This article provides an overview of your payment gateway options (which enable you to accept and receive payments on your school), student payment options, and other resources related to processing payments for your products.
Overview
Teachable offers the ability to process and payout transactions directly within your Teachable school.
In order to process and receive payments, you must set up a payment gateway from your school’s Settings > Payments menu. The payment gateway available to you will vary depending on what plan your school is on and what country you are located in—learn more in the Payment gateway options section below.
Your payment gateway setup will also influence the payment options that are available to your students when they go to purchase one of your products (e.g., PayPal, credit/debit cards, Apple/Google Pay, Buy Now Pay Later). Learn more in the Payment options for students section below.
Once you have set up your payment gateway and understand your student payment options,
you are ready to process and receive payments for your products. To learn more about how to set your prices for your products, check out the Product Pricing Plans article.
Payment gateway options
Teachable offers two native payment gateway options: teachable:pay and the Monthly Payment Gateway. If you are ineligible for teachable:pay, and on the Pro plan or up, you can alternatively set up a custom payment gateway.
The below eligibility flowchart outlines requirements for each gateway:
Each gateway has its own payout schedule, payout method, and other payment-related features:
| Payment Gateway | Payout schedule | Payout method | Automatic author/affiliate payouts | Automatic handling & remittance of tax, