Avoiding real account charging when testing in app billing with real products

Question

I have noticed that my in app billing tests with real products are really charging against my real bank account. Is there any way to avoid this? I would really test my iab's before releasing my game.

Answer 1

There are a couple of solutions here.

First, you should use a test account. The process is documented in http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html - at this time the bottom section on the page is the one you want. These accounts can purchase unreleased IAP items and won't get charged.

Second, you can do your testing and then log in to your merchant account and cancel the transaction. As this isn't a documented option, I suspect it isn't encouraged by Google so I only use it when I am really stuck on something. Even then, I make absolutely minimal use of it.