3 ms·

Thanks, sounds like your experience so far has been positive, right?

seanwilson 6y ago
Yep, let me know if you've got any questions. The only bad things I can think of is their API documentation wasn't that clear sometimes (their email support always helped though, and maybe the docs have improved now), their API was missing a few things I expected (like being able to query subscriptions by email address, but maybe that's changed), and they don't have a ton of features compared to say Fastspring (e.g. there's no self-service area where users can view and manage their subscription, but you can get the API to generate a link you can send to a user that lets them cancel their subscription and another link that lets them update their payment details).
- SkyLinx 6y ago
  Awesome. How do you manage testing considering that they don't have a test environment? Do you test with the same account as production or with a different account created just for testing? Also how quickly do they usually respond when you contact them? Thanks!
  - seanwilson 6y ago
    I just created a separate Paddle account with a different email address for testing. Inside that account, I manually created test versions of each product. In my testing branch, I use the testing product IDs for the checkout. You can also give yourself discount codes that give 100% off to test directly with the production Paddle account, or just refund yourself if you want to test some real payments. Would be nice if they had more testing features build in though. > Also how quickly do they usually respond when you contact them? Usually after one working day (not on weekends).
    - SkyLinx 6y ago
      Do they allow creating accounts just for testing? Would I risk that they close them? One thing that annoys me about the lack of a test environment is also that they allow only one webhook URL per account. I have three environments for my SaaS, dev/staging/prod. So with Chargebee I have the "live site" (as they call it) linked to the prod environment with its own webhook URL. Then I have the "test site" shared between dev and staging. But with Chargebee I can add multiple webhook URLs, so all events get sent to both dev and staging and each environment only cares about its own events. With Paddle, unless I create three accounts for the different environments, I would have to somehow share a webhook URL between at least dev and staging if I create one account for dev/staging and another for production. I guess I could create a simple app that proxies requests to the environments by looking at some string that tells which environment the event is for (I know that Paddle allows you to add a passthrough setting with some custom data - do you know if this persists across all future events for a subscription?)
      - seanwilson 6y ago
        > Do they allow creating accounts just for testing? Would I risk that they close them? Best to just ask them. They've never had an issue with my ones even after they've asked why they're not active. > One thing that annoys me about the lack of a test environment is also that they allow only one webhook URL per account. Yep, it's not ideal and I haven't heard anything about them changing that. Is having to create three accounts and a few product clones in each that big a deal though? It's not the kind of configuration you change often and once I had subscription create/update/cancel event processing code set up I've barely had to touch it. > do you know if this persists across all future events for a subscription? I don't know to be honest. This is the kind of thing I meant where the API might not be clear but support will tell you. I had to figure out a few things just by experimenting too. The API has at least been reliable.
        SkyLinx 6y ago
        I would be OK with creating multiple accounts if it's allowed. It's not a big deal and I would very much prefer not polluting the main account with test data. From reading the docs it seems that the passthrough data provided at checkout is returned with each webhook.

Yep, let me know if you've got any questions. The only bad things I can think of is their API documentation wasn't that clear sometimes (their email support always helped though, and maybe the docs have improved now), their API was missing a few things I expected (like being able to query subscriptions by email address, but maybe that's changed), and they don't have a ton of features compared to say Fastspring (e.g. there's no self-service area where users can view and manage their subscription, but you can get the API to generate a link you can send to a user that lets them cancel their subscription and another link that lets them update their payment details).

SkyLinx 6y ago
Awesome. How do you manage testing considering that they don't have a test environment? Do you test with the same account as production or with a different account created just for testing? Also how quickly do they usually respond when you contact them? Thanks!
- seanwilson 6y ago
  I just created a separate Paddle account with a different email address for testing. Inside that account, I manually created test versions of each product. In my testing branch, I use the testing product IDs for the checkout. You can also give yourself discount codes that give 100% off to test directly with the production Paddle account, or just refund yourself if you want to test some real payments. Would be nice if they had more testing features build in though. > Also how quickly do they usually respond when you contact them? Usually after one working day (not on weekends).
  - SkyLinx 6y ago
    Do they allow creating accounts just for testing? Would I risk that they close them? One thing that annoys me about the lack of a test environment is also that they allow only one webhook URL per account. I have three environments for my SaaS, dev/staging/prod. So with Chargebee I have the "live site" (as they call it) linked to the prod environment with its own webhook URL. Then I have the "test site" shared between dev and staging. But with Chargebee I can add multiple webhook URLs, so all events get sent to both dev and staging and each environment only cares about its own events. With Paddle, unless I create three accounts for the different environments, I would have to somehow share a webhook URL between at least dev and staging if I create one account for dev/staging and another for production. I guess I could create a simple app that proxies requests to the environments by looking at some string that tells which environment the event is for (I know that Paddle allows you to add a passthrough setting with some custom data - do you know if this persists across all future events for a subscription?)
    - seanwilson 6y ago
      > Do they allow creating accounts just for testing? Would I risk that they close them? Best to just ask them. They've never had an issue with my ones even after they've asked why they're not active. > One thing that annoys me about the lack of a test environment is also that they allow only one webhook URL per account. Yep, it's not ideal and I haven't heard anything about them changing that. Is having to create three accounts and a few product clones in each that big a deal though? It's not the kind of configuration you change often and once I had subscription create/update/cancel event processing code set up I've barely had to touch it. > do you know if this persists across all future events for a subscription? I don't know to be honest. This is the kind of thing I meant where the API might not be clear but support will tell you. I had to figure out a few things just by experimenting too. The API has at least been reliable.
      - SkyLinx 6y ago
        I would be OK with creating multiple accounts if it's allowed. It's not a big deal and I would very much prefer not polluting the main account with test data. From reading the docs it seems that the passthrough data provided at checkout is returned with each webhook.