If you have your sales pages set up on an external site and would like to use the built-in Thinkific checkout, we have a few recommendations to make sure the flow is seamless for your students!
If you have built all of your landing pages on your external site and don't plan on using any Thinkific pages, we recommend redirecting your Thinkific pages.
Every product that you sell through Thinkific will have its own sales page. In Thinkific, we call this your product landing page. This page is created by default when you first create your product. If you are using an external sales page, we recommend redirecting your Thinkific product landing page to your external sales page.
Learn how to set that up here: Redirect Your Product Page to an External Sales Page
The reason why we recommend redirecting your Thinkific product landing page is that it's linked by default in various areas of your site. A simple redirect setup will ensure students can easily navigate to your intended sales page!
For more, see: How can students access my course or community landing page?
A Thinkific home page is also created by default when you first create your site. If you don't plan on using this page, you can consider adding a redirect to your Student Dashboard or an external site.
The Student Dashboard is where students can access all of their purchased products. If you set up this redirect, anyone who navigates to your Thinkific site will automatically be prompted to log in. If your student is already logged in when visiting your Thinkific home page, they will be directed straight to the Student Dashboard!
Another option is to redirect your home page to your external website. If you go with this option, just make sure that on your external site you include a link to your Thinkific sign-in page! This way students can still easily log in. Your sign-in link will be formatted like this: yoursite.thinkific.com/users/sign_in
Learn how to set that up here: Home Page Redirects
For more, see: Build Your Home Page · The Thinkific Student Experience
We have some additional site-wide branding recommendations you can check out here:
If you are using external sales pages as your primary point of sale, it may be best to ensure that your products are not also listed on your Thinkific site, as this could lead to confusing or diluting sales messaging. Here are a few simple customizations we recommend.
By default, there will be an All Products link that appears in your header that is linked to a default page that lists all the published and non-hidden products available on your site. Each product will be displayed with a product card that a visitor can click to visit your Thinkific product landing page.
You can simply remove this All Products link to prevent visitors and students from viewing this default page. Another option is to redirect the All Products link to a generic sales or landing page on your external site.
For more, see: Customize Your Site Header · Redirect Your Product Page to an External Sales Page
When a product is set to Hidden, the Thinkific product landing page will not be indexed by search engines and will not display on the All Product page described above. We recommend setting your products to Hidden if you are not using your Thinkific landing pages.
Learn how to set that up here: Private and Hidden Products
Now you are ready to link your external sales page directly to your Thinkific checkout! We recommend copying your Thinkific direct to checkout link and adding it to a buy button on your external sales pages.
Learn how to access your checkout link here: How to Copy Your Checkout Link