Frequently asked questions

Automated checkout testing is the practice of replaying a recorded checkout flow (add to cart, shipping, payment, confirmation) on a schedule using a real browser, so functional breakages show up on the next scheduled run (weekly, daily or hourly depending on plan) instead of in a revenue report days later. Distinct from uptime monitoring, which only verifies that a URL returns HTTP 200, automated checkout testing catches the silent bugs that don't trigger Stripe alerts: payment forms not rendering on mobile, coupon codes failing for specific carts, shipping calculators timing out for certain regions.

You create a test for one store: generate it from the store URL (Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce), record it with the Chrome extension (Pro and Business), or add steps by hand. Tracefox replays its steps on the schedule you pick (weekly, daily or hourly, as your plan allows) in headless Chromium, on the one viewport you choose for that test (desktop, mobile or tablet). Each step gets a screenshot and each run a video. When a scheduled run fails, it is re-run once to rule out a blip, then you get an email (and a Slack message on Pro and Business) naming the failed step, with its error and screenshot.

Not unless you build a test that does. A test stops where you tell it to, usually before payment. Reaching the payment step doesn't prove a payment would go through. If you want a test to complete an order, use a discount that brings the whole total to zero, including shipping and tax; that order is real, shows in your admin, and can change inventory, send customer emails and reach fulfillment apps. Tracefox never asks for real card numbers. Test data you enter (name, address, email) is stored with the test so the runner can fill in forms, so use made-up details.

On the next scheduled run of a test that covers the broken step: within about an hour on an hourly schedule, a day on daily, a week on weekly. A scheduled failure is re-run once to rule out a blip, which adds a few minutes, then the alert goes out. While a test keeps failing, you get at most one failure alert per test per hour, and a recovery email when it passes again.

One replay of one test. Scheduled runs, runs you start by hand and the one check run when you create a test each use one; saving edits doesn't, and neither does the confirming re-run after a scheduled failure. Runs come from one monthly allowance shared by every test in the workspace (10 on Free, 120 on Starter, 750 on Pro, 3,000 on Business), not a limit per test. It resets on the 1st of each month. A daily test uses 30 or 31 runs a month, so 10 daily tests need 310 in a 31-day month; an hourly test uses about 720 to 744.

Tests run in Chromium against the rendered store, with no plugin or SDK, so recorded or hand-built tests work on most storefronts: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce) and custom or headless storefronts. Generating a test automatically from a store URL works for Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce. Steps inside embedded frames (such as card fields from a payment provider) and pages that block automated browsers may not work.

Yes, for what shows on the page. Tracefox runs in headless Chromium (the engine behind Chrome and Edge, not Safari) and tests the rendered checkout, so it works with Checkout Extensibility and with discounts calculated by Shopify Functions, as long as the result appears in the checkout. A test can check that Shop Pay or other express-payment buttons appear, but it can't complete Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay, which need a signed-in wallet. Shopify Plus stores running a bot-protection checkpoint during a sale may block test runs while it's on.

No. Tracefox runs externally as a synthetic checkout test against your live store. It loads your WooCommerce site in headless Chromium and walks through checkout the way a customer would. Zero plugin install, zero code in your wp-content folder, no admin access required beyond the URLs you want to test.

No. Tracefox has no 3D Secure handling, test data has no card fields, and the extension stops recording at payment. What a test can do is check that the payment step loads and that the payment options you expect are shown. To check 3D Secure, use your payment provider's 3DS test cards by hand in its test mode, ideally on a copy of the store, because test mode can stop real customers paying by card. Even then, a successful test-card payment doesn't prove that live cards will be authorised by customers' banks.

Free plan: 1 checkout test that you run by hand up to 10 times a month, plus bonus monitoring on 1 website, with no card. Starter: $29/mo. Pro: $99/mo. Business: $249/mo with an hourly schedule available and API access. Every paid plan starts with a 7-day trial: you enter a card at checkout, and you aren't charged if you cancel before it ends. Current details at tracefox.co/pricing.

Yes. The Free plan gives you 1 checkout test that you run by hand up to 10 times a month, plus bonus site monitoring on 1 website, with no time limit and no card. Each paid plan starts with a 7-day trial of that plan; a card is required at checkout.

