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.

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 teaching. That’s why we’ve launched Thinkific Payments - to help you sell more courses and spend less time doing it.

As part of Thinkific Payments, our new built-in, single-page checkout is regularly tested and optimized to help maximize conversions. In addition, order tracking, refunds, and payouts are now built right into Thinkific.

What is Thinkific Payments?

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.
Thinkific Payments centralizes revenue streams; accept payment via credit cards for your courses.

Why choose Thinkific Payments?

Sell more: Thinkific Payments is updated frequently with features that help Course Creators sell more, starting with improving checkout performance.
Spend more time teaching: Payments is built into Thinkific so you can spend time teaching and less time on business admin.

How It Works

Thinkific Payments allows you to accept payment from students through Thinkific's Built-in 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.

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 Payments to access your complete business dashboard.

Important Considerations

Thinkific Payments is only available to creators with businesses based in the US or Canada. If you are not located in one of those countries, we recommend using Stripe or PayPal instead.
Thinkific Payments is currently only available to Creators based in the USA and Canada, however, students do not have to be located in the USA 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: Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, ActiveCampaign, and Sumo (formerly SumoMe).
The following apps are not currently supported on the Performance Checkout page used by Thinkific Payments: Mixpanel, Segment, Cartstack, and LeadDyno. Note: Thinkific is actively working on building connections with these apps for the Thinkific Payments checkout.

Setting Up Your Account

Before getting started setting up Thinkific Payments, have handy 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? select United States or Canada. Note: 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. Note: 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 and click Next. This will include your legal name, email address, home/business address, and additional fields depending on your country.
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:

Pending verification- we're currently reviewing your account details 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 active on your checkout pages.
More Details Required - more account details are required to continue using Thinkific Payments. Please click to Complete Account Set Up and 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 previously had 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 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 paid for a course in USD and you changed your currency to CAD, they would 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 deposited from your Thinkific account into your bank account. Payout schedules depend on the country your business is registered in, and your account verification status. Click here for more information about the Payouts Report.

Refunds

Thinkific Payments allows you to offer refunds directly from your Thinkific dashboard. Click here for more information about how to refund an order and refund tracking in the Orders Report.

Migrating from Stripe

If you have an existing Stripe account with active subscriptions or payment plans, you will be able to migrate that payment information into Thinkific Payments after a 30-60 day waiting period. Read our article on Migrating Subscriptions and Payment Plans from Stripe to Thinkific Payments for more details.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Thinkific Payments cost to use?

Thinkific Payments costs the same as Stripe to use.

For a breakdown of fees, check out our article: What fees do I pay with Thinkific Payments?

If you're looking for more information about fees, please email payments-support@thinkific.com.

When refunding a student, do I receive a refund for processing or transaction fees?

There are no fees to refund a charge, but the fees from the original charge are not returned. This is true for full and partial refunds.

I signed up for Stripe and/or PayPal originally, what happens when I sign up for Thinkific Payments?

It is possible to set up a Thinkific Payments account and also connect (or have previously connected) a Stripe and/or PayPal account to your Thinkific account.

If you connect with all three payment integrations, only Thinkific Payments and PayPal will be available for your students to purchase through at checkout. If you connect with Thinkific Payments and Stripe, only Thinkific Payments will be available for your students to purchase through at checkout.

Thinkific Payments will be an option for your students to pay with at checkout regardless of the product pricing. PayPal will only be an option for your students to pay with at checkout if the purchase is for a product with one-time payment pricing.

For more information, check out our article: Did my student's purchase go through Thinkific Payments, Stripe, or PayPal?

Why do you collect information about businesses and how do you decide which businesses to approve?

We require information about your business and personal details in order to verify that you are a business (including sole proprietors), bona fide charitable organization, or other entity or person and are not using our services to send money to others, to conduct any personal or non-commercial transactions.

Can I switch back to Stripe if I don't like Thinkific Payments?

Absolutely. Please email payments-support@thinkific.com for assistance.

Is Thinkific Payments available to Creators outside the USA and Canada?

Thinkific Payments is currently only available to Creators based in the USA and Canada. However, we are also currently running an Alpha program for creators based out of the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Note that students do not have to be located in the USA or Canada to purchase courses from Creators using Thinkific Payments; this requirement only applies to the location of the creator's business.

I chose the wrong country while setting up Thinkific Payments, and now I can't edit the country field. Can you help?

Yes, please contact our Support Team for assistance.

I chose the wrong type of business while setting up Thinkific Payments, and now I can't edit this information in my account. Can you help?

Yes, please contact our Support Team for assistance.

Why can't I verify my Tax ID number (TIN)?

Thinkific Payments uses Verification by Stripe to verify account and business details. Click here for more information from Stripe about why your Tax ID number has not been verified.

How do my students get receipts?

Thinkific Order Receipts will send automatically - when enabled - for orders made through Thinkific's Built-in Checkout, including payments processed through Thinkific Payments. For more information about automatic order receipts and how to enable them, check out our article: Student Order Receipts and Payment Notifications.

Students can view their Order History from their Student Account and Profile. Students also have the option to print order summaries from this area of their account.

Does Thinkific Payments automatically charge tax?

Thinkific is a tax inclusive platform, which means that taxes are included in all of the prices. If you're taking payment via Thinkific's Built-in Checkout, customers will be charged the price set in your pricing settings. We don't currently have a way to add a percentage of tax for purchases, however we have some integration and alternate options in our article: How do I charge tax?

Please note that Quaderno is not currently supported for Thinkific Payments.