Managed billing not showing test charges for dev stores anymore

Shopify App Store
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23

Let’s keep unilateral opinions about what is “smart” or “best” for relevant audiences and keep this thread focus on what it is about.

The change requires us to implement fixes to our now broken workflows, thus, a breaking change.

24

@Min_Liu @muchisx my apologies, you are right in saying that this is a breaking change. I was simply trying to provide info about the workaround (which is not ideal, but is the best option that’s available for the time being). In reality, Shopify definitely should have done a better job of providing us with advance notice before rolling this out.

@Alan_G while I’m not expecting Shopify to fully revert to the old system (if Shopify is in fact trying to prevent app developers from getting free access to paid plans/resources from other devs) then perhaps there should at least be a possibility of installing your OWN apps on your test stores using a test charge on real plans

25

Hey folks - thanks again for sharing the added context here.

We’re looking into the feedback internally. I don’t have a product change or timeline to share right now, but I definitely understand this creates real friction for testing plan selection, upgrades/downgrades, and plan-gated features, especially for apps handling this across a lot of development stores.

If the $0 private test plan flow itself is not working for anyone, please share the app ID/app URL, dev store domain, and plan name/handle and I can help dig into that specific case.

I’ll loop back here if I get more concrete guidance to share.

26

This is also affecting our apps. The previous behavior was definitely helpful where dev stores could easily subscribe to plans

27

Having test charges for dev stores, like it was before, is important. It allows agencies with Client transfer stores to try out the app without payment. Please restore this functionality.

28

Hi,

Yeah I understand that we can add a test plan for individual stores, but this isn’t feasible at scale and also doesn’t allow agencies, freelancers or anyone else to quickly test out apps that might be suitable. Slowing down everyones workflow here.

30

Yep - same issue here. I understand the importance of trying to block copycat apps, but a blanket block on all development (and also Client Transfer) stores definitely doesn’t feel like the answer. Adding each development store handle manually is a nightmare.

The biggest issue we’re facing, as others have mentioned, is testing paygated features, upgrades and downgrades. How am I supposed to test what happens when a user upgrades from one plan to another, or whether my plan gated features are hidden when they downgrade? I

I can’t understand how a change like this was just committed without any warning or documentation.

31

Same issue. My app is regularly tested by agencies/freelancers on Client Transfer stores before they roll it out to their client’s live stores.

Manually whitelisting every test store isn’t sustainable, and a fair number of these users will never think to reach out to us in the first place - they’ll just move on.

Frustrating that this was rolled out with no prior notice or grace period to adapt.

32

Hi @Alan_G, I’m running into what appears to be the same billing transition issue, but from the app review side. My draft app uses Shopify App Pricing, and I’m blocked on testing:

  1. The pricing page (/charges/{app_handle}/pricing_plans) returns 404 on my dev store, my app is a draft, not yet published. Both my dev store and listing are set to English, so this doesn’t appear to be the locale mismatch mentioned in the docs.

  2. The Private plans section doesn’t appear on my Pricing index page, so I can’t create a $0 test plan.

Is this expected for unpublished apps, or is something misconfigured on my end?

33

6 Development/Client Transfer stores have churned in the past 2 days before I’ve had a chance to add them to the Free Unlimited plan.

I’m going to need to add a big warning message to my onboarding page, asking development store users to get in touch if they want to be added. If they contact me at a time when I’m not available, then I lose a user, as they’ll just uninstall.

Surely there must be a better way?! How is everybody else handling this?

34

@Alan_G for apps still waiting to be reviewed and approved by the app store listing reviewers… how are we supposed behave? One one side we have to be production ready, on the other we are not supposed to encounter errors in the review. Will the reviewer use a live store and not a development store to by-pass this or are we supposed to come up with a solution? Thanks in advance.

35

Just adding that this has broken the free usage for Shopify staff, agencies, developer stores, etc. across all my apps. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure this out wondering if I broke something on my side.

36

Hey @Chris_H, @Tyler_W, and @patrick -

Thanks for flagging the draft-app/app-review side of this, and for raising the impact on free usage flows. I still don’t have a product change or timeline to share beyond what I mentioned above, but I did want to follow up because there may be some specific cases worth looking into here.

@Chris_H, if both the dev store and app listing are set to English, you’re still seeing the 404, and the Private plans section isn’t appearing in the app pricing config, could you share the app ID/app URL, dev store domain, and listing locale you’re testing with? I can dig into that specific issue on our end. Let me know if you’d prefer a DM and I can set that up.

@Tyler_W, just to clarify, did you have your app set up one way before this change and you’re now holding off on updates while the app is in review? If so, the safest guidance I can give publicly right now is to make sure the app is production-ready, include clear review/test instructions, and use the $0 private test plan flow where available. I definitely get where you’re coming from though, since that puts the app in a bit of a limbo state. I’m happy to dig into this and see if I can share any more definitive guidance.

@patrick, just to make sure I’m capturing your case accurately, what did the old flow look like for those users before this changed? I still can’t guarantee anything, but I’m happy to pass along specific feedback so I can advocate on our end here.

37

Thanks @Alan_G - I’d prefer a DM. Appreciate you looking into it

38

No worries - sending you a DM @Chris_H

39

Hey @Alan_G , was hoping you could provide some guidance on the recommended way to handle testing paid plan levels when working on existing apps. For example when an app has free and paid plans, with some features gated on the former.

With the removal of test charges, I expected we would just have to pay for the app plan during development, however it seems that dev stores are not allowed to pick paid plans.

Then I thought that maybe I could just set the paid plan’s price to $0 during testing of dev version of app, but you can’t have multiple $0 plans.

Is there an approach I am missing, besides developing app features directly on production stores?

Edit: I tried installing the dev version of the app on a client transfer store, and it says that only approved apps can be installed. So perhaps even developing on product stores doesn’t work.

40

i had submitted an app for review. around 20 days ago. it was working fine. the shopify staff could test my app , change its plan, and make sure things working before approving it. But now, it is paused due to some other reasons. and while digging through the app, I saw this issue. Will the reviewers still be able to install my app and test it. I am thinking of adding an free plan with unlimited access just till my app is approved.

41

Any update here?
The use case before that was flawless was:

Dev stores / partner stores / staff stores were able to create a test subscription charge and simply go through billing.

Now it requires us to set up a test plan for these stores? Even just development of apps and testing billing is a pain right now.

42

This changes made regression on plan based feature very difficult. Please consider reverting this change.

43

This is the only solution I’ve come up with, shown to new users when they’ve just installed the app, if they have the partnerDevelopment flag on their shop plan:

  {newCustomer && shopDetails.plan.partnerDevelopment &&
    <Banner
      title='Installation step 1: Select a billing plan (Development & Client Transfer Stores)'
      tone="warning"
    >
      <BlockStack gap='200'>
        <Text as="p" variant="bodyMd">
          Shopify recently changed their app billing API, and <strong>development/client-transfer stores</strong> can no longer subscribe to standard billing plans. Your store must be manually whitelisted for our <strong>Free Testing</strong> plan.
        </Text>
        <Text as="p" variant="bodyMd">
          Please contact us at ... if you would like to be whitelisted. We apologize for any inconvenience.
        </Text>
      </BlockStack>
    </Banner>
  }

Really not ideal, but we haven’t been given any alternative.