Connect Braintree (cards, PayPal and Venmo)

Why Braintree

It is the one provider here that gives you cards, PayPal and Venmo from a single connection. If you have ever lost a sale because someone only pays with PayPal, this is the fix.

Braintree is owned by PayPal. If you saw "PayPal Braintree" somewhere and wondered where it was in kitty — this is it. They are the same product.

Before you start

You need an approved Braintree merchant account. Applying is free; approval takes a day or two.

Where to get the values

Merchant ID — braintreegateway.com → Settings → Business. It sits at the top under your business name.

Public key and Private key — Settings → API → API Keys. Use an existing key pair or generate one. The private key is revealed once, behind a View link.

Environment — leave this blank for a real account. Type sandbox only if you are pasting keys from Braintree's sandbox to test with.

Connecting

Settings → Connections → Take payments → the Braintree card → Connect → fill the fields → Save and connect. Test connection confirms the key pair reaches your merchant account.

The webhook, which is not optional

kitty needs Braintree to tell it when someone pays. Without that, the checkout takes the money and no order, customer or revenue figure ever appears in kitty.

On the connected card, press Webhook URL, copy it, and paste it into braintreegateway.com → Settings → Webhooks as a new webhook destination.

Treat that URL like a password — anyone holding it can post events at this venture. It never expires; you rotate it by disconnecting and reconnecting. Deliveries are capped at 300 a minute per venture.

How it looks to your customer

Braintree has no page to redirect to. Its form — card fields, a PayPal button and a Venmo button — renders directly on kitty's pay page, inside Braintree's own frames. Your customer never leaves, and the card number goes straight to Braintree.

What it can and cannot do here

One-off payments only. Braintree bills subscriptions from plans defined in its own dashboard, which kitty cannot create, so it does not offer recurring here. Refunds can be issued from kitty. Chargebacks are reported and noted on the order.

After it's connected

Test connection proves the key works right now, and names the account it reached — so a member with two logins can see they pasted the wrong one. Do that before you put anything on sale.

Then, in Where new checkouts go, pick this provider on its own or One page, every method, which offers every provider you've connected on a single page and quietly hides one that starts failing.

Anything already on sale keeps the provider it was armed on. A price, once created at a provider, cannot be moved — so to switch, open the venture's Revenue tab, Take off sale, then put it back on sale.

How the keys are stored

Encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, used server-side only, never returned to the browser, never written to a log, and never shown again after saving.

Payment keys are scoped to a venture or the whole workspace, never to you personally — two businesses in one workspace settle into two different bank accounts, so a personal key is refused for money on purpose.