Braintree vs Chargify vs Stripe – Comparison of Payment Platforms

Payment Platform

If you are thinking about starting an online business, there’s a stack of important decisions you need to make. The crucial ones include selecting a perfect Hosting, Domain, Content Management System (CMS), Shopping Cart and a Payment gateway suitable for your business.

We will focus here to help you with picking the right payment gateway provider to support your purchases/orders. Payment Gateways are an unavoidable part of online business because these are the platform that authorizes and processes payments for e-businesses.

 A payment gateway and a merchant account are together required to complete an online transaction in E-commerce. The cheaper and quicker way to set up small businesses is to find a platform that combines both of these services. On the other hand, Web Developers of a few large businesses prefer to have separate service providers. In the end, the selection of payment platforms completely depends on your business requirements.

The main difference between Braintree/Chargify/Stripe is- Braintree and Stripe are two most popular all-in-one payment platforms, whereas Chargify is a recurring billing and subscription management platform.

Let’s compare the features of these payment platforms in detail.

  1. Brief Intro and the Global presence!

Braintree is a full-stack payments platform that include both a payment gateway and merchant account. It is used by many leading global companies like Uber, Twilio, Airbnb and GitHub to accept payments in Mobile Applications or websites. It is said to be used in 46 countries including North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Stripe is also a powerful hybrid platform which owns 10.3% of global market share. It is available in 26 countries including the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Spain. It’s preferred by organizations like Pinterest, Amazon, Shopify and UNICEF.

Chargify is a recurring billing system that works with the payment gateways to handle subscriptions and make sure the right accounts are charged the right amount every month.  This is specially designed for Web 2.0 and SaaS companies. It is supported by 20+ major payment gateways like Authorize.Net, Stripe and Braintree across the globe. Chargify works for all the countries if the payment gateway supports the business location.

Payment Platforms
  • Integrations with Other Services

Stripe integrates with over 300 existing third-party tools or services like invoicing and shipping, whereas Braintree integrates with over 40 different services or apps like Magento and Recurly. The flexible integrations and built-in APIs make Stripe the best choice of developers and programmers.

On the technological front, both of these can integrate through a variety of programming platforms including Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, Node.js, Android and iOS. Chargify is also designed in a flexible way to integrate with various existing apps and billing systems including Shopify, Stripe, Braintree, Gmail, Zapier etc.

  • Customer Service Reputation

Braintree tops the list of when it comes to customer feedback. In Stripe, some complain about unexplained charges or having their funds frozen was seen. Braintree has provided a support number and receives good customer service reviews. However, Stripe doesn’t have any service number for support. Chargify does have proper support contact and maintains a good rapport with customers.

  • Compliance and Fraud

Both the payment gateway solutions, Stripe and Braintree are fully PCI compliant. These use state-of-the-art security systems to keep customer and business information safe; these also consist of advanced encryption to protect payment and transaction details.

  • Supporting payment methods

Transferring money via Visa, Master Card, American Express, CB, Maestro, Discover, and Diners Club credit cards are supported by both Stripe and Braintree. Stripe also offers the payment via AliPay and ACH (Automated Clearing House). And the presence of Venmo — a digital wallet of PayPal, in Braintree differs it from Stripe. Both Stripe and Braintree accepts and supports bitcoins. The size of companies and customers, budget, and the requirements plays a big role in deciding the apt payment platforms. There is no big difference in the pricing of these platforms, and it only differs depending on countries and the currencies. Braintree has got a robust international availability and currency settlement options. Our web developers have been delivering successful projects integrating Braintree, Stripe and Chargify at Digital Mesh for quite a few years now. Our effective project delivery to global clients makes us one of the trusted Outsourcing E-commerce Development Companies in India.

Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you create a cost effective online presence.