Your brand's Overview shows both: Website: Under construction or Website: Live, and Checkout: Test payments or Checkout: Real payments.
What a visitor sees before
While your website is under construction, visitors see a page that says Bright Hosting is getting ready, with a Customer sign in button. Your brand admin, customer sign-in, client area and payments keep working. Until checkout is live, every order is a practice order.
Before you start
- At least one plan on sale.
- A way for customers to pay you: an online payment method that is connected and checked, or an offline one like bank transfer that is switched on with its details filled in.
- If you started on a plan that comes with your own server: the server is ready.
Switch on real payments
- Open Owner Account, choose your brand and click Go live. (In your brand admin, this is Storefront → Launch.)
- Finish the steps in the Go live card at the bottom.
- Click Go live.
Open your website to visitors
- Sign in to your brand admin.
- In the menu, open System → Settings.
- In Website status, click Preview website to check your site, then click Go live.
- Confirm with Go live.
What happens next
Customers can place real orders and pay you real money. Your website can take up to 5 minutes to show everywhere. You can switch back any time with Switch back to test mode or Show "Under construction". Existing services and invoices do not change.
Common problems
The Go live button is greyed out
It says Complete the steps above to go live until every step in the Go live card is done.
I pressed Go live but my brand still says Under construction
That button switches on real payments. Open your website from System → Settings → Website status in your brand admin.
My website will not open to visitors
If you started on a plan that comes with your own server, you can open the website only when the server is ready. See Waiting for your own server.