Taxes are not automatically applied when using Thinkific's built in checkout, however there are a few options if you need to charge or calculate tax for your courses!
In this article:
Charging Tax
Thinkific is a tax inclusive platform, which means that taxes are included in all of the prices. If you're taking payment via Thinkific's built in checkout, customers will be charged the price set in your pricing settings. We don't currently have a way to add a percentage of tax for purchases, however we have some integration and alternate options that you can check out below!
We’re always working behind the scenes on improvements and if you have feedback on this, we want to know. Please send us a quick email to let us know what functionality would be most valuable to you!
For many instructors, our default checkout works just fine! The applicable tax will often be the same for all orders an instructor receives. And, depending on what you're teaching, the tax may not be applicable.
For example, for sales made to customers in the EU, the tax may not be applicable if what you're teaching includes some live interaction, such as one-on-one or group coaching. More on that here:
- VAT rules for supplies of digital services to consumers in the UK
- VAT on Electronically supplied services in the EU
All that said, if charging tax is a requirement for your business, we have some options below!
Recommended Resources
If you are looking for some general resources on charging tax for online courses, we recommend checking out:
Sales Tax Guide for Online Courses
How to Comply With US Sales Tax for Online Courses
Thinkific team members are by no means tax experts, so please check with a local tax expert before making any decisions about whether or not tax is applicable.
Tax Options
Include Tax in Pricing
If you've consulted your tax expert and you'll always be charging at the same rate, the best option is to include tax directly within your course pricing. You can add a note in your course description to let customers know that your pricing is tax inclusive if you like (a great selling point!)
But what if you need to charge tax at different rates for different orders? No problem! You have a few different options for this.
Quaderno
You can use Quaderno to calculate tax at different rates. Quaderno has a simple option to charge directly through Thinkific's checkout process (with a little extra added to your pricing to cover your tax).
This means you will still connect Stripe and PayPal to use Thinkific's checkout as well as directly integrate with a tax-friendly invoicing app called Quaderno to track the tax owed for each order. Quaderno uses your and your customer's location to calculate whether or not tax is applicable and, if so, how much.
Quaderno also has the option to skip the Thinkific checkout and use their direct checkout if desired.
Learn more here: Integrate with Quaderno
External Payment Solution
Another option is to use an external checkout that supports your tax requirements. Some popular external payment solutions are:
Check out a detailed overview of this set up here: External Payment Solution: What to Consider