Review the following for how to disconnect Stripe from your Thinkific account as well as important considerations.
We don't recommend disconnecting if you have already accepted payments, unless absolutely necessary. Make sure to review this entire article before proceeding.
In this article:
Managing Subscriptions and Payment Plans
Why Disconnect Stripe?
There are a few reasons why you might need to disconnect your Stripe integration from Thinkific:
- You want to switch to a different Stripe account
- You have switched to Thinkific Payments
- Note that if you have existing subscriptions or payment plans in Stripe, you should not immediately disconnect Stripe after switching to Thinkific Payments.
- Instead, you should wait until that payment data has been successfully migrated into Thinkific Payments before disconnecting your Stripe account. This will occur after a 30-60 day waiting period, to give you time to make sure that Thinkific Payments will work for your business.
- You want to switch to PayPal only
- If this is the case, we recommend keeping both Stripe and PayPal connected, or connecting PayPal first before disconnecting Stripe
- Note that you can have both Stripe and PayPal connected on a single Thinkific account if you would like to keep both payment integration options!
- You want to use an external payment provider
- If this is the case, we recommend setting up the other payment provider first before disconnecting Stripe
- See External Payment Solution: What to Consider
Important Considerations
Disconnecting Stripe when you have already been accepting payments on your site is not recommended. If you need to disconnect, we want to ensure the process runs as smoothly as possible, so make sure to review this entire article.
Before disconnecting Stripe, there are a few things to be aware of.
If you are not connecting a new Stripe account:
- If you do not connect a new Stripe account, you will not be able to change your site currency from our default USD currency setting.
- When disconnecting Stripe, you will remove the link between Thinkific and Stripe for any students that have purchased subscription or payment plans. This means they will continue to be billed in Stripe, however, they will lose access to courses at their next billing cycle and need to re-enroll. See how to manage this below: Managing Subscriptions and Payment Plans
- If you will no longer be using Stripe, make sure to integrate with PayPal and/or set up your external payment solution before disconnecting Stripe.
If you are connecting a new Stripe account:
- If you have a new Stripe account, make sure to reconnect the new Stripe account right away to ensure that any new purchases made on your site have a place to go. Note that you will need to re-save your prices in order for the new pricing data to be sent to Stripe, as there is no automatic transfer of existing subscriptions from one Stripe account to another when connecting a new Stripe account.
- Failure to do this will result in Stripe payment failures. For example, if a student tries to purchase a course after you've connected a new Stripe account without saving new prices, Thinkific attempts to connect the student to a plan that was in your previous Stripe account, which no longer exists. See details below: Re-Save Pricing
- If a student makes a purchase while you do not have a Stripe account connected, it is difficult and takes time for us to recover those funds for you. If your site is live, you can temporarily set your courses to Private to prevent any purchases during this transition period.
If you have more than one Thinkific account using the same Stripe account:
- If you have the same Stripe account connected with more than one Thinkific account, it is important to note that disconnecting Stripe from one Thinkific account will also disconnect it from the other accounts. You will then need to both revoke and then reconnect Stripe on any of the other Thinkific accounts that you want to remain integrated.
If you are disconnecting your Stripe account because you have switched to Thinkific Payments: you must wait until your existing Stripe subscriptions and payment plans have migrated over to Thinkific Payments before you disconnect your Stripe account — the migration occurs after a 30-60 day evaluation period.
If you disconnect your Stripe account before the migration happens, we will not be able to migrate your data.
Managing Subscriptions and Payment Plans
When disconnecting Stripe, you will remove the link between Thinkific and Stripe for any students that have already purchased subscription or payment plan products. This means they will continue to be billed in Stripe, however, their enrollment duration will no longer update in Thinkific as payment is processed. Students will automatically lose access to their subscription and payment plan courses at their next billing date and will need to be re-enrolled.
To manage this with as little inconvenience to your students as possible, we recommend continuing to bill students in your original Stripe account (this will occur automatically) and manually manage the enrollments in Thinkific:
- Run an Orders Report to see how many users are on a payment plan or subscription.
- For students with a payment plan or subscription, remove their course expiry date by re-enrolling them into your course/bundle. This will give them unlimited access to your course.
- For subscriptions, students will continue to be charged in your original Stripe account and then you can manage enrollment manually in the case of a cancellation or failed payment (see below).
- Payment plans will need to be manually cancelled in Stripe once all payments are complete. Since Thinkific and the original Stripe account are not connected, Stripe will continue to charge the student indefinitely unless manually cancelled. We recommend setting up a calendar notification to remind yourself to make these updates in Stripe.
Cancellations and Failed Payments
- Since Thinkific and Stripe are no longer linked, students will need to contact you directly to cancel. In this case, you can manually cancel the subscription in Stripe and then unenroll them from your course/bundle in Thinkific.
- Failed payments will need to be monitored in your original Stripe account. You can manually unenroll any students who have had failed payments.
What if I want to move existing students to a new payment option or new Stripe account?
If you want to transition these students to your new method of payment, you can manually end enrollment and cancel the subscription in Stripe for each student. Then you can ask your students to sign up again with your new pricing. As mentioned in the important considerations above, note that there is no automatic transfer of existing subscriptions from one Stripe account to another when connecting a new Stripe account.
To help with this transition, we recommend:
- Contact your students to let them know what to expect and how to repurchase the course. Note that students who have already finished their payment plans or made one-time orders in the past will not need to take any action.
- Create coupons for one month free to encourage students to complete checkout again. Note that our built in coupon feature will only work if you are connecting a new Stripe account.
Re-Save Pricing
If you are connecting a new Stripe account, you must re-save your prices in order for the new pricing data to be sent to the new Stripe account.
- Re-save your primary price
- Your primary course price will need to be temporarily edited to a different price and saved. Then you can edit the price back to the original amount and save again.
- Delete and re-add additional prices
- For additional course pricing, you will need to delete each price and then add them again.
How to Disconnect Stripe
Stripe has 2-factor authentication. Before continuing, make sure you have your phone available to receive a Stripe verification code in order to login.
- Log into Stripe
- Go to https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/applications
- Under Authorized Applications, locate Thinkific
- Select Revoke access
- In the popup, click Revoke
- Once Thinkific access has been revoked, you will see this confirmation message
- And that's it! If you plan on connecting a new Stripe account, see how to connect in Thinkific here and make sure to re-save your pricing as listed above.