Braintree Vs. PayPal Vs. Authorize.net

Braintree Vs. PayPal Vs. Authorize.net

Out of the box, Adobe Commerce (Magento) supports three different payment gateways – Braintree, PayPal, and Authorize.net. But which one is right for your store? That’s a great question – and it’s what we’ll answer in this post from 121eCommerce.

We’re going to take an in-depth look at Braintree, PayPal, and Authorize.net, and help you decide which payment gateway may be right for you based on its features, pricing, and a variety of other considerations. 

 

→ Related: 8 Things to Consider Before Choosing an Adobe Commerce (Magento) Payment Gateway 

 

Braintree

Braintree is actually owned by PayPal, but it’s still maintained as a separate payment gateway. It was founded in 2007 and was acquired by PayPal in 2013, along with consumer payment service Venmo.

Despite being owned by PayPal, Braintree is still operating as its own service and has not been fully rolled into PayPal’s offerings – for good reason. Braintree is a very complex and feature-rich platform and has some features and options that PayPal simply doesn’t offer to merchants. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty, and discuss the pricing, features, and other details of this payment gateway now.

  • Pricing

Braintree has standard pricing of 2.9% + $0.30 on each credit, debit, and digital wallet transaction. Charities can get a discount to 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction. You’ll also pay a 1% fee on transactions in any non-USD currency, and an additional 1% on credit or debit cards issued outside of the United States.

ACH transfers are also supported and have a fee of 0.75% per transaction, capped at a maximum of $5. A $5 charge is applied for any returned transactions, and for any transactions disputed by customers as “unauthorized.”

In addition, if you have your own merchant account and choose not to use one from Braintree, you’ll pay $49 per month, $0.10 per transaction, and $10 for any additional merchant accounts added to your Braintree account.

Note, however, that these fees are just the starting point. eCommerce businesses that do high sales volumes can negotiate lower rates with Braintree before signing up, with pricing tailored to their business model and total volume of sales. This makes Braintree very popular with large enterprises.

  • Payment Methods

Braintree supports card transactions from Mastercard, Visa, Discover, American Express, JCB, and Diners Club, as well as digital wallets like Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay. As a PayPal company, it also supports PayPal, PayPal Credit, and Venmo.

It also supports ACH direct debit, unlike lots of other competing payment gateways. This makes it a good option for B2B companies using Adobe Commerce since ACH is frequently used to pay for invoices in B2B transactions.

  • Supported Countries & Currencies

Braintree supports more than 45 countries and regions and can process transactions in 130+ global currencies. You can see a full list of the supported currencies here. Note that you will still be subject to government restrictions, so certain high-risk banks and regions may not be supported, depending on your location.

  • Fraud Protection Tools

Braintree offers a full suite of fraud protection tools, including Address Verification Services (AVS), Card Verification Value (CVV), and a Fraud Protection suite that uses machine learning and AI to recognize potentially fraudulent transactions.

You can pay an additional fee to get access to Fraud Protection Advanced, which allows you to customize fraud protection rules, create custom fraud identification rules, and implement a “Review Queue” to quickly manually review transactions that have been flagged as fraudulent.

  • Security, Safety, and PCI Compliance

Like all other major payment gateways, Braintree is a validated, Level 1 PCI compliant gateway, so you can use this compliance to help your Adobe Commerce website meet PCI/DSS compliance standards.

It has also been listed on Visa’s Global Compliant Provider list and Mastercard’s SDP list and utilizes a highly secure, encrypted database architecture to protect cardholder data from any unauthorized access.

 

→ Related: How Adobe Commerce (Magento) Payment Gateways Ensure PCI Compliance 

 

PayPal

Since it was founded way back in 1998, PayPal has grown. And grown. And grown. Today, it has 361 million active users, making it one of the most popular payment platforms in the world.

And as you might expect, PayPal’s features have grown along with it. It offers a fully-featured payment gateway solution for Adobe Commerce. Let’s take a look at the features and basics of this payment gateway now.

  • Pricing

Similar to the other payment gateways on this list, Paypal charges 2.9% plus a flat fee of $0.30 for USD transactions. However, things are a bit different if you’re accepting a non-USD currency – a flat fee is charged based on the original currency.

For example, you’ll pay $0.30 CAD or $0.30 AUD for Canadian and Australian transactions, respectively – or 40.00 JPY for orders from Japan, so fees may be higher when customers purchase items from specific countries, depending on exchange rates. You’ll also pay an additional 1.5% fee for all international commercial transactions. Chargebacks cost $20 each unless resolved in your favor.

