Sandbox vs Production Environments

BotSubscription provides two environments for your bot: Sandbox and Production. Understanding how these environments interact is crucial for safely testing your setup before accepting real payments from members.

Shared vs. Isolated Data

A key feature of BotSubscription is how it handles your project data across environments. Most of your project configuration is shared, while financial and sensitive data is isolated.

What is Shared?

The following data is valid for both Sandbox and Production:

• Subscription Plans: Plans you create in your dashboard appear in both environments.
• Bot Configuration: Custom messages, commands, and project settings.
• Memberships & Orders: All subscriber data and transaction history are shared.

What is Isolated?

Only financial and sensitive payment data is environment-specific:

• Merchant Accounts: Payment provider connections (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) are installed specifically for either Sandbox or Production.
• Saved Cards: Payment methods saved by members are only valid in the environment where they were added.

Managing Environments

The environment logic in BotSubscription allows you to maintain both testing and live setups simultaneously.

Installing Merchant Accounts

When you install a new merchant account in your dashboard, you are always prompted to select its mode: Production or Sandbox. You can have multiple accounts of both types installed at the same time.

However, please note that you can only have one active account per provider per environment. For example:

• Having one Sandbox Stripe and one Production Stripe account active is perfectly fine.
• You cannot have two active Sandbox Stripe accounts at the same time. If you install a second one, the first must be set to inactive.

Switching Your Bot's Environment

While you can have both types of merchant accounts installed, your bot operates in only one environment at a time. This is controlled via the /settings menu in your bot:

1. Open your bot on Telegram or Discord and run the /settings command.
2. Navigate to the Environment submenu.
3. Choose either Sandbox or Production.

How the environment affects your bot:

• In Sandbox Mode: When members try to subscribe, the bot will only display your Sandbox merchant accounts. This allows for safe testing with fake payments.
• In Production Mode: The bot will only show Production merchant accounts, ensuring real customers pay using live payment methods.

Key Differences at a Glance

Feature	Sandbox	Production
Purpose	Testing & Development	Live Business Operations
Payments	Simulated (Fake Money)	Real Transactions
Merchant Accounts	Required (Sandbox mode)	Required (Production mode)
Bot Behavior	Shows Sandbox payment methods	Shows Production payment methods
Platform Fees	None	Standard Fees Apply

Next Steps

Ready to get started or move to production?