If you are using an external solution for accepting payment for your courses, there are a few things to set up in Thinkific to ensure a seamless experience for your student. You can also check out Thinkific's Built-In Checkout.
This article covers what to set up in Thinkific if you have an external payment gateway in place and already have a solution for managing enrollments. If you haven't decided on that yet, check out External Payment Solution: What to Consider
In this article:
Thinkific Pages: Link Buttons to Your Desired Checkout
External Pages: Redirect Thinkific Product Pages
Enable Site Welcome Emails
Whether you are using Zapier to automate enrollments, bulk enrolling or have another solution, Thinkific's Site Welcome Email will help new students set their passwords and log into your Thinkific site to access their products. The Site Welcome Email works well for the following enrollment methods:
- Manual enrollments
- Zapier enrollments
- API enrollments
- Importing students from file
Not sure which enrollment option to use? Check out External Payment Solution: Managing Enrollments.
When the Site Welcome Email is enabled, it will be sent out for all newly created users on your Thinkific site. By default, this email includes an Express Sign-In Link which prompts a new student to set their password and login.
When you are using an external payment gateway, this is recommended as it’s an easy way to direct students straight to you Thinkific site to access their courses. It can also be fully customized with your desired branding!
Also consider including messaging on your external thank you page that lets the buyer know to keep an eye out for your Site Welcome Email to access their course!
Learn how to customize your email here: Site Welcome Email.
Set Your Courses to Private
If you are accepting payments externally, it is extremely important to prevent visitors from accessing your Thinkific checkout unintentionally. We have a Private Course feature will completely block the Thinkific checkout when enabled. When a course is set to Private, students will not be able to enroll on their own. They will need to be enrolled using the enrollment method you have chosen. You can also disregard any pricing settings you see within your course settings as the Private setting overrides this.
Learn more about our Private feature here: Private and Hidden Courses.
Customize Your Product Pages
Whether you are using Thinkific product pages or external sales pages, we recommend specific customizations to ensure your students are always directed to the correct checkout.
Thinkific Pages: Link Buttons to Your Desired Checkout
The following instructions apply to the product pages built using SIte Builder. At the moment, it is not possible to change the default text or add a button to AI-generated landing pages. When using an external payment solution, we recommend using website pages built using the Site Builder.
Learn about the difference here: What is the Difference between Landing Pages and Website Pages?
If you are using your Thinkific product pages built using Site Builder and have set your course to Private, your banner will have default Private course text and a lock icon that will look something like this:
Instead of this default text, we recommend adding a button to your banner that links to your desired checkout URL so students can easily buy your course! Adding a button to your banner overrides the default Private text. Here is a quick example of what that looks like:
See detailed instructions on how to customize your buttons here: How to Link a Button to a Custom URL.
External Sales Pages: Redirect Thinkific Product Pages
It is not possible to redirect AI-generated landing pages. At the moment, it is not possible to redirect landing pages for Digital Downloads, Coaching & Webinars, and Courses, if you set AI-generated landing pages as your default page type.
If you are using an external sales page, we recommend redirecting your Thinkific product page to your external sales page. There are some circumstances where students might navigate to your Thinkific product page. One area in particular is the Student Dashboard, which a student will see when logging into your site. The Student Dashboard will display course cards of all courses that the student is enrolled in. From a course card, students can select See Overview to go to the Thinkific product page or simply access the course player to continue where they have left off.
See Overview appears on your course cards by default and if you would like this to take students to your existing sales page instead of the Thinkific product page, this is easy to set up with a redirect!
See how to set that up here: Redirect your Product Page to an External Sales Page.