Checkout is the one part of a store where a silent failure costs you directly and immediately, and it’s also one of the hardest things to verify just by looking, since the cart, the payment form, and the confirmation screen can all display correctly while the actual transaction fails somewhere between your site and the payment gateway processing it. That gap matters more than it might first seem, since a store owner who’s never personally attempted to complete an order the way a genuine customer would has no reliable way of knowing whether that path is actually intact, right up until a customer reports a failed order or, worse, simply gives up without saying anything at all.
Why a real transaction, not a settings review
A payment gateway’s settings screen can show every field as correctly configured while the live connection between your site and the processor has actually broken underneath — the only way to know for certain is running a genuine charge through it and watching what actually happens.
If you already suspect one specific payment method or a particular product type, mentioning that lets us prioritise confirming it directly alongside the full walkthrough.
It’s also worth thinking about whether you’ve made any changes recently — a new plugin, an updated theme, a gateway configuration tweak — since checkout failures often trace back to something that seemed unrelated at the time it was made. Even a rough timeline of recent changes is a genuinely useful starting point for us. Nothing needs to be precise. A rough sketch is genuinely all we need to get started.
Checkout test transaction walkthrough
A genuine test purchase walked through your entire checkout, gateway to confirmation, to confirm customers can actually complete an order.
- Full backup taken before we start
- If we can’t fix it, you get your money back
- We never ask for your own password
This or something else?
| You want a genuine test purchase walked through end-to-end via your live gateway | This fix covers it |
| You already know checkout is failing and want it fixed, not tested | A more targeted checkout-repair fix, not this broader test |
| You want general contact or lead forms tested, not the purchase flow | Form submission end-to-end testing, a different service |
| You want account creation and login tested, not the checkout itself | Login & registration flow testing, a different service |
| Customers are reporting failed charges right now | A more urgent, targeted diagnosis rather than this scheduled test |
What we need from you
- Which payment methods and gateways are active on your store
- Whether specific products or shipping combinations should be included
- Confirmation you’re comfortable with a small genuine test transaction being refunded afterward
What we do
- Add representative products to cart and proceed through checkout as a genuine customer would
- Complete a real test transaction through each active payment method
- Confirm the order, payment record, and any stock adjustment all agree afterward
- Test relevant shipping and tax combinations that apply to your store
- Document any failure found, with the specific method or combination involved
- Refund the test transaction and report findings, including anything needing a decision
What is included
- A genuine test transaction walked through each active payment method
- Confirmation that orders, payments, and stock all agree afterward
- The test transaction refunded once testing is complete
- A written report covering findings and anything needing a decision
Not included
- Fixing an already-known checkout failure, which is a more targeted, separate repair
- Resolving a payment gateway’s own account-level issues, which sits outside this test
- Ongoing testing as you add new products or payment methods in future
- Testing an international gateway or currency you don’t currently offer
Questions about this fix
Will a real charge actually go through during this test?
Yes, a genuine small transaction is the only reliable way to confirm the full chain works, and we refund it as soon as testing confirms everything functions correctly.
Do I need to give you my payment gateway login?
Only where genuinely necessary to check gateway-side settings, and we'll always ask specifically rather than assume access is needed for the whole test.
What if only one specific payment method fails?
We isolate exactly which method and where in the process it breaks down, since a single failing method is a very different fix from checkout being broken entirely.
Will this test catch a problem that only affects certain shipping zones?
If you tell us which zones matter, yes — we test the specific combinations relevant to your store rather than assuming every zone behaves identically.
Can this be done on a staging copy instead of live?
Real payment gateways generally require a live environment to test genuinely, though a sandbox or test-mode gateway account, if you have one, is a safe alternative if available.
Related fixes
If this is the second time this year
A bad update breaking the site is a symptom of updates not being tested first. Care plans run every update on a staging clone before it reaches your live site, which is the actual fix for this happening again.
Your access, your rules
Create a separate admin account for us and delete it when we are done. For anything else, we get in touch and agree a method — never a form field on this site, never by reply to an email.
We back up first, always
Before anything is touched we take a full backup and keep it for 30 days. If a fix goes wrong, we put the site back exactly as it was.
If it is not what you bought
If the problem turns out smaller than what you ordered, we refund the difference. If it is bigger, we stop and send a quote before doing any extra work.
If we cannot fix it
You get back what we received. Diagnosis is on us — you only pay when the problem is actually solved. The payment processor takes its fee before the money reaches us, so we never hold it and it is not ours to return. That is true here as everywhere else.
If it comes back
Reply within seven days of delivery and we put it back on the bench at no cost. The fix is not finished until it holds.
What we are responsible for
If something goes wrong with a fix, our responsibility is limited to what you paid for it. We take a full backup first so mistakes can be undone, and we tell you before doing anything outside what you bought.