut down) because their previous payments provider didn't do things correctly. The payments industry is very complex with a lot of layers and nuances. We try our best to do things right even if it means more upfront effort.

An example: "With increased revenue, the merchant bank became concerned with the increase in liability. So, the bank closed the merchant account." And because they couldn't get their credit card data back, they had to ask all their customers to enter their payment information again. http://blog.recurly.com/2010/05/credit-card-portability/

Additional Info:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/...

http://whiteelephantmedia.com/

http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/blog/paypal-reserve...

I had some small amount of issues getting started with Braintree as well, because of my business model. We had to provide a ton of documentation... but the end result is worth it. It's been great after that initial hump.

I'm with you and see this as the solution to this mess as well. Give me a high % no monthly and lower my risk, once I've gotten some business and scale we can do the monthly thing.

Unfortunately, the credit card companies seem to disagree :( Or at least that's the response my brick and mortar payment gateway has given me in the past for something like this :(

To get a decent rate for our salon, we had to project ridiculous revenue and pray that we came close to it to even get a reasonable rate.

You should checkout squareup.com/features - I don't work for them. No monthly fees. 2.75% + $.15 if card is present. Though I think they are in beta and people in the forums were complaining about not getting the hardware last I looked about a week ago. It's for brick and mortar operations.

I'm definitely familiar with Square. I actually 'pitched' them to alot of people at a recent flea market that I attended.

We're paying 1.9% right now on card present w/ a $100 monthly fee and doing $45k revenue per month at our salon. So it's working for us at the moment.

I'm definitely interested in Square and as they mature, we'll go through the whole 'credit check' etc process.

Would you be interested in testing out FaceCash (if you're in CA, NY or MA)?

Feel free to shoot me an intro e-mail. I visited your site and we would definitely try out something at our salon just to see how it goes :) Probably more like a pilot program but who knows! bradley@getmochi.com

100% agree, I have spoken with Braintree and they seem solid. They were not interested in removing min. monthly fees for startups until we are out of beta and actively selling...

No response to my email yet :\ Perhaps they weren't ready for the pg media blitz?! ;)

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