Sandbox overview
Two completely separated worlds: live and test.
The Southbill sandbox is a full test environment, not a simulator. A test key talks to a real payment processor in test mode: real checkout pages, real 3-D Secure, real webhooks — only no money moves.
Two separated worlds
| Live | Sandbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Key prefix | sk_live_… |
sk_test_… |
| Account | your verified account | an auto-created test account |
| Data | live tables | separate sandbox storage |
| Money | real | none |
| Fees / payouts | yes | never |
| Verification (KYC) emails | yes | never |
There is no fallback between the two. A test key can never read, write or refund live data, and a live key never touches sandbox data.
Getting a sandbox
- Open Dashboard → Developers → Sandbox.
- Click Create sandbox account. Your test account is created and verified instantly — no second onboarding.
- Click Create test key. Test keys start with
sk_test_and stay visible: you can reveal and copy them any time.
Test keys do not count against the API key limit of your plan.
Base URL and auth
https://api.southbill.com/v1
Authorization: Bearer sk_test_…
Everything else — paths, request bodies, errors, idempotency, pagination — is identical to live. Switching to production is only a key change.
Data lifetime
Sandbox records expire 30 days after creation and are deleted automatically. You can also wipe everything from the Sandbox tab.