Thinkific Payments: Managing Student Payments

With Thinkific Payments, you can view and manage student payments directly from your Thinkific Admin Dashboard.

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 checkout is regularly tested and optimized to help maximize conversions. As well, order tracking, refunds, and payouts are now built right into Thinkific.

How It Works

Thinkific Payments allows you to accept payment from students through Thinkific's Built in Checkout - without connecting with a third-party payment provider. In the past, our built-in checkout required you to connect 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.

Once you've set up your Thinkific Payments account and set your course pricing, you can start managing new student payments directly from your Thinkific Admin Dashboard.

Important Considerations

If you previously used Stripe or PayPal to process payments on Thinkific, you can log into your Stripe or PayPal account for records of any student payments that were processed before signing up for Thinkific Payments.
Only the Site Owner can set up or make changes to a Thinkific site's Thinkific Payments account.

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Managing Student Payments

Recurring student payments for subscriptions and payment plans can be viewed in the Orders Report and Users tabs of your Admin Dashboard.

To review an individual student's payments for subscriptions and payment plans:

Click Support Your Students in the navigation menu on the left-hand side of your Admin Dashboard
Select Users
In the Users table click on a student's Full Name to view their profile
Select the Payments tab

The Payments tab will only appear in a user's profile if they have purchased a subscription or payment plan using Thinkific Payments.

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The Payments Table

Once you navigate to the Payments tab in your student's profile, you will see all of their subscription and payment plans that were purchased through Thinkific Payments:

This table shows:

Product - The title of the course or bundle
Status - The payment status of the subscription or payment plan (see below for more information)
Price - The price of the subscription or payment plan. If you have set up a custom first payment for subscription pricing, this value will also appear in the Price column
Created - The date and time (in your timezone) the subscription or payment plan was purchased
Last updated/payment - The date and time (in your timezone) of the most recent payment for a subscription or payment plan
Canceled date - The date and time (in your timezone) a subscription or payment plan was canceled

Subscriptions and payment plans can have the following statuses:

Active - Recurring payments are ongoing, the student is up-to-date on payments and has access to the course or bundle
Canceled - Recurring payments have been canceled, and the student does not have access to the course or bundle. This status is displayed when either the student or creator cancels the recurring payments (see below for more information)
Past due - A payment for a subscription or payment plan failed. The student does not have access to the course or bundle (see below for more information)
Closed - This status is for payment plans only and is displayed when all payments have been made. The student will have access to the course or bundle until the enrollment expiry date

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Canceling a Student's Subscription or Payment Plan

If you need to cancel a student's subscription or payment plan you can do so from the Payments table:

Click the ellipses (3 dot icon). This button will only show for products with Active or Past due statuses
Select Cancel Subscription or Cancel Payment Plan
Type cancel into the text field
Click to Cancel Subscription or Cancel Payment Plan. Please note that this action will finalize the cancelation

Once the cancelation is complete, the Status of the subscription or payment plan will automatically update to Canceled in the Payments table. The student will lose access to the course or bundle on the date their next recurring payment was due (i.e. at the end of their current billing period).

You can also immediately remove a student's access to a course or bundle by manually unenrolling them. For instructions, please refer to: Unenroll a Student From a Course and Unenroll a Student From a Bundle.

Students can cancel subscriptions from their account profile on your Thinkific site. For more information check out our guide: How can students manage their billing and credit card information?

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Failed Payments

If a student's recurring payment fails, the Status in the Payments table will show as Past due and the student will lose access to the course or bundle.

Thinkific Payments will then retry the failed payment four times over a three-week period. By default, students will be notified via email if their subscription or payment plan payment fails.

If the payment is not successfully captured after three weeks, the subscription or payment plan will be canceled. Students will then have the option to re-enroll in the course or bundle. Student progress in a course or bundle is saved even if a subscription or payment plan is canceled or past due.

If you need to manually retry an outstanding student subscription or payment plan payment you can do so from the Payments table:

Click the ellipses (3 dot icon) next to any Past due products
Click Retry Failed Payment
Review the payment information and click to Charge Customer

If the payment is successfully captured, the Status will change to Active in the Payments table.

If the outstanding payment is not captured, the Status will remain as Past due and Thinkific Payments will continue to retry the payment. If the payment is not successfully captured within three weeks of the payment renewal date (when the payment initially failed), the subscription or payment plan will be automatically canceled and the Status will change to Canceled.

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Managing Multiple Student Payments from the Orders Table

To review multiple students' orders check out the Orders table in the Orders Report. This table displays all of your students' orders made through Thinkific's Built in Checkout - including orders processed through Thinkific Payments.

Once you've set up Thinkific Payments for your Thinkific site, this table will also include orders for free courses and bundles.

Fees and Providers in the Orders Table

The Orders table will also include a Fees column that shows the total fees for each order. This is a total amount which may include several different fees, and may be different depending on which payment processor handled that particular transaction.

For more information about fees charged by Thinkific Payments, see our article on What fees do I pay with Thinkific? If you're not sure which orders were processed through Thinkific Payments, see our article: Did my student's purchase go through Thinkific Payments, Stripe, or PayPal?

The Fees and Providers columns will also be included when you Export the Transaction Reports.

Refunding a Student's Order

For instructions on how to refund a student's order from the Orders table check out our guide: Thinkific Payments: Refunds.

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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?

When you sign up for Thinkific Payments, all recurring payments from that point forward will be processed through Thinkific Payments. If you previously integrated with Stripe, you can log into your Stripe account for records of any recurring payments that were processed before signing up for Thinkific Payments.

If you have integrated with PayPal, students will still see the option to pay with PayPal at checkout for courses and bundles with one-time payment pricing. You can log into your PayPal account for records of these and past transactions processed through PayPal.

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

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 in a private release and only available to Creators based in the USA and Canada.

Students do not have to be located in the USA or Canada to purchase courses from Creators using Thinkific Payments.

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.