A launch checklist for an Indian SaaS: payments, tax, legal pages and support

General information, not legal or tax advice. Ask a chartered accountant (CA) about tax and a lawyer about your legal pages.

Building the product is only part of a launch. The rest is the dull list of things that, if forgotten, lead to a stuck payment, a missing invoice or an angry email. Here is a list to work through in order. Tick each item only when you have actually checked it.

1. Payments

• Razorpay account created, with KYC submitted. Activation for live payments needs your business details and documents, and it can take time, so start early. Do not wait until the product is finished.
• Test mode works end to end. One successful payment, one failed payment, and one where the buyer closes the window. See how to take UPI payments in Next.js with Razorpay.
• Webhook added, with its own secret, and tested with a repeated event. See Razorpay webhooks: signature and idempotency.
• Keys are in environment variables, test keys and live keys are kept apart, and no secret is in your repository.
• A real payment of a very small amount (for example Rs. 1) with live keys, and you check the invoice, the email and the access it unlocks.

2. Tax and invoices

• You know if you must be registered for GST, and what your SAC code and rate are. See how GST works on software sales.
• Your prices are stored without GST, and the tax is added at checkout.
• Every sale produces an invoice with a gapless number in each financial year. See what a GST invoice must contain.
• Your CA has seen one sample invoice and said it is fine.
• Someone knows the filing dates for your returns, and where the numbers for them come from.

3. Legal pages

Payment providers and customers both look for these. At the least, have:

• Terms of service: what you sell, what the licence allows, and what you do not promise.
• Privacy policy: what you collect (account details, billing details, email address), who processes it (payments, email, hosting), and how people can ask you to correct or delete data.
• A policy on refunds and cancellation. Decide it before launch and write it plainly, even if the answer is "all sales are final". Digital products are a common source of disputes, so clarity helps both sides.
• Contact details: a working support email, and your business name and address.
• A lawyer has read them. Templates are a start. They are not a finished policy.

Make sure the pages are linked from your footer and match what your product actually does.

4. Email

• Your sending domain is verified with your email provider (usually by adding a few DNS records). Without it, mail may go to spam, or the provider may refuse to send.
• A real "from" address on your own domain, not a shared test address.
• The emails you need exist and arrive: welcome, receipt with invoice, password reset.
• You have checked the daily sending limit of your plan, so a launch announcement does not use up the room that receipts need.
• Marketing emails have an unsubscribe link and your business address. Send a test to yourself first.

5. Support

• One support address that you read every day. Say how fast you reply (for example "within 2 working days") and keep that promise.
• A short "what to include" note for people who write in: what they did, what they saw, and a screenshot.
• A way to find a customer's payment and invoice quickly, from an admin screen, not by searching a database by hand.
• You have decided how long you give updates and support, and written it on your pricing page and in your terms.

6. Security and reliability

• Passwords are hashed (never stored as plain text), and sign-in, sign-up and password reset are rate limited.
• Only an admin can open the admin pages, and you have tested that a normal account cannot.
• Backups are switched on at your database provider, and you know how to restore one.
• You get told when something breaks: at least check your payments and email logs every day for the first weeks.
• No test or demo mode is switched on in production.

7. Before you press "go"

• You have walked through the whole customer path as a stranger: landing page, pricing, sign-up, payment, invoice, access.
• You tried it on a phone. Many Indian buyers will pay from one.
• You have a way to count visitors, sign-ups and sales, so you can tell what is working.

After launch

Look at your payments, your email log and your support inbox every day for the first two weeks. Fix the small things quickly. Most early problems are small: a typo on an invoice, an email in spam, a buyer who did not understand a step.

India SaaS Kit covers a large part of this list for you: payments, GST invoices, sign-in, an admin panel, legal page templates and a launch checklist that checks itself. See the plans and prices. You still need your own CA and lawyer for the parts that are about your business.