diff --git a/dash/CHANGELOG.md b/dash/CHANGELOG.md
index d9fea4be7e..401c34cfde 100644
--- a/dash/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/dash/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 ## Unreleased
 
+### Added
+
+- [#918](https://github.com/plotly/dash/pull/918) Adds `wait_for_element_by_id` and `visit_and_snapshot` APIs in browser, adds `raw_command` option (it also has higher priority than
+the default waitress one) and optional `start_timeout` argument to handle large application within process runner
+
 ### Fixed
 
 - [#915](https://github.com/plotly/dash/issues/915) Fixes `dash-generate-components` on Windows
diff --git a/dash/testing/application_runners.py b/dash/testing/application_runners.py
index a0a248fdc7..c9575d2e3c 100644
--- a/dash/testing/application_runners.py
+++ b/dash/testing/application_runners.py
@@ -179,15 +179,31 @@ def __init__(self, keep_open=False, stop_timeout=3):
         self.proc = None
 
     # pylint: disable=arguments-differ
-    def start(self, app_module, application_name="app", port=8050):
+    def start(
+        self,
+        app_module=None,
+        application_name="app",
+        raw_command=None,
+        port=8050,
+        start_timeout=3,
+    ):
         """Start the server with waitress-serve in process flavor """
-        entrypoint = "{}:{}.server".format(app_module, application_name)
+        if not (app_module or raw_command):  # need to set a least one
+            logging.error(
+                "the process runner needs to start with"
+                " at least one valid command"
+            )
+            return
         self.port = port
-
         args = shlex.split(
-            "waitress-serve --listen=0.0.0.0:{} {}".format(port, entrypoint),
+            raw_command
+            if raw_command
+            else "waitress-serve --listen=0.0.0.0:{} {}:{}.server".format(
+                port, app_module, application_name
+            ),
             posix=not self.is_windows,
         )
+
         logger.debug("start dash process with %s", args)
 
         try:
@@ -195,7 +211,7 @@ def start(self, app_module, application_name="app", port=8050):
                 args, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE
             )
             # wait until server is able to answer http request
-            wait.until(lambda: self.accessible(self.url), timeout=3)
+            wait.until(lambda: self.accessible(self.url), timeout=start_timeout)
 
         except (OSError, ValueError):
             logger.exception("process server has encountered an error")
@@ -233,7 +249,7 @@ def __init__(self, keep_open=False, stop_timeout=3):
         self.proc = None
 
     # pylint: disable=arguments-differ
-    def start(self, app):
+    def start(self, app, start_timeout=2):
         """Start the server with waitress-serve in process flavor """
 
         # app is a R string chunk
@@ -267,7 +283,7 @@ def start(self, app):
                 args, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE
             )
             # wait until server is able to answer http request
-            wait.until(lambda: self.accessible(self.url), timeout=2)
+            wait.until(lambda: self.accessible(self.url), timeout=start_timeout)
 
         except (OSError, ValueError):
             logger.exception("process server has encountered an error")
diff --git a/dash/testing/browser.py b/dash/testing/browser.py
index 0283845202..51b7557903 100644
--- a/dash/testing/browser.py
+++ b/dash/testing/browser.py
@@ -173,6 +173,20 @@ def wait_for_element_by_css_selector(self, selector, timeout=None):
             ),
         )
 
+    def wait_for_element_by_id(self, element_id, timeout=None):
+        """explicit wait until the element is present,
+        timeout if not set, equals to the fixture's `wait_timeout`
+        shortcut to `WebDriverWait` with `EC.presence_of_element_located`
+        """
+        return self._wait_for(
+            EC.presence_of_element_located,
+            ((By.ID, element_id),),
+            timeout,
+            "timeout {}s => waiting for element id {}".format(
+                timeout if timeout else self._wait_timeout, element_id
+            ),
+        )
+
     def wait_for_style_to_equal(self, selector, style, val, timeout=None):
         """explicit wait until the element's style has expected `value`
         timeout if not set, equals to the fixture's `wait_timeout`
@@ -433,6 +447,16 @@ def reset_log_timestamp(self):
             if entries:
                 self._last_ts = entries[-1]["timestamp"]
 
+    def visit_and_snapshot(self, resource_path, hook_id):
+        try:
+            self.driver.get(self.server_url + resource_path)
+            self.wait_for_element_by_id(hook_id)
+            self.percy_snapshot(resource_path)
+            self.driver.back()
+        except WebDriverException as e:
+            logger.exception("snapshot at resource %s error", resource_path)
+            raise e
+
     @property
     def driver(self):
         """expose the selenium webdriver as fixture property"""
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_app_runners.py b/tests/unit/test_app_runners.py
index 22bca7407a..784a8ff358 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_app_runners.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_app_runners.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ def test_threaded_server_smoke(dash_thread_server):
     sys.version_info < (3,), reason="requires python3 for process testing"
 )
 def test_process_server_smoke(dash_process_server):
-    dash_process_server("simple_app")
+    dash_process_server('simple_app')
     r = requests.get(dash_process_server.url)
     assert r.status_code == 200, "the server is reachable"
     assert 'id="react-entry-point"' in r.text, "the entrypoint is present"