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 only available to creators with businesses based in the USA, UK, and Canada. Learn more about our Thinkific Payments Alpha Testing Program as we continue to expand the availability of Thinkific Payments to other countries!

About This Feature

We know that generating sales is a crucial aspect of growing your business. We also know that time spent on payments is time not spent on teaching. That’s why we’ve launched Thinkific Payments - to help you sell more and spend less time doing it.

Thinkific Payments is a suite of payment processing and selling features on your Thinkific site. Everything you need to accept payments, manage payouts to your bank account, process refunds, and update banking and business information is now part of your Thinkific dashboard. Additionally, Thinkific Payments centralizes revenue streams; and allows you to accept payments for your products.

Why Thinkific Payments?

Thinkific Payments offers multiple features to provide a frictionless experience to minimize drop offs and to maximize your sale conversion.

Thinkific Payments help you:

maximize sale conversions with its built-in, regularly tested and optimized, Performance Checkout
offer multiple types of payment transactions, such as one-time payments, subscriptions, and payment plans
offer multiple payment options with digital wallets such as Paypal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay
take advantage of the existing motivation and momentum of your students by offering a related product during checkout with Order Bumps

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. In the past, our built-in checkout required you to integrate with Stripe or PayPal to process payments. Now with Thinkific Payments, all you need is a Thinkific account and a bank account to start selling your courses!

As part of Payments, we've fully integrated the Orders Report. Improved reporting lets you track all student payments and refunds from your Thinkific dashboard. You can also refund students who paid using Thinkific Payments directly from the Orders page under Market & Sell.

We've also added more reporting to support your business; the Payout Report gives you detailed information about the status of your payouts.

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

Thinkific Payments is currently only available to Creators based in the USA, UK (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) and Canada; however, students do not have to be located in the USA, UK, or Canada to purchase courses from Creators using Thinkific Payments.
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 course or bundle's pricing. However, changes made by Course Admins will be sent to the Site Owner/Site Admins for review.

User Analytics and Lead Capture Apps on the Thinkific Payments Checkout

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.

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Setting Up Your Account

As of May 19th 2022, all new Creators located in Canada or the USA who sign up for Free and Basic plans will have Thinkific Payments set as their default payment processor. As of June 10th 2022, all new UK (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) creators who sign up for Free and Basic plans will also have Thinkific Payments set as their default payment processor. Learn more about this update: Thinkific Payments Updates: What to Know

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

Business address
SSN (Social Security Number), if located in the US
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 Where is your business located? use the dropdown menu to select United States, Canada, or the UK.
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 Next.
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 include your legal name, email address, home/business address, and additional fields depending on your country) and click Next.
Fill out your Business details and click Next
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 to continue using Thinkific Payments. 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 are 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 Setting 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 course 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 courses. For instructions check out our guide - Thinkific Payments: Set Your Course Pricing.

Managing Student Payments

After you've set up your Thinkific Payments account and set your course 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.

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.