Testing use cases

Stripe’s testing environments, test mode and Sandboxes, allow you to test your integration without making actual charges or payments. These environments simulate creating real objects without affecting actual transactions or moving real money. We recommend using our quality assurance (QA) testing use cases, and importing our Postman collection to aid you in the testing process.

Testing environments

In a testing environment, you can charge test credit cards and create test products and prices. These environments let you simulate transactions to make sure that your integration works correctly. This feature helps to identify any bugs or errors in your Stripe implementation before you go live with actual payments. Learn how to decide between using test mode and Sandboxes.

After you create a Stripe account, you can find a set of test API keys in the Stripe Dashboard. You can use these API keys to create and retrieve simulated data by making requests to the Stripe API. To start accepting real payments, you need to activate your account, exit your testing environment using the account picker, and use the live API keys in your integration. Stripe provides a number of resources for testing your integration.

Compare testing environments

Test mode and Sandboxes are testing environments that simulate creating real objects without the risk of affecting real transactions or moving actual money. Understanding when to use each can help you build your testing strategy.

We recommend using Sandboxes for your testing needs because they offer additional functionality and greater flexibility compared to test mode. By transitioning to Sandboxes, you can enhance your testing capabilities with multiple environments, granular access control, and isolated settings, allowing you to build a more robust and comprehensive testing strategy.

Differences in functionality between test mode and Sandboxes

View the table below to understand the differences and choose the most suitable environment for your needs.

Transition from test mode to Sandboxes

To transition from test mode to Sandboxes in the Dashboard:

1. Create a sandbox, then invite the users who need access to it.
   • When you grant a team member the Sandbox User role, you’re giving them access to create sandboxes associated with your live business account and delete sandboxes they’ve created. Unlike test mode, where all users had automatic access, only those with the Sandbox User role, Admin roles, Developer role, or Sandbox Admin role can access sandboxes.
2. Obtain new test API keys and your account ID for your sandbox.
3. Set up relevant testing data such as test products, customers, subscriptions, and payment methods.
   • (Optional) Set up test clocks, which help you test your Billing integration to make sure it behaves as expected. When you use test clocks, you simulate the forward movement of time in the sandbox, causing Billing resources such as Subscriptions to change state and trigger webhook events. This allows you to see how your integration handles scenarios, such as a payment failure for a quarterly or annual renewal, without waiting extended periods.
4. Update any part of your testing processes that depends on specific test object IDs. This changes when you create new objects in a sandbox.

Testing environments versus live mode

All Stripe API requests occur in either testing environments or live mode. API objects in one mode aren’t accessible to the other. For example, a test product object can’t be part of a live mode payment.

Being in a testing environment in the Dashboard doesn’t affect your integration code. Your test and live mode API keys affect the behavior of your code. Your test and live mode API keys affect the behavior of your code.

Test card numbers

Stripe provides a set of test card numbers that you can use to simulate various payment scenarios. You can use these test card numbers to create simulated payments in testing environments without processing actual payments or charges.

When you use test card numbers, you can enter any expiration date in the future and any three-digit CVC code to simulate a successful payment. If you want to simulate a failed payment, you can use specific test card numbers and CVC codes provided by Stripe.

Test card numbers are only valid in testing environments. Don’t use them for real payments.

Delete test data

To delete all of your test data from your Stripe account, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to the Dashboard using your existing Stripe account.
2. While in your testing environments, click Developers > Overview.
3. Under Test data, click Review test data. The dialog gives you a list of all of your existing test data objects.
4. Click Delete test data to initiate the deletion process. You can’t undo the deletion of your test data.

Testing environments are temporarily unusable while the deletion process occurs.

Test email

By default, Stripe doesn’t email customers in testing environments. For example, paying an invoice in a sandbox doesn’t send a receipt email to the customer. Invoices finalized through the API in testing environments also don’t send a receipt email to the customer.

If you want Stripe to email customers in a testing environment, you can do the following in the Dashboard:

• Create and manually send an invoice to a specific customer.
• Manually send a receipt for a paid invoice.

To verify emails for invoices and receipts, set the email address for your Team on the Customer object or receipt_email attribute on the PaymentIntent.

Testing use cases

The following table contains quality assurance (QA) testing use cases:

{
  ...
  "capture_method": "manual",
  ...
  "status": "requires_capture",
  ...
}

{
    ...
    "status": "succeeded",
    ...
  }

{
  "error": {
    "charge": "ch_Y3lHZHwIyjDC5QQW",
    "code": "card_declined",
    "decline_code": "<<REASON HERE>>",
    "doc_url": "https://docs.stripe.com/error-codes#card-declined",
    "message": "Your card was declined.",
    "type": "card_error"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_9iFhLnQfT5Grsdec",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_1Rz0DBNBlzoWqIaD",
    ...
    "status": "needs_response"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_ZlnF31vvb3MlmG8H",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_x4Ts0lqGUvSuVk34",
    ...
    "is_charge_refundable": true,
    ...
    "status": "warning_needs_response"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_YcGGJDP2HYEUqBej",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_vbDX7rxhVhwUb3Zf",
    ...
    "status": "won"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_zWKXQljGdAnx102y",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_ZqcpudOPqEClhhMD",
    ...
    "status": "lost"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_nIR4rZfdp0Xz8CMZ",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_MbJJ03O7IQotyRDA",
    ...
    "status": "warning_closed"
  }
}

{
  "object": {
    "id": "du_FyGrPUfiJDth2fEP",
    "object": "dispute",
    "charge_id": "ch_wRFa6j3Hyz2nFrRl",
    ...
    "status": "needs_response"
  }
}

{
  "id": "re_09sWEJTTp5mq7KAi",
  "object": "refund",
  "amount": "<<FULL AMOUNT>>",
  "charge": "ch_sLViBhf2fR55Tph0",
  ...
  "payment_intent": "pi_FWaOsf7ALSz7WsDC", // if you're using PaymentIntents
  ...
  "status": "succeeded"
}

{
  "id": "re_whOhouwEvlcZmre5",
  "object": "refund",
  "amount": "<<PARTIAL AMOUNT>>",
  "charge": "ch_UPkdqebN9kDWlXTP",
  ...
  "payment_intent": "pi_ZCZU8L1zQpeBZ3pr", // if you are using PaymentIntents
  ...
  "status": "succeeded"
}

Stripe’s Postman collection

Postman is a widely-used API development tool. To make integrating Stripe easier, we provide a Payments-specific Postman collection with the tools you need to test the server-side component of your integration.

Import the collection

To begin, you need to access the Postman app. You can use either the browser or desktop version. After launching the app, import the collection.

To start this process on the web, press the Import button at the top-left corner, followed by the Link option. Insert the Payments collection link. If you’re using the Postman desktop app, click File > Import. After successfully importing, the collection appears under Collections.

The import dialog

Use the collection

To use the collection, navigate to the collection you just imported and click Variables. Copy your testmode Stripe secret key from the Stripe Dashboard, and paste it into the Initial Value field. After you complete this step, you’re ready to begin making requests.

Other variables are populated by scripts during the runtime of the collection. For example, when creating a customer, price, charge or PaymentIntent, the system saves that ID through a script in the collection, which is then accessible for later requests, like issuing a refund.

Add a secret key to a Postman collection