Braintree
PayPal's API-oriented payment platform for cards, PayPal, wallets, vaulting, recurring billing, and enterprise checkout.
What changes when you choose Braintree.
- Legal seller
- Your business is the legal seller
- Service model
- payment platform
- Pricing certainty
- hybrid
- Review state
- established · next review 2026-10-27
Who owns and operates Braintree.
Product capability and company durability are different questions. This view keeps ownership, leadership, funding, and financial disclosure separate from the provider review.
- Founded
- 2007 Bryan Johnson founded Braintree in Chicago in 2007.
- Ownership
- PayPal-owned payment platform Parent: PayPal Holdings, Inc. · NASDAQ: PYPL
- Headquarters
- Part of PayPal, headquartered in San Jose, California
- Team disclosure
- Not separately disclosed PayPal does not publish Braintree product-level headcount.
Leads Braintree's parent company; Braintree does not publish a standalone CEO.
Founders: Bryan Johnson
Acquired for approximately $800M in 2013
eBay acquired Braintree for PayPal in December 2013. Braintree now operates as part of PayPal Holdings.
Braintree financials are included in PayPal's consolidated reporting
PayPal's consolidated totals cover its full portfolio. They cannot be used as Braintree product-level performance.
- PayPal net revenue
- $33.2B
- PayPal total payment volume
- $1.79T
- Braintree revenue
- Not separately disclosed
- Braintree founded in Chicago.
- Braintree acquired consumer payments company Venmo.
- eBay completed the Braintree acquisition for PayPal for approximately $800M.
US standard card and wallet pricing is 2.89% + $0.29, with additional international and non-USD fees.
US standard domestic card or third-party wallet. Approval is required and regional rates differ.
Where it fits—and where it does not.
Strengths
- PayPal and card acceptance in one developer platform
- Vaulting and recurring payments
- Enterprise integration options
Limitations
- Application and approval required
- Regional availability and pricing differ
- The merchant still owns tax and support operations
- Businesses needing PayPal plus cards
- Established recurring-payment products
- Teams wanting lower-level payment control
- You want instant universal self-service
- You want the provider to become legal seller
Can you use it, and who can buy?
- Seller coverage
- Availability and onboarding are market-specific and subject to PayPal application and approval.
- Buyer coverage
- Global card and PayPal acceptance depends on merchant location, currency, and enabled methods.
- Product scope
- Broad eligible ecommerce and subscription businesses subject to PayPal policies and underwriting.
What is built in.
- Checkout
- Drop-in UI, hosted fields, GraphQL and SDK integrations.
- Subscriptions
- Vaulting and recurring billing capabilities.
- Invoicing
- Not primarily positioned as an invoicing suite; pair with merchant billing workflows as needed.
- Payment methods
- Cards, PayPal, Venmo where eligible, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and regional methods.
- Payouts
- Merchant settlement under the applicable Braintree and PayPal account terms.
Who handles what.
| Responsibility | Primary owner | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Legal seller and customer contract | You | Braintree provides payment services; the business sells the product. |
| Indirect-tax registration, filing, and remittance | You | The merchant retains tax responsibility. |
| Fraud and chargebacks | Shared | Optional protection tools and dispute workflows exist, with eligibility and fees. |
| Customer and product support | You | The merchant supports fulfillment, billing questions, and products. |
Questions to answer before signing.
- Which legal entity acquires and settles our transactions in each seller country?
- Which payment methods, currencies, capture modes, and recurring patterns are supported?
- What are the exact international-card, FX, refund, dispute, payout, and add-on fees?
- What tax registration, calculation, filing, remittance, and invoice work remains ours?
- What PCI DSS validation and checkout-security work applies to our integration?
- How are reserves, negative balances, account reviews, and payout delays handled?
- Can payment credentials, mandates, customers, and active subscriptions be exported or transferred?
- How do balance transactions reconcile to orders, fees, refunds, disputes, and bank payouts?
Plan the exit while entry is easy.
A dashboard export is not the same as a working migration. Verify these factors with Braintree and a realistic destination.
- Export customers, products, prices, invoices, refunds, disputes, and balance transactions.
- Confirm whether saved payment credentials and recurring mandates can move without asking every customer to pay again.
- Map subscription intervals, currencies, anchors, trials, discounts, cancellation state, and legacy prices.
- Replace provider-specific checkout, portal, webhook, invoice, and entitlement behavior.
- Run old and new reporting in parallel until gross sales, fees, taxes, refunds, and payouts reconcile.
- Retain source records needed for accounting, support, disputes, and statutory obligations after cutover.
Sources and freshness.
Independently triple-checked against primary sources on 2026-07-29. Scheduled for review by 2026-10-27. Verify the linked source before making a production decision.
- PayPal Braintree fees Reviewed 2026-07-29
- Braintree developer documentation Reviewed 2026-07-29
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