Thinkific Payments

Thinkific Payments is our custom, Stripe-powered payment processor built specifically for creators and education businesses, and is currently available for creators located in these countries. By setting up Thinkific Payments as your payment processor, you not only streamline your payments administration to be all in one place in your Thinkific dashboard, but you also unlock the full suite of selling tools available exclusively on TCommerce.

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 customers on TCommerce sell more. We built TCommerce specifically for creators and education businesses, to help you sell more, and spend less time doing it. We’ve seen the data: Thinkific customers on TCommerce sell more, earn more, see higher conversion rates and have larger transactions overall.

Enabling Thinkific Payments is easy and allows you to get access to the TCommerce suite of tools, giving you the best way to grow your business!

Here is how Thinkific Payments and TCommerce can help you:

Customers on Thinkific Payments have seen up to 22% larger average transaction sizes.
Gifting can boost transaction sizes by up to 6.2%.
Customers who offer Buy Now, Pay Later payment methods (e.g. Affirm, Klarna, AfterPay) see higher transaction sizes and earn 7.5% more revenue on average.
Orders with an Order Bump have a 20% larger average transaction size.
Smart Retries help TCommerce customers to earn up to 30% more revenue.

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!

Enabling Thinkific Payments is easy, fast, and allows you to:

Accept one-time and recurring payments for all of your products
Monitor and manage student payments and subscriptions directly in Thinkific
Issue refunds and manage payouts directly in Thinkific
Get help with chargebacks and disputes
Get access to the TCommerce suite of tools

To access Thinkific Payments, go to Settings then Payments.

Thinkific Payments is the default payment processor for creators located in USA, Canada, UK, EU, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand. For the detailed list, see: Thinkific Payments Supported Countries and Transaction Fees.

Important Considerations

Only the Site Owner can set up or make changes to a Thinkific site's Thinkific Payments account.
For the full list of supported countries and fees, see: Thinkific Payments Supported Countries and Transaction Fees.
If you are migrating from Stripe, check out our Thinkific Payments Migration Guide.

Getting Started with Thinkific Payments

As a payment partner of Stripe, Stripe requires the following as part of their "Know Your Customer" (KYC) obligations to prevent fraud and abuse.

The process of enabling Thinkific Payments on average takes about 10 minutes, followed by a period of 24-48 hours of verification. To ensure that the process is smooth before you begin setting up Thinkific Payments, make sure that 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)
A digital version of your proof of identity document - in cases when your information cannot be verified, these documents will be used to confirm your identity
A digital version of a document verifying your home address (driver's licence, ID card, Insurance document, utility bill, bank statement, etc) - in cases when your information cannot be verified, these documents will be used to confirm your identity

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

Follow along with the video or follow the steps below.

If you are switching to Thinkific Payments from Stripe, please review the instructions and considerations here: Thinkific Payments Migration Guide. Do NOT 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.

Step 1: Set Up Your Account

Go to Settings
Select the Payments tab. You'll see the Thinkific Payments section 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.
If you selected Company in the previous step, provide your business information. Click Continue.
When entering a business name and information, please ensure that it is entered EXACTLY as it is presented on official documents, such as tax and/or IRS documents. For example, SS-4 confirmation letter or your Letter 147C.
Fill out your Personal details (including your legal name, email address, home/business address, and additional fields depending on your country) and click Continue.
Please make sure that you enter your legal name EXACTLY as it appears on your government-issued ID.
Depending on your country and business type, you may be required to provide additional information, such as Business Information, Business Directos information, Public Details for Customers etc. Provide the required information. Click Continue.
Confirm your existing details are correct. If you see an Information Needed badge, select Edit and provide the necessary information.
Click Agree & Submit. After submission, you will be returned to the Payments tab within Thinkific.

Step 2: 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, and you can still accept payments during that time. 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.

Confirm Your Currency

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

Learn more about it here: Change Your Currency.

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.

Sell More with Thinkific Payments

Once your Thinkific Payments account is enabled and verified, you can start selling your products! Follow the steps below to get the most out of Thinkific Payments.

Price Your Products

If you have already created your products, you can start pricing them. For instructions on how to do it, check out our guide: Set Your Product Pricing.

If you are looking to create your products, check out the guide here: Getting Started with Thinkific.

Confirm Your Product Tax Category

The Sales Tax and VAT solutions are available to 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. Selecting the right category is crucial in determining what sales tax percentage should be collected, if at all.

To learn more about the Sales Tax and VAT Solution and how to edit product tax categories, see: TCommerce: Sales Tax and VAT Solution.

Learn More about Thinkific Performance Checkout

When using Thinkific Payments, our Performance Checkout will be your default checkout option. This checkout was designed for best compatibility with TCommerce and is built using best practices. It is regularly updated to ensure a smooth, secure experience for students.

Learn more here: Thinkific's Built-In Checkout.

Understand Fraud Prevention Mechanisms in Place

By enabling Thinkific Payments, you get access to Thinkific Payments-exclusive fraud prevention mechanisms. These include:

Radar helps monitor and block fraudsters from exploiting your checkout, free of charge
Our in-house team of analysts monitors and reaches out when we detect potential high-risk transactions or early fraud warning transactions. This allows you to refund a suspicious order before it potentially becomes a chargeback.
A chargeback guarantee solution to select creators, for a fee. This solution offers you peace of mind so you do not have to deal with or worry about chargeback losses. If you're interested in this solution, please email us at payments-support@thinkific.com.

Explore TCommerce Selling Tools

Enabling Thinkific Payments gives you access to a suite of TCommerce tools to help you grow your business. Whether it is boosting transaction sizes using Gifting or Order Bumps or earning more revenue using Smart Retries and Buy Now Pay Later options, TCommerce offers tools to help you sell more and spend less time doing this!

The following features are enabled automatically on all qualifying TCommerce accounts (depending on your Thinkific plan):

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), Digital Wallets, and Bank Redirects
Gifting
Group Orders
Incomplete Purchase Reminder
Customer Testimonials at the TCommerce Checkout
And more! Learn more here: TCommerce: Powered by Thinkific Payments

The following features need to be enabled manually:

If you have more than one product, get started by creating an Order Bump to take advantage of your students’ existing motivation and momentum and increase your transaction size!
Recover lost sales and increase conversions with abandoned cart emails, exclusively on TCommerce! Easily re-engage potential students who leave the checkout process without completing their purchase.

Spend Less Time on Administration with Thinkific Payments

Once you set up your Thinkific Payments account and start selling, you are ready to explore Thinkific Payments and TCommerce features that allow you to spend less time doing administration work!

Manage Student Payments and Issue Refunds

Use Orders Report and Transaction Report to monitor student payments and complete the following actions, all within your Thinkific Admin Dashboard:

Monitor 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.

Monitor Your Business Health

If you want to learn more about your business performance, stay informed, optimize your strategies, and gain valuable insights by leveraging its data, use TCommerce: Subscriptions and Revenue Dashboards.

Save Bookkeeping Time

If you are already using Quickbooks or Xero to keep track of your accounts, integrate with Quickbooks Online or integrate with Xero to streamline your bookkeeping!

Learn More about Thinkific Payments Fees

Learn about the applicable fees here: Thinkific Payments Supported Countries and Transaction Fees.

Migrate from Stripe

If you are switching to Thinkific Payments from Stripe, please review considerations here: Thinkific Payments Migration Guide.

If you are migrating from Stripe, 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.

Do NOT disconnect your Stripe payments integration in Thinkific until the migration is complete. If you connect with both Thinkific Payments and Stripe, only Thinkific Payments will be available for your students to pay with at checkout.