Thinkific Payments

Accept payments, and manage payouts, orders, and refunds directly from your Thinkific dashboard —everything you need to run your business efficiently is now in one convenient place. Plus, we've added a new checkout that's regularly tested and optimized to help maximize your conversions.

Thinkific Payments is available by default in USA, Canada, UK and select Thinkific Payment-supported countries. It is only available on limited release to businesses based in Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and EEA countries. If you’re a Creator based in a limited-release country and don’t see the option to adopt Thinkific Payments, please contact our Support Team.

About This Feature

Thinkific Payments is a built-in payment processor that is a part of TCommerce's suite of payment processing and selling features. It includes everything you need to accept payments, process refunds, and manage payouts while allowing you to update your banking and business information; all through your Thinkific dashboard.

We know that generating sales is a crucial aspect of growing your business and that time spent on payments is time not spent on teaching. Thinkific Payments centralizes your revenue streams and accepts payments for your products to help you sell more and spend less time doing it.

Why Thinkific Payments?

Thinkific Payments support TCommerce features to provide a frictionless experience by minimizing drop-offs to maximize your sale conversion.

Thinkific Payments help you:

Enhance sale conversions with the Performance Checkout, which is built-in, regularly tested, and optimized for efficiency
Provide a variety of payment transaction options, including one-time payments, subscriptions, and payment plans
Offer a range of payment options, including Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), digital wallets, and bank redirects
Capitalize on your student's existing motivation and momentum by presenting a related product during checkout using Order Bumps
Stay compliant and reduce administrative burden through Thinkific's Sales Tax Solution

How It Works

Thinkific Payments allows you to accept payments from students through Thinkific's built-in Performance Checkout without integrating with a third-party payment provider. All you need is a Thinkific account and a bank account to start selling your products!

We've fully integrated the Orders Report and Transaction Report, enhancing your ability to monitor student payments and initiate refunds right from your Thinkific Dashboard.

As an added benefit, Thinkific Payments makes it more efficient to update your banking and business information. Simply sign in to your Thinkific account and click on Settings, then Payments, to access your complete business dashboard.

Important Considerations

Only the Site Owner can set up or make changes to a Thinkific site's Thinkific Payments account.
The Site Owner, Site Admins, Thinkific Partners (who have been granted access), and Course Admins can set a product or bundle's pricing. However, changes made by Course Admins will be sent to the Site Owner/Site Admins for review.

Setting Up Your Account

Before you begin setting up Thinkific Payments, ensure you have your:

Business address
SSN (Social Security Number), if located in the US
EIN (Employer Identification Number) or TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number)
Bank account details (void check/direct deposit information)

Once you have that information ready, head over to your Thinkific Admin Dashboard to set up your account.

You do not need to disconnect your Stripe payments integration in Thinkific before setting up your Thinkific Payments account. If you connect with both Thinkific Payments and Stripe, only Thinkific Payments will be available for your students to pay with at checkout.

Sign up for Thinkific Payments

Go to Settings
Select the Payments tab. You'll see Thinkific Payments at the top of the page.
Under My business is based in... use the dropdown menu to select a country.
You will not be able to change the country for your account after clicking to enable Thinkific Payments. If you have selected the wrong country and are now unable to edit it, please contact our Support Team for assistance.
Click Set Up Thinkific Payments. This will open the Payments Verification by Stripe in your browser.
Select your Type of business and click Continue.
You will not be able to change details about your type of business after you finish setting up Thinkific Payments. Please be careful to select the correct option for your business from the dropdown menus during sign-up. If you have selected the wrong type of business and are now unable to edit it, please contact our Support Team for assistance.
Fill out your Personal details (including your legal name, email address, home/business address, and additional fields depending on your country) and click Continue.
Confirm your existing details are correct and click Submit. After submission, you will be returned to the Payments tab within Thinkific.

Connect Your Bank Account

Now that you have signed up, you can connect your bank account to accept payouts.

Click Add Bank Account
Fill out bank details and click Add Bank Account
And that's it! You'll see that your account will display Pending verification when you first get started. It can take 24-48 hours to complete verification and you'll be ready to start accepting payments!

If you need to make any updates to your account details, you can always return to the Payments tab and select Replace bank account to update your information.

Account Verification Status

Once you set up Thinkific Payments, your account will have one of the following verification statuses:

Status:	What it means:
Pending verification	We're currently reviewing your account details. This takes place after the initial sign up to Thinkific Payments. It can take 24-48 hours to complete verification. No action is required by you.
Verified	Your account has been verified, and Thinkific Payments is now active on your checkout pages.
More Details Required	More account details are required. Please click Complete Account Set Up to add the requested details.
Restricted	Your account is restricted, and Thinkific Payments is not currently active on your checkout pages. Please contact our Support Team for assistance.

If your account status changes from Verified to Restricted, and you have previously integrated with Stripe, your account will automatically return to using Stripe to process student payments on your checkout pages. Once your account status has been re-verified, payments will return to being processed by Thinkific Payments.

Changing Your Currency

By default, your currency will automatically correspond with your selected country when first creating your account. If you prefer your courses to be priced in a different currency, you can select Change Currency to select a new currency.

Simply select your currency of choice from the dropdown menu within the Payments section of your Settings tab, and click Update Currency to apply your changes.

We do not recommend changing your currency after making your first sale, as Thinkific Payments does not allow users to make purchases in multiple currencies. For example, if a student pays for a product in USD, and you change your currency to CAD, the student will need to create a new Thinkific account under a unique email address in order to make the CAD purchase.

Pricing Your Courses

Now that you have set up your account, you can start pricing your products. For instructions check out our guide - Set Your Product Pricing

Confirming Your Product Tax Category

The Sales Tax feature is automatically enabled on all TCommerce accounts. To ensure that the correct tax is being collected on your sales, you should review and update your product tax categories. Tax categories are used during checkout to determine whether tax is applicable in the jurisdiction where a student is located and if so, what tax should be collected. To learn more about the Sales Tax Solution and how to edit product tax categories, see: TCommerce: Sales Tax Solution.

Managing Student Payments

After you've set up your Thinkific Payments account and set your product pricing, check out our article on Managing Student Payments.

Payouts

With Thinkific Payments, revenue is directly deposited daily from your Thinkific account into your bank account. Your payout schedule depends on your account verification status and the country your business is registered in.

Refunds

Thinkific Payments allows you to offer refunds directly from your Thinkific dashboard. You can access your Orders Report to initiate and track your refunds.

User Analytics and Lead Capture Apps

Currently, the following apps are supported on the checkout page with Thinkific Payments:

The following apps are not currently supported on the Performance Checkout page used by Thinkific Payments:

Note: Thinkific is actively working on building connections with these apps for the Thinkific Payments checkout.

Migrating from Stripe

If you are looking to migrate from Stripe to Thinkific Payments, your students' pre-existing subscriptions, payment plans, and billing cycles will automatically migrate to Thinkific Payments. All new transactions processed after the migration will be done through Thinkific Payments. This migration will occur 30–60 days after setting up your Thinkific Payments account.

Note that if you plan on migrating payment information from Stripe, you should avoid disconnecting your Stripe account until the migration is complete.