Customers

The customer object is an important component of the Braintree gateway. Use customers to store and organize payment methods.A single customer can have multiple payment methods.

This guide will walk you through the basics. See Customer Request and Customer Response references for complete details. Make sure to include the customer's email and phone information if planning to use Risk Products.

CreateAnchorIcon

Use Customer: Create to add new customers.

You can create just a customer without an associated payment method, and the operation will be successful if all customer validations pass:

  1. Ruby
result = gateway.customer.create(
    :first_name => "Jen",
    :last_name => "Smith",
    :company => "Braintree",
    :email => "jen@example.com",
    :phone => "312.555.1234",
    :fax => "614.555.5678",
    :website => "www.example.com"
);

if result.success? {
    puts result.customer.id;
} else {
    p result.errors;
}

Create with payment methodAnchorIcon

You can also create a customer with an associated payment method:

  1. Ruby
result = gateway.customer.create(
    :first_name => "Charity",
    :last_name => "Smith",
    :payment_method_nonce => nonce_from_the_client
);

if result.success? {
    puts result.customer.id;
    puts result.customer.payment_methods[0].token;
} else {
    p result.errors;
}

Success depends on both customer validations and payment method validations, and whether the payment method is verified (if card verification is enabled).

See the reference and more examples of creating a customer.

UpdateAnchorIcon

Use Customer: Update to update an existing customer:

  1. Ruby
result = gateway.customer.update(
    "a_customer_id", # id of customer to update
    :first_name => "New First Name",
    :last_name => "New Last Name"
);

if result.success? {
    puts "customer successfully updated";
} else {
    p result.errors;
}

If the customer can't be found, it will raise a Braintree::NotFoundError.

See the reference and more examples of updating a customer .

FindAnchorIcon

Use Customer: Find to find a customer by ID:

  1. Ruby
customer = gateway.customer.find("a_customer_id")

If the customer can't be found, it will raise a Braintree::NotFoundError.

The return value of this call will be a Customer response object.

DeleteAnchorIcon

Use Customer: Delete to delete a customer and its payment methods using the customer's ID:

  1. Ruby
result = gateway.customer.delete("the_customer_id");

if result.success? {
    puts "customer successfully deleted";
}

If the customer can't be found, it will raise a Braintree::NotFoundError.