The checklist I run before launching a SaaS

Launch day is a bad time to discover that password reset emails land in spam. This is the list I go through before a launch, in order. Each item takes minutes once you know to check it.

Payments

• Switch to live mode. Test keys and live keys are different. Change the API key, the webhook secret and the product IDs together.
• Register the production webhook. Point it at your real domain, then make one real purchase and refund it. Check that access was granted and then removed.
• Read the checkout as a customer. The business name, currency and tax lines on the checkout page are what buyers see. Make sure they match your brand.

Email

• Verify your sending domain. Add the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records your email provider gives you, and wait for every record to show as verified.
• Send yourself every email. Sign up, confirm your address, and reset your password using a Gmail address and an Outlook address. If anything lands in spam, fix it before you invite users.

Accounts

• Test each sign-in method on the production domain. OAuth providers need your live callback URL added, not just localhost.
• Make yourself an admin and confirm that a normal account can't open the admin pages.

Legal and trust

• Privacy policy and terms linked from every page footer, with your real contact email.
• Refund policy stated clearly before checkout, and consistent with what your payment provider allows.

SEO

• Set the real site URL so canonical links, the sitemap and social share images point to your domain.
• Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console.
• Share a link in a chat app to check the preview image and title.

After launch

• Watch the admin dashboard for sign-ups that never convert. That gap is usually your onboarding, not your pricing.
• Reply to every early user personally. Nothing you build in week one is worth more than what they tell you.