Our Private and Hidden product settings allow you to control who can access your products and how visible your courses, bundles, and communities are on your site.
In this article:
Private Products
Private products are ideal for cases where you want your landing page to be public for marketing or informational purposes but don't want students to be able to enroll in the course, bundle, or community directly. When a product is set to Private, the Thinkific checkout is completely blocked, which means that you have full control over enrollments.
This could be useful when:
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The product isn't ready for enrollment yet - you may still be working on the content, but that's no reason not to have your landing page out there and ready to share for some pre-launch marketing!
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Your product is currently unavailable - perhaps you run your course, bundle, or community during a specific time period, or for a maximum number of students? You can simply change whether or not the product is private depending on whether it's currently available for enrollment. During the in-between times, you can even pre-fill spots for the next group of students from people who have emailed you from the product landing page.
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You only accept students who meet specific criteria - you may need to speak to a person before they enroll in the product to make sure it's suitable for them (For example: Imagine selling a programming course to somebody who's never used a computer).
Products set as "Private" will still have a product card on your site, so any visitors will be able to access them from the site landing page. However, the product won't have the usual "Buy" or "Enroll" button. Instead the visitor will see a message encouraging them to email you and request access.
By default, this message will display Interested in this [product type]? Email us at example@thinkific.com. The email displayed is your support email, which can be set in your site settings. If you would like to customize this message, see Customize Default Site Text on Your Landing Pages.
How to Set a Product to Private
Communities will only have a Private setting available for the purchase access type.
To make a course, bundle, or community private:
- From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Manage Learning Products
- Select either Courses, Communities, or Memberships & Bundles (depending on which type of product you want to set to Private)
- Navigate to the specific course, community or bundle you want to edit
- Click on the Settings tab
- Under Basic Settings , there is a section for Access
- There, you'll see the option there for Private
- Select the checkbox, save your changes, and that's it!
How to Give Your Student Access to a Private Product
To give a student access to a course, bundle, or community that is set as Private, you can manually enroll them from your Admin Dashboard. Here's how to do that.
Important Considerations for Private Products
- When a course is set to Private, the checkout is completely blocked so you do not need to set your course pricing for this particular course.
- Price will not be displayed for Private products.
- You cannot have a Free Preview for a Private product.
Hidden Products
Hidden products are the best way to control who is able to access information and content. Products set as Hidden will not appear as a product card on your site landing page, and are only accessible with a direct link to the landing page. From the landing page, they will be able to buy or enroll in the product as usual.
You can use this feature when:
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Your course, bundle, or community is for a specific group of people - your product may only be intended for certain people; for example, the employees of a company for whom you've specifically tailored the content. Simply hide the product so that only they have access.
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You want to offer some bonus content - looking to offer some complimentary extras as a bonus to people who've bought another of your products? Put it into a hidden product! You can then make sure that only those people receive the direct link.
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The course has a prerequisite - sometimes, students need to have completed another of your courses before starting the next. Make the course that has a prerequisite hidden - you can even customize the course completion email for the prerequisite course to include the direct link to the next one! Here's how.
How to Make a Product Hidden
To set a product as hidden:
- From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Manage Learning Products
- Select either Courses, Communities, or Memberships & Bundles (depending on which type of product you want to set to Private)
- Navigate to the specific course, community or bundle you want to edit
- Click on the Settings tab
- Under Basic Settings , there is a section for Access
- There will be a checkbox for Hidden
- Select the checkbox, and Save your changes.
The URL shown above is what you can use to send to people who you'd like to be able to enroll in the product. It will take them directly to the course landing page, from which they can click on the usual "Buy" or "Enroll" buttons.
Important Considerations for Hidden Products
A Hidden product is not indexed by Google and won't show up in search engines. However, if the product was previously published before it was set to Hidden, it may show up in search engine results; as it takes time for search engines to recrawl your site for any updates.
You can learn more about that here: How do I stop Google from indexing my site?
Summary of Features
If you aren't sure whether you want to set your product to Private or Hidden or both, check out our summary of features below!
| Private | Hidden |
| Your landing page is public for visitors to find | Your landing page is only accessible with a direct link |
| Your checkout is completely blocked and you will need to manually manage enrollments | Your checkout is available for students to enroll on their own |
| Your landing page is indexed by search engines | Your landing page is not indexed by search engines |
If you are downgrading your account to the Free plan, you will no longer have access to the Private and Hidden settings for your products. Any products you have set Private or Hidden will remain Private or Hidden, and you will not be able to set them back to Public. We recommend setting any Private or Hidden products back to Public before downgrading.