How do professionals test n8n workflows that use paid APIs safely?

Questions
1

Hi everyone,
I’m learning n8n. I understand the nodes, but I don’t have real project experience yet.
I have a question about testing and development:
When you’re building a workflow that integrates with a paid API (where each request costs money), how do professionals handle testing safely?
If the client gives me their API key, charges will hit their account.
If I use my own key, I’ll get charged instead.
So how do you normally test and debug such workflows without triggering real charges? Any common best practices?
Please explain in detail or point me to resources where I can learn about this. I’m a beginner, so a step-by-step overview or examples would be super helpful. Thanks in advance!

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2

I am not entirely sure whether there is a common best practice to avoid this. However, what I do is I invest my own funds for the required API keys so it is always hassle-free. For instance, $5 in OpenAI for API keys will be sufficient for a loooooong time.

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3

You can inform the client that there may be costs associated with testing or integrating APIs using API keys. Most clients are comfortable covering these expenses, as this is a standard part of the development process.

If required, you can temporarily use your own API key for initial testing. You can add $5 or $10 credits for testing. However, please note that some services require a paid subscription to access their API features and in certain cases, these subscriptions can be quite expensive. It would not be feasible to cover such costs personally. Therefore, the client should be responsible for any paid subscriptions or usage fees required to enable API access.

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