Thinkific Payments: Pause and Resume Student Subscriptions and Payment Plans

The ability to pause and resume subscriptions or payment plans for your students allows you to temporarily disable your student's billing, either indefinitely, or until a set date. Read more about how to pause and renew subscriptions and payment plans below.

How It Works

There may be times when you need the ability to pause an individual student's subscription or payment plan: whether your student is going on vacation or has other circumstances that require them to take a break from your product, life happens.

Therefore, we allow the ability to pause your students' subscriptions or payment plans. This means your student will not need to pay the recurring subscription or payment plan fee while it is paused, and depending on the type of pause you choose, your student can resume their billing when they are ready.

There are two types of pauses you can select from when pausing a student's subscription or payment plan:

Pausing Indefinitely

When you pause a student's subscription or payment plan indefinitely, the billing for that student will be on hold until you manually resume the subscription or payment plan. Pausing a subscription or payment plan indefinitely does not change the existing billing date. When paused, the student will retain access to the product until the end of their current billing cycle. When you renew a student's subscription, payments will resume at the next billing cycle.

Pausing Until a Specified Date

When you pause a student's subscription or payment plan until a specified date, you are putting it on hold until a specified date at which the subscription or payment plan will resume automatically. The date that you select to resume billing will mark the beginning of the new billing period, and all subsequent payments will be made according to that date.

For example: Your student signs up for a subscription that recurs every month, on the 10th day of the month. You pause their subscription and set the specified date for the subscription to resume as March 14th. Once the subscription resumes on the 14th of March, your student will be billed on the 14th of every month going forward.

Once you have decided how to proceed, follow the steps below to walk through pausing (or manually resuming) a student account.

Important Considerations

When you pause or resume a student's subscription or payment plan, an automated email is sent to both you and your student to notify them about the change in status. The email includes the corresponding student's name, the product being paused or resumed, as well as its price. The Call-to-Action button present in your email, as a Creator, will direct you to your payment information page for future changes, while the Call-to-Action button in your student's email will prompt them to contact your support email if further help is needed.

How to Pause a Subscription or Payment Plan Until a Specified Date

If you need to pause a student's subscription or payment plan for a specified period of time, you can do so from the Payments table:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
Select All Users
In the Users table click on a student's Full Name to view their profile
Select the Payments tab
Click the ellipses (3 dot icon). This button will only show for students with Active or Past due statuses
Under How long do you want to pause their payments?, select Until a custom date. You will need to choose the date you wish to resume the student's payments on from the calendar beside the dropdown.
Select Pause Subscription

You will receive a pop-up notification on the bottom left of your screen that the subscription or payment plan has been paused, and that an email notification has been sent to your student. Additionally, the date that the student's subscription is set to renew will be visible within their payments tab.

How to Pause a Subscription or Payment Plan Indefinitely

If you need to put a student's subscription or payment plan on pause indefinitely (or until further notice), follow the steps below. When pausing a plan indefinitely, keep in mind that you will need to manually resume the billing period when you are ready.

From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
Select All Users
In the Users table click on a student's Full Name to view their profile
Select the Payments tab
Click the ellipses (3 dot icon). This button will only show for students with Active or Past due statuses
Under "How long do you want to pause their payments?", leave the option set to Indefinitely.
Select Pause Subscription
- Your student's payments will now be paused indefinitely, or until you manually resume them.
- You will receive a pop-up notification on the bottom left of your screen that the subscription or payment plan was paused and that an email notification has been sent to your student.

How to Manually Resume a Subscription or Payment Plan

If you have paused a subscription or payment plan indefinitely, you will need to follow the steps below to manually resume payments. It is important to note that the process for resuming the billing for a student with an active account and the process for resuming the billing for a student with a past-due account will look different.

To resume the subscription or payment plan for a current student:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
Select All Users
In the Users table click on a student's Full Name to view their profile
Select the Payments tab
Click the ellipses (3 dot icon). This button will only show for students with Active or Past due statuses
Select Resume Subscription
You will receive a pop-up notification on the bottom left of your screen that the subscription or payment plan was resumed successfully and that an email notification has been sent to your student

To resume the subscription or payment plan for a student with a past-due payment:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
Select All Users
In the Users table click on a student's Full Name to view their profile
Select the Payments tab
Click the ellipses (3 dot icon). This button will only show for students with Active or Past due statuses
Select Resume Subscription
You will receive a pop-up notification on the bottom left of your screen that the subscription or payment plan was resumed successfully and that an email notification has been sent to your student
To retry the payment, follow the steps outlined in our Thinkific Payments: Failed Student Payments article.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible for me to pause a subscription or payment plan without removing my student's product access?

Not currently. Since your students' enrollments are linked to payment, students with paused subscriptions or payment plans will lose access to the product. However, if you want to pause a payment for a student but don't want that student to lose access, you can head over to the enrollments tab of that student's profile and manually extend the enrollment period for that student.

What if my student's billing date has changed and they need access sooner?

If the subscription had been paused after the student's last billing date and they had since lost access, they will regain access to the product on the next billing cycle. If your student requires access to your product sooner, the student can repurchase the product to start the billing cycle over immediately.