title: Can a paid app be tested in alpha/beta for free
body: <p>I've looked on SO at a lot of questions regarding this, and they all seem to say that if the app is a paid app, then Alpha and Beta testers will also have to pay to test it.</p>
  
  <p>However, I'm naively hoping that as 99% of the answers I read are from mid 2013 when the Alpha/Beta testing feature first came out, that maybe Google have listened to people and changed this since then.</p>
  
  <p>If not, what are my alternatives? I see them as the following</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>I presume I can refund people out of my own pocket but that means Google will keep their 30% so it'll cost me 30% of my app cost for each tester.</li>
  <li>I could email them all the apk, but that way I'll have to do it for every update, rather than letting the play store do it for me. Also, if I have a lot of testers it could be annoying sending out multiple emails (unless I do one huge BCC of course)</li>
  <li>Could I somehow set up two versions of the app in the store, one called free and one called paid. Only give the free version out to the testers, and then delete that app, and push the final apk to the paid app.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I think 3. is the best option, but more hassle than I'd expect from this presumably very common occurrence.</p>
  
  <p>On a side note, who could I contact over this question, directly at Google? Someone at the play store team? How do you even find an address for that!?</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE: When I do this now, I create promo codes and give them to my individual beta testers. It doesn't take more than 20secs per person, so for my number of people I'm good with that</p>