There are some additional services that will cost you extra fees, too – for example, implementing recurring billing will cost $10 per month. You can also pay $5 a month for Payments Advanced, or $30 a month for Payments Pro. You can see a full list of all relevant fees and costs from PayPal here.

  • Payment Methods

PayPal supports payments via PayPal and PayPal Credit. Shocking, we know! In addition to this, you can use PayPal to accept credit and debit card payments from Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover.

You can’t use PayPal to accept ACH payments, however, so that’s something to keep in mind if you frequently use ACH direct debit at your store. It doesn’t support digital wallets like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay, either.

  • Supported Countries & Currencies

PayPal is available in more than 200 countries worldwide, and supports 25 currencies – so while it can be used in more countries than Braintree, it doesn’t support as many currencies.

  • Fraud Protection Tools

PayPal provides some fraud protection tools for free, such as 24/7 account monitoring, buyer authentication with Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, and a basic fraud protection suite that lets you filter out unusual orders, suspicious activity from IP addresses, and filter for high-risk ZIP codes and addresses.

To get more features, though, you’ll need to pay $10/month and $0.05/transaction for Advanced Fraud Protection. This includes features like automatic acceptance and rejection lists, additional risk filter systems, and the ability to create your own custom filters and rules for accepting or rejecting payments.

  • Security, Safety, and PCI Compliance

PayPal, given its size and prevalence worldwide, has some of the best security in the business. It’s fully PCI compliant and has received certifications from the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program and Mastercard Site Data Protection Program, among others.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net was founded in 1996. Its parent company is CyberSource, which was acquired by Visa in 2010. This payment gateway is used by hundreds of thousands of merchants and is a great solution for eCommerce entrepreneurs. Let’s take a look at its features, pricing, and other details now.

  • Pricing

Authorize.net will cost you $25/month as a base fee, and it also charges a 2.9% + $0.30 fee, just like PayPal and Braintree. No surprises there! That’s a pretty standard rate across the board. However, international payments have an additional 1.5% fee tacked on, bringing the total to 4.4% + $0.30.

You also have the option of choosing the “Payment Gateway Only” service, which can be used if you already have a merchant bank account. This costs $25/month, plus $0.10 per transaction, and a daily batch processing fee of $0.10.

You will pay $25 per chargeback, which is refunded if the chargeback is resolved in your favor. There are no additional fees unless you sign up for an eCheck plan to process ACH payments and eChecks. This costs $25/month, plus a fee of 0.75% of each ACH/eCheck transaction.

You can get in touch with Authorize.net for special pricing and additional discounts if you process more than $500K in payments per year. It also offers discounts and special pricing for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

  • Payment Methods

Authorize.net supports Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, and JCB payment cards, and has added support for PayPal, Apple Pay, and eChecks (for an added fee, as noted).

  • Supported countries & currencies

Currently, businesses can only use Authorize.net if they are based in the US, UK, Australia, Europe, or Australia – but Authorize.net can be used to accept payments from any country in the world, so you won’t have any trouble selling to international customers.

  • Fraud protection tools

Authorize.net comes with a built-in Advanced Fraud Detection tool, which allows users to customize 13 different filters to catch fraudulent transactions – including country limitations, value thresholds, and payment velocity (daily and hourly limits on transactions allowed to process through your account).

This tool also uses sophisticated algorithms to identify potentially fraudulent transactions based on IP address, region, shipping information, and more. Authorize.net also supports CVV and AVS to help reduce the risk of fraud and chargebacks.

  • Security, safety, and PCI compliance

Authorize.net is audited yearly to ensure that it complies with PCI/DSS standards, so it is fully PCI compliant, and using it on your Adobe Commerce website will simplify your own process of verifying PCI compliance at your store.

Like the other payment gateways on this list, Authorize.net uses advanced physical and cybersecurity precautions to protect cardholder data. Since the company was founded, it has never suffered any serious security breaches.

Choose The Right Payment Gateway For Your eCommerce Store

Picking a payment gateway for your Adobe Commerce store is a big decision, so it’s best to do your research and choose a service provider carefully. These three payment gateways aren’t the only option, either – though they’re supported by default on Adobe Commerce, lots of other payment providers like Stripe, Square, and others can be integrated with extensions, APIs, and custom code.

Need help choosing the right payment gateway for your Adobe Commerce store? You’re not alone! 121eCommerce is here to help. As experts in eCommerce, payment gateways, and the Adobe Commerce platform, we can provide you with the support and expertise you need. Contact us online to schedule a consultation today.