Your analysis is true although now Braintree's pricing is that of Stripe's - at least for startups who can't or don't want to spend cycles getting a stand alone

Your analysis is true although now Braintree's pricing is that of Stripe's - at least for startups who can't or don't want to spend cycles getting a stand alone merchant account. So it's good to make that distinction. I suspect the value with BT is that once you get real traction you can opt out of the more expensive rate into something more competitive - probably as soon as when you're doing a few thousand dollars per month.