ChargeProbe✓

Payment live-readiness audit — first cohort

Your checkout works in test mode. Will it survive real money?

The $1 self-test everyone recommends is against Stripe's terms — and test mode can't show you the bugs that cost money. ChargeProbe inspects every live-mode gate, attacks your deployed checkout and webhooks, and verifies your first real sale end-to-end. Built for vibecoded apps about to go live.

  • 20 failure classes
  • 97 known mechanisms
  • findings report + Payments verified ✓ card

One-time audit, not a subscription. Launch price locked at $49.

Why this existsThe $1 live-test ritual is against Stripe's terms

“The Stripe Services Agreement prohibits testing in live mode using real payment method details.”
— Stripe documentation, docs.stripe.com/testing (checked 2026-08-04)

That sentence is Stripe's own testing documentation, verbatim — not our reading of the agreement. So the ritual every launch thread recommends (run your own card through live mode, refund yourself) is out. Most founders either break the terms without knowing or skip live verification entirely. ChargeProbe gets you the same confidence the compliant way: read-only inspection of your live config, executed attacks against your deployed app on Stripe's supported test path, and verification of your first real sale as it happens.

Field reportsThe bugs test mode can't show you

In Stack Overflow's 2025 survey of 49,000+ developers, the #1 frustration — named by 45% — is AI code that's "almost right, but not quite." In payments, almost right looks like this:

  • Charged double

    "A user upgraded from $15 to $30 — and got a second subscription instead. Paying double, stuck on the lower tier. Found it by accident in the Stripe dashboard."

    Caught by audit class 09 · upgrade & proration
  • Sandbox lied

    "Everything passed in sandbox. Live mode: error codes at checkout. Sandbox customer IDs don't exist in live. Sandbox gives you false confidence."

    Caught by audit class 01 · test→live object drift
  • Green tests, dead app

    "Green tests, dead app. Webhooks that verify fine in test mode fail live — retries, duplicates, ordering. Nobody catches this because you're the only user."

    Caught by audit class 06 · duplicate & out-of-order delivery

The auditWhat we actually run — your app, not a simulator

Config — live gates, read-only

Live keys in place, live price and product IDs, webhook endpoint and signing secret per mode, Apple Pay domain registration including www, account activation. The gates that silently differ between test and live — inspected without a single transaction.

Exec — your deployed app, attacked

Your real checkout executed end-to-end the way Stripe recommends — payment → webhook → database → access. Then your deployed webhooks get hit: duplicates, out-of-order delivery, forged signatures, replayed stale events. Plus the paths nobody builds: refund → does access end? Cancel → does billing stop? Upgrade → one subscription or two?

Watch — first-sale verification

We verify your first real transactions complete the whole chain — payment, webhook, database, access — the only live-mode check Stripe's terms allow.

Fail

Refund does not revoke access. A working payments auditor calls it "the #1 thing I end up fixing." Absent from every tool we opened — and we execute it against your app.

The deliverableA report you can act on. A card you can post.

  • Written findings report — what passed, what broke, and how to fix it, per gate and mechanism.
  • Payments verified ✓ launch card — post it with your launch instead of "hope it works."
ChargeProbelaunch card

yourapp.com

Payments verified ✓

Audited against 20 failure classes · 97 known mechanisms

Versus simulatorsSimulators are another test mode. We prove your live mode.

Simulators replay what an API should send — inside another sandbox, against their own reconstructed engine. They never touch your Stripe account or your deployment. We execute your deployed app against your account, then verify your first real sale. The failures that hurt you live in the gap between test and live — we close it from both sides, without breaking Stripe's terms to do it.

QuestionsFAQ

Is this safe?
We never run a real card in your live mode — Stripe's Services Agreement prohibits live-mode testing with real card details (yes, that includes the $1 self-test). Live config is inspected read-only, execution happens on Stripe's supported test path against your deployed app, and your first genuine sale is verified as it happens. Your keys stay yours.
Can't I just follow Stripe's go-live checklist?
You should — it's good. But a checklist tells you what to check; it can't execute anything. The value is running those checks against your actual deployed app and showing you what happened — a checklist can't tell you your webhook handler double-provisions on duplicate delivery.
Can't Claude or Cursor just fix this?
Agents write handler code fine. The failures that reach production live outside the code: your live-mode dashboard config, Apple Pay domain registration, account activation gates, and how your deployed endpoint actually behaves under duplicate and out-of-order delivery. An agent can't see any of that from inside the codebase.
What if everything passes?
Then you launch with a passing report and the verified card instead of a guess. Either way, you stop hoping and start knowing.
What do I get?
A written findings report (what passed, what broke, how to fix) + the verified badge/launch card.
When?
We're onboarding the first cohort now — leave your email, launch price locked at $49.

Launch knowing your payments work

One audit before your first real customer finds the bug for you.

No charge today — first cohort is onboarding by email.