Because we were a startup using it for about one year and paying the minimum price (I believe around $50/mo) plus another $15 fee/mo, plus they kept 6% of our transactions for 6 months (which we haven't seen any of it yet). Thankfully Stripe came into play (just as easy to implement) with zero monthly fees, and not holding any of our money. At that point we contacted Braintree to cancel our account and just then they offered a lower monthly fee (I believe around $20) and when I said no, they offered to match Stripe at zero cost. Why wouldn't they have offered this from the get go is beyond me and bad practice.
First, I want to apologize that we weren't able to reach out about lower fees sooner than we did. High fixed monthly fees have been imposed by the underlying banks that provide merchant accounts for years. Some banks have recently relaxed those and Braintree, Stripe and others in the industry are now able to take advantage of it.
The reason we were able to waive the fixed fee when you contacted us was not because it was in our discretion the entire time, but because we had only recently been able to get some of those fixed fees removed by the underlying banks. Since that time, we have been proactively contacting hundreds of our customers that would benefit from the new bank structure to offer them lower pricing.
The 6% reserve on your transactions wasn't imposed by Braintree but rather the bank that was providing your merchant account (Braintree is not holding back anyone's money). We work extremely hard to prevent reserves being imposed on our merchants and when it does happen, our intent is to get it removed as soon as possible. Please reach out to us so that we can work on getting your funds released asap.
We could have handled your situation better, and we're sorry that we weren't able to get lower fees to you faster. We've been browbeating banks for years on behalf of startups to get simpler, better fee structures. We've made a lot of progress and think we've had an impact on the industry with things like simpler pricing and card data portability. That said, we recognize there is a lot more work to do, and we will continue to work hard to provide an exceptional payments experience for startups.
