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 get detected within minutes instead of hours or days. 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 record your checkout flow once, either in our Chrome extension (Pro+) or by adding steps manually in the dashboard. Tracefox replays the recording on the cadence you pick (hourly, daily, or weekly) in real headless Chromium across desktop, mobile, and tablet viewports. Every step gets a screenshot. The whole run gets a video. When a step fails, you get email + Slack alert within minutes with the broken step name, the error, and the screenshot of what your customer would have seen.

By default no. You configure each test to stop at the payment confirmation step (or before). Most stores set up a 100%-off test coupon for this purpose, so no real card is charged. Tracefox never stores real payment card numbers, test data you provide is encrypted at rest and only decrypted inside the isolated test-runner environment at execution time.

Inside one test run. If you have hourly tests scheduled, a new checkout bug introduced at 2pm triggers your alert by 3pm. The 60-minute cooldown then suppresses repeat alerts for the same test until you fix it. For Business-tier customers running hourly tests, that's typically 30-90 minutes from when a regression ships to when you know.

One test run = one full replay of your recorded checkout flow. You pick the frequency per test: manual (you trigger it), weekly, daily, or hourly (Business only). A daily test that runs for 30 days = 30 runs/month. The plan-level monthly cap kicks in at 100 runs per individual test.

Anything Chrome can render. Customers run Tracefox on Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce), Squarespace Commerce, custom Next.js / Remix / Hydrogen storefronts, and headless commerce setups. No SDK install, no platform-specific integration needed, Tracefox tests the rendered checkout the way a real browser would.

Yes. Tracefox runs in real headless Chrome, the same browser your customers use. It works with any Shopify checkout (classic, Shopify Plus, Checkout Extensibility, Functions-based discount logic, accelerated checkouts like Shop Pay) because it tests the actual rendered page, not the underlying API.

No. Tracefox runs externally as a synthetic checkout test against your live store. It loads your WooCommerce site in real headless Chrome 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.

Yes. You can use Stripe's test card 4000 0027 6000 3184 (always triggers SCA) in your test data. Tracefox handles the 3DS redirect, waits for the bank authorization page, and validates the callback completes. This is critical for EU and UK stores, broken 3DS flows are one of the most common silent revenue leaks.

Free plan: 1 checkout test with manual runs, plus bonus monitoring on 1 website. No credit card required, forever. Starter: $29/mo. Pro: $99/mo (most popular). Business: $249/mo with hourly cadence and API access. Agency tier from $499/mo for 100+ sites with dedicated onboarding. All paid plans include a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Yes. The Free plan gives you 1 checkout test with manual runs, plus bonus site monitoring on 1 website. Forever, no credit card. Paid plans start with a 7-day free trial of Pro.

Yes. Monthly plans cancel with one click in the billing dashboard. Annual plans include 2 months free and have a 30-day money-back guarantee, you can try Tracefox risk-free.

Tests stop running automatically at your monthly limit. Your recorded tests are preserved, you can manually trigger them anytime or upgrade for more runs. No overage charges, no surprise bills.

Yes. The Agency tier starts at $499/mo and supports 100+ websites with dedicated onboarding, custom scan and test limits, SLA-backed support, and full API + webhook access. Email [email protected] for custom pricing on portfolios above that.

Checkly is a developer-first synthetic monitoring platform built around code-based Playwright tests. Tracefox is no-code for ecommerce operators and growth teams, you record checkout flows by clicking through them in our Chrome extension, with no test code to write or maintain. If your team isn't writing TypeScript Playwright tests, Tracefox covers the same ground without the DX overhead.

Ghost Inspector targets QA engineers and small dev teams. Tracefox targets the ecommerce founder, ops lead, or agency account manager who wants to know within an hour when checkout breaks. Same Playwright-engine under the hood, very different audience and UX.

Yes. Robot Ninja was Shopify-specific and was archived in 2024. Tracefox is the cross-platform successor: same core idea (scheduled checkout testing for ecommerce), broader coverage (Shopify + Woo + BigCommerce + Magento + custom), and active development. Most Robot Ninja customers migrated to Tracefox after the shutdown.

No, they solve different problems. Klaviyo recovers customers who abandoned for marketing reasons (distraction, price shopping). Tracefox catches the ~17% of abandonment caused by website errors (broken checkout steps) that recovery emails can't fix, those customers would have already bought if checkout worked. Most stores use both.

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's the same engine our standalone monitoring competitors charge for separately, included free on every Tracefox checkout-testing plan.

Visualping and Distill are visual change detection tools (screenshot diffs). Tracefox is broader, we catch script-level changes (which pixel disappeared, which cookie was added), classify each change by severity, route alerts intelligently, and pair it with checkout testing in one product. If you only need visual page diffs, Visualping is cheaper. If you need to know what actually changed, Tracefox is the right tool.

No. Tracefox verifies that your CMP works (banner present, consent properly enforced, scripts respect consent state), but it doesn't replace OneTrust, Cookiebot, or other CMPs. If you're shopping for a CMP, you need one of those. Once you've installed it, Tracefox tells you when it breaks.

Scan snapshots and screenshots are stored in EU-region object storage (AWS S3, eu-west-1). All data at rest is AES-256 encrypted. No cross-region replication unless you explicitly request it. Full data flow documented at tracefox.co/security.

Yes. EU data storage, DPA available on request, right-to-erasure honored within 30 days. We capture public page snapshots only, no user data or PII. Read-only scanning, never writes to your site. SOC 2 Type I audit in progress (Q3 2026 target), we're transparent about that timeline rather than claiming a certification we don't yet hold.

Public HTML, DOM structure, inline scripts, third-party scripts and their domains, cookies set by the page (name + domain + expiry, never user values), network requests fired by the page, public policy pages if you opt in, and a rendered screenshot of the viewport. Tracefox never captures personal data of your visitors, authenticated pages, form inputs on production sites, email/financial/session data, or keystroke/mouse data.