Sandbox, staging and production
The environment model, idle timeouts, what each plan includes, and why sandbox is free while long-running environments are not.
Last updated August 12, 2026
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IntuCloud has four kinds of environment. The distinction that matters commercially is between ephemeral and long-running.
Sandbox — free, ephemeral, isolated
Every project gets a sandbox. It spins up on demand, runs your channel against synthetic data, and shuts down after an idle timeout:
| Plan | Sandbox idle TTL |
|---|---|
| Free | 60 minutes |
| Team | 240 minutes |
| Enterprise | 240 minutes |
Sandbox is where you iterate. It is included on every plan because designing and testing should not require a purchase order.
Synthetic data only. Sandbox is not a place to run live patient traffic, on any plan.
Staging — long-running, paid
A long-running environment that stays up. Point it at the test endpoints of the systems you integrate with and soak a channel before it carries live traffic. On paid plans, staging can carry PHI under a BAA.
Production — long-running, paid
Each channel gets its own dedicated task rather than sharing a worker with other tenants. Production listeners require an inbound allowlist; retention is 30 days on Team and 365 days on Enterprise.
Production is available on Team and Enterprise. It is the single clearest line between the free and paid product.
Custom — Enterprise
Additional named environments: a validation tier, a partner-specific stage, a disaster-recovery target. Up to ten on Enterprise, with the same promotion machinery as the built-in ones.
What each plan includes
| Free | Team | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sandbox | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Long-running environments | 0 | 2 | 20 |
| Custom environments | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Production environment | No | Yes | Yes |
Extra environments beyond the plan allowance are available as an add-on from the billing page.
The same engine in all of them
Engine images are pinned by digest from sandbox through production. The binary that ran your soak is the binary that carries live traffic — and it is the same open-source binary you would run yourself. Nothing is repackaged on the way up.