Testing without a sandbox

EcartAPI does not have a separate sandbox or staging environment. All integrations — including during development — run against the live production API.

This is intentional: a sandbox environment would mean connecting to simulated platform data that may not reflect real-world behavior. Instead, EcartAPI gives you a free production tier to build with real stores and real data.

The free tier

Every account includes 1,000 free requests per calendar month, which resets on the first day of each month (UTC). This is a production quota — you connect real stores and call the real API.

For most integrations, 1,000 requests is enough to build and validate your entire flow before going to production at scale.

Webhook deliveries are always free and do not consume your quota, regardless of volume. This means you can test event-driven workflows — receiving orders, inventory changes, product updates — without spending any of your monthly requests.

Tips for using the free tier efficiently

1. Use webhooks instead of polling.
Subscribe to the events you care about with POST /api/v2/webhooks and receive deliveries at no cost. Reserve your request quota for the API calls that follow (e.g. fetching the full order after receiving a creation event).

2. Discover capabilities before building.
Send OPTIONS /api/v2/webhooks with any store token to see which events are supported for that platform. Send GET /api/v2/{resource} with a small limit to inspect the response shape before writing your full integration logic.

3. Filter aggressively when paginating.
Each page counts as one request. Use date filters (createdAt[from], updatedAt[from]) and status filters to reduce the number of pages you need to fetch during development.

4. Track your usage in the dashboard.
Your request history is visible per connected store in the EcartAPI dashboard. The count reflects all requests made since that store was first integrated — use it to understand which operations generate the most API activity.

Platform credentials for testing

Some platforms require you to have your own developer credentials before you can connect a store (see Platform credentials).

For platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, EcartAPI provides default shared credentials out of the box, so you can start connecting stores immediately without registering your own app. However, we strongly recommend registering your own credentials before going to production for three reasons:

• Rate limits — shared credentials pool quota across all EcartAPI users on that platform; your own credentials give you isolated capacity.
• Marketplace presence — some platforms display your app name and branding in the OAuth consent screen; shared credentials show EcartAPI's branding instead.
• Credential health — with your own credentials, you have full visibility and control if the platform suspends or rotates keys.

Connecting a test store

The most common approach is to connect one of your own stores as a test store during development:

1. Set your Redirect URL in the EcartAPI dashboard to your development URL (e.g. https://dev.yourapp.com/callback).
2. Use the OAuth URL to connect the store manually.
3. Save the returned access token and use it in all your test API calls.

You can leave the test store connected and reconnect it at any time — the shop_id returned in the redirect will remain the same across reconnections, so your internal mapping stays stable.

Next

→ Billing and request counting — How requests are counted and what the free tier covers.
→ Platform credentials — Which platforms require your own credentials and how to add them.
→ Webhooks — How to subscribe to events and test your webhook handler.