If you prefer to use a payment solution other than our built-in payment integrations for your courses, you're in the right place! This article covers all the basics you need to consider before implementing your external payment solution.
Important Considerations
Our built-in payment integrations automate sign-ups, payments, enrollments, and sales taxes. When using an external payment solution, this process is not automated, so there are a few things you will need to set up to ensure students not only buy your products but are enrolled and notified after they make a purchase.
You should be able to answer all of these questions:
Why do you want to use an external payment solution?
What is your external payment gateway of choice?
How will you manage enrollments after a student makes a purchase?
How will you notify students once they have been enrolled?
Are you selling your course using Thinkific landing pages or external sales pages?
Why do you want to use an external payment solution?
Typically when course creators choose to use a payment solution other than our built-in payments integrations, they have specific needs that are not fulfilled by these integrations. Here are a few reasons why you might need to use an external payment solution:
- You're looking for features that only certain platforms support like upsells in ClickFunnels
- You have specific tax requirements and need to use an external solution
- You already have a business and payment solution in place and are looking for consistency
- You are selling bulk licenses
- Thinkific Payments is not supported in your country
- Stripe is not supported in your country
- You have integrated with PayPal but would like to sell your courses in a currency other than USD
- You would like to sell your courses in multiple currencies
What is your external payment gateway of choice?
First things first, if you are considering using an external payment gateway, you'll need to choose a platform. This can vary widely depending on your needs and there are a few things to think about to help you get started.
Solutions that support automated enrollments
We have a few integrations that provide automatic enrollments into Thinkific after purchase:
Using Zapier to automate enrollments
Zapier is a tool that allows you to connect applications without a built-in integration. If your external payment gateway of choice is supported by Zapier, you can also automate enrollments with Thinkific by setting up zaps!
Some popular external payment gateway choices that integrate with Zapier include WooCommerce, Square, and ClickFunnels. We recommend checking out Zapier's supported apps here:
You can also learn more about our Zapier integration here: Integrate with Zapier
Other options
Depending on your needs, you may find that your external payment gateway of choice is not listed above and does not integrate with Zapier. Or perhaps you are invoicing clients for bulk licenses and accepting payment manually. Not to worry! We still have other options for enrolling your students after they make a purchase, which you can check out below!
SweetPay offers your students a way to pay over time for the purchase of your courses. Offering a way for students to pay over time is key to selling more courses. Note that payment is still accepted through Thinkific for this option.
How will you manage enrollments after a student makes a purchase?
Once a student makes a purchase, you will need to enroll them into your Thinkific course after accepting payment. We have a few options for this:
- Use Zapier to Automate Enrollments
- Manually Enroll Students
- Bulk Enroll Students
- Issue Coupon Codes
- Build a Custom Solution Using Our Public API
Learn more here: External Payment Solution: Managing Enrollments
How will you notify students once they have been enrolled?
Once a student has been enrolled, they will need to be notified in order to access their course! We recommend enabling the Site Welcome Email on your Thinkific site. When this is enabled, as soon as a student is enrolled, they will receive an email that includes an Express Sign in link allowing the student to set their password and log in to Thinkific. The Site Welcome Email works well for:
Learn more about this here: External Payment Solution: Recommended Thinkific Set Up
Are you selling your course using Thinkific landing pages or external sales pages?
Once you have planned out how to accept payment and enroll students, you'll need to decide where your sales page lives. If you already have an external site, then you can link your checkout to your external sales page. If you are using Thinkific's landing pages, then we recommend linking your buy buttons to your external checkout page.
Learn more about this here: External Payment Solution: Recommended Thinkific Set Up
What's next?
Once you have decided how to accept payment and manage enrollments, check out External Payment Solution: Recommended Thinkific Set Up for important customization options on your Thinkific site.
Since your checkout is outside of Thinkific, we are not able to provide set up assistance for your third party solution. However, if you have any questions about Thinkific functionality or features, please reach out!