Do I need to publish application to test in app purchases?

Question

I was working on in app billing last time about 1 yesr ago. In that time to test in app billing I was need to setup tester account, upload application in draft mode and publish purchases. Since then Google added "sandbox" mode (which allows to test purchases without money transactions) and I want to use it. I've read documentation but for me it's parts contradict each other.

Here it says that I only need to upload the app (nothing about publishing), add purchases and test accounts. Which is similar to the old mode. But it also says that alpha-testers WILL pay money for purchases.

Here it says that "draft" mode is unsupported so I need to publish my app to Alpha testing. Nothing about setting up alpha-testers list.

So my question is if I need to publish my app to alpha-testing mode to test purchases without money transactions?

P.S. Can I still use IABHelper from demo application? Examples in the documentation doesn't use it anymore.

UPDATE Docs says that purchases may be published before the app. But developer console says that purchases will be activated only after application is published.

Answer 1

You need to publish to alpha or beta (which won't be visible to the public). You do not need to publish to production

What I do is publish to beta with an .apk and install that same .apk on testing devices via side loading (no downloading and installing from the playstore when in beta)

Answer 2

You don't need to publish your app... you can keep it unpublished but you've to upload apk there..