Sandbox vs Production

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Important

This section is about working with the BILL v3 API. See Authentication with Spend & Expense API token for information about the Spend & Expense API base URLs.

The BILL API platform provides two environments for you to build and test your application with the BILL API. When you perform BILL operations with our API, such as create a vendor or pay a vendor, BILL also presents the results of these operations in the BILL web app.

API sandbox

You can test with the BILL API in the sandbox environment. This is a standalone environment and any testing with the API in sandbox does not affect your solution in the production environment.

You have access to all BILL API services in sandbox with three exceptions.

• BILL integrations with other accounting softwares is not available in API sandbox.
• Money movement to and from live bank accounts is not available in API sandbox.
• The BILL Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) is not available in API sandbox. See Bills detected by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the BILL Help Center for more information.

While money movement to and from bank accounts is not available in the API sandbox environment, you can set up a test bank account in API sandbox for submitting test payments.

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There is no subscription fees in sandbox

Any BILL pricing plan or subscription is not charged in the API sandbox environment.

You can use your test credit card for setting up a subscription for your sandbox developer account. When the trial period for your sandbox account is over, use the same test credit card to continue using your account.

See Sandbox API bank account setup for more information.

API production

Your go-live BILL solution is available to your customers in the production environment. This environment enables you to build with all BILL services, including integrations with other accounting softwares and money movement between live bank accounts.

Pricing in production

You will be charged the usual price plan fee after the 30-day trial in the production environment. See BILL pricing for more information about price plans.

Move data between sandbox and production

We do not recommend that you move any of your production data to sandbox. There can be unintended consequences. For example, you may be testing with your production data in sandbox, but the vendors and customers will receive emails based on your testing with bills and invoices.

In the BILL web app, select Settings > Import & Export to move any required information between your development environments.