Understand Test Sites

Every new site starts in test mode, which is where you build out your catalog and rehearse the subscription lifecycle before any real money moves. A test site behaves like a live one in most respects, with a handful of deliberate differences.

How a test site starts

A newly created site is in test mode automatically. You can begin building out your products, components and coupons with ease. Your responsibility is to create test subscriptions to simulate actions of a subscriber and to better understand the product.

Test gateways

A site in test mode works with the Advanced Billing test gateway and with the test gateways provided by Authorize.Net, Windcave, Bambora/Beanstream, Stripe, and others.

Major gateway providers offer a free test account, sometimes called a developer or sandbox account, for testing your integration.

Each gateway has its own set of test cards. Use the ones your gateway publishes, or subscriptions won't simulate correctly.

Test site limits

Newer accounts have their test-mode sites capped, which keeps throwaway test records from accumulating indefinitely.

Record limits on a test site

Exceeding a limit returns an error naming it, such as Would exceed the limit of 500 subscriptions.

WARNING: Test site data isn't guaranteed to be retained. Subscriptions on a test site become eligible for automatic removal once they're more than 6 months old and their state hasn't changed in that time. Don't treat a test site as a record you can return to.

See the Understand Merchant Limits help article for account-level limits.

Real customers in test mode

WARNING: Don't sign up real customers while your site is in test mode. Subscriptions do not carry over when you switch to live mode, so anything real you create has to be recreated.

When your site has no active subscriptions, you may change it in and out of test mode. Once you clear your subscriptions, you can move your site to live mode and change your gateway credentials to those for your production payment gateway.

Run a handful of tests against your live gateway too. This testing can reveal misconfigurations in your gateway settings for things like AVS (Address Verification Service) and other fraud filter checks. You can void these transactions afterward through your payment gateway interface. The few cents in transaction fees are worth paying to catch a misconfiguration before a Customer does.

Live mode versus test mode

Two indicators tell you a site is in test mode:

• The Go Live button shows a grey circle
• Advanced Billing shows a Go Live Guide, which you can hide at any time by selecting Hide Setup Guide

A site in Live Mode behaves differently:

• The site displays Live Mode with a green circle
• The Site Menu offers no Clear Current Site Data option
• The Setup Guide is no longer available

Move from test to live mode

Configure your gateway before taking any signups on a newly live site.

WARNING: Taking signups while still on the test gateway makes switching to your real gateway difficult afterward.

1. Visit your main Sites page and click Clone to clone your test site for future testing.
2. Delete all subscriptions or clear the site data.
3. If you are on Advanced Billing's free plan, upgrade to a paid plan.
4. Enter your payment gateway credentials under your site's Settings > Payment Gateway section.
5. Visit your Sites page, click Change Mode / Edit for the desired site, select No in the Test Mode section, then click Save.
6. Perform a test transaction (an actual signup) to confirm the gateway connection works before letting your customers sign up. If no errors occur and the subscription is created, you're ready to begin signing up new customers.

Clear site data

When you're ready to go live, you can use the Clear Site Data link at the top of the application to clear all of your test data. You may choose to keep your product set up at this time. See the Clear Test Site Data help article for more detail.

The Clear Site Data option appears only on a site in test mode.

Test cards

Each gateway uses a specific set of test cards so you can simulate certain scenarios. Advanced Billing has gathered a list of these for easy reference:

• Authorize.net
• Braintree
• Bambora/Beanstream
• Advanced Billing
• Chase Paymentech: Contact gateway
• CyberSource
• Elavon Fusebox: Contact gateway
• Elavon VirtualMerchant: Contact gateway
• eWay: Contact gateway
• eWay Rapid 3.1: Contact gateway
• First Data/Payeezy: Contact gateway
• Worldpay (formerly Vantiv)
• Moneris
• Windcave (formerly Payment Express)
• QuickPay/Spreedly
• Stripe
• TrustCommerce: Contact gateway

Related information

For a structured walkthrough of what to test, see Test Your Site Before Going Live.

For the overall approach to testing before launch, see Understand Site Testing.

To remove the data a round of testing produced, see Clear Test Site Data.

When testing is finished and the Site is ready for real payments, see Enable Site Live Mode.