[gee_totes]

You're payment API doesn't have a sandbox mode? Maybe that will work? Short of that, maybe you could create a fork of your application for the designer that just returns payments_processed=true and doesn't talk to the payment API at all.

[drygh]

Most of the APIs I'm using do have a test/sandbox mode of some sorts, or I could disable them in a way the designer could still work on the application. If this is the norm in working with freelancers I am fine with it. It just seems as the application grows, it would be substantially more difficult to make sure everything is 'freelancer proofed'.

That's why I brought up the contract as well. Not sure if this is a good cautionary step to take, or if I should do it in addition to putting APIs into 'test/sandbox mode'.