A test terminal lets you try out in-person payments before you go live. This article explains what a test terminal is, how to get one and how to run a test payment.
What is a test terminal?
Test terminals are entirely virtual. There are no physical test terminals. All physical terminals are configured for live payments only and won't work in test mode.
Test terminals are useful when you want to:
- Try out payments before your store goes live. You can start a test payment and manually choose the outcome (for example, mark it as paid or failed, to see how that result is handled on your side).
- Check that your till or point-of-sale system talks to Mollie and the terminal correctly.
- Debug an integration if you're building on top of the Mollie API.
Because nothing real happens on a test terminal, you can experiment freely and repeat the same test as many times as you need.
How to get a test terminal
Enabling the Point of Sale payment method on a specific profile automatically creates a test mode terminal. You can view this terminal in your Dashboard by toggling on test mode, or fetch it via the List Terminals API using your test mode credentials.
To enable test mode, click on your profile icon in the top left of your Mollie Dashboard and enable Test mode. Then, navigate to In-Person Payments to find your test terminal.
Keep in mind it's meant for testing only. If you want to accept real payments, you'll need an active Mollie terminal.
I do not see a test terminal
If you do not see a test terminal in your Mollie Dashboard while in Test mode, contact our Support team to request one. We will create it for you and it will be available immediately.
How to run a test payment
You will need to provide the terminal ID of a terminal in order to create a point-of-sale payment.
You can retrieve the terminal ID of the test mode terminal in your Mollie Dashboard.
You can only test payment creation via the Mollie API, or if your integration supports Mollie Test mode.
You will find more information about test mode payments creation in our API documentation.
Repeat with different outcomes to check that your setup handles each one the way you expect.
Frequently asked questions
Does a test terminal cost anything? No. Test terminals are always free of the monthly terminal fee, regardless of usage.
Will test payments show up in my real reporting or payouts? No. Test payments are kept separate from your live data and never affect your payouts or settlement reports.
I'm a developer, can I control test outcomes through the API? Since the payment will not actually be shown on a terminal device, the response contains a changePaymentState URL, which allows you to set the final payment state. You can try out different payment statuses and see whether your integration handles it correctly.