[sjtgraham]

Off-topic but if there is anyone from Braintree reading this, I'm interested to know how you feel about Stripe and FeeFighters Samurai entering the market at a more competitive price point with lower barriers to entry (i.e. fill in a form and go vs. laborious and involved merchant application process) given that your pricing has remained resolutely more expensive.

[dan_manges]

We’re not surprised to see other companies entering the payments market. There are two primary service providers that a tech start-up needs: a hosting provider and a payments provider. There have been good hosting options for a while, but as Braintree identified a few years ago, the choices for payments were not that great.

On the price points, it will depend on your volumes for which pricing is more competitive. Here’s some insight into the approach that we took with our pricing as we bootstrapped Braintree:

http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-braintree/reaching-y...

http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-braintree/three-less...

Regarding the customer signup process, we think there is value in getting to know our clients and their business when they sign up with Braintree. It helps to make sure we can deliver the rave-worthy support our customers have come to expect. As with everything we do at Braintree, nothing is ever good enough for us and we’re constantly striving to make things better for our customers.