Yes. Monthly plans cancel with one click in the billing dashboard. Annual plans cost the same as 10 months. To try before paying, use the Free plan or the 7-day trial on any paid plan.

Scheduled runs are skipped until the allowance resets on the 1st, and runs you start by hand are refused too. Your tests and schedules are kept and pick up again after the reset; paused tests stay paused. The dashboard marks scheduled tests as not running, and you get an email at 80% and when it runs out (unless email notifications are off). There are no overage charges; moving to a larger plan raises the allowance straight away.

Business is the largest plan: 30 saved checkout tests, 3,000 runs a month and 50 monitored websites. If you look after more stores than that, email support@tracefox.co and tell us what you need.

Checkly is a monitoring platform for engineering teams: browser checks are Playwright scripts written in code, alongside API checks, and paid plans start at $29/mo with 3,000 browser runs (checklyhq.com/pricing, checked 17 October 2026). Tracefox is no-code and built around client stores: you generate, record or click together checkout tests, and get client reports and script and pixel checks. If your team writes Playwright and wants frequent runs, API monitoring and CI integration, Checkly is the better fit.

Ghost Inspector is a no-code browser testing tool organised around test suites for QA and dev teams, with a Chrome and Firefox recorder, schedules as often as every minute, several browsers and visual screenshot comparison; plans start at $125/mo with 10,000 runs (ghostinspector.com/pricing, checked 17 October 2026). Tracefox is organised around client stores: checkout tests in Chromium, client reports, and script and pixel checks, from $29/mo. If you need high-frequency, cross-browser or CI-triggered tests, Ghost Inspector is the better fit.

Robot Ninja was an automated checkout testing tool for WooCommerce. Its shutdown was announced on 2 March 2020 and began on 31 March 2020; the site now states it is in archive mode with signups and logins disabled. Tracefox covers the same core idea, scheduled checkout testing, for WooCommerce, Shopify and other storefronts. Sources: robotninja.com and its shutdown post. Last verified 14 October 2026.

No, they solve different problems. Recovery emails bring back shoppers who left for their own reasons (distraction, price shopping). They can't help a shopper who left because a checkout step was broken, which is the kind of failure a Tracefox test can find, if a test covers that step. The two work side by side.

Every plan also runs a scan-and-diff pipeline against your sites to catch tracking pixel removals (Meta, GA4, TikTok, Pinterest, Snap), third-party script drift, cookie changes, and consent banner regressions. It is included on every plan and doesn't use your checkout run allowance. It detects when a script appears, disappears or changes; it doesn't verify that the right events fire with the right data.

Visualping and Distill watch pages for visual, text and element changes, with cloud monitoring and team plans. Tracefox watches a different layer: which tracking scripts, pixels and cookies a page loads, and checkout flows. If you want alerts when the content of specific pages changes, Visualping or Distill is the better fit. If you need to know when a pixel or script disappears, or when checkout breaks, that's what Tracefox is for.

No. Tracefox reports technical signals about your CMP: whether a consent banner appears, and which scripts and cookies load before a visitor makes a choice. It doesn't replace OneTrust, Cookiebot or other CMPs, and its findings are observations, not a legal assessment.

Account data and test definitions live in a Postgres database. Scan snapshots, screenshots and test videos live in S3-compatible object storage. Media files have no public links: the app serves them only to signed-in members of the workspace that owns them, over HTTPS. More detail at tracefox.co/security.

DPA available on request, right-to-erasure honored within 30 days. Passive site scans capture public page snapshots only. Recorded checkout tests are different: they replay whatever you typed while recording, so treat test data as data you have given us. Tracefox does not hold a SOC 2 report or any other security certification; for a vendor security questionnaire, email security@tracefox.co.

It depends on the feature. A site scan is read-only: it records page HTML, scripts and their domains, cookies the page sets (name, domain and expiry, not values), network requests, the status of up to three same-site links, policy pages you list, and a screenshot. It doesn't sign in, fill in forms or record visitors' data. A checkout test is different: it clicks and types on the live store using the steps and test data you set up, and stores those values, a screenshot of each step and a video of each run. Details at tracefox.co/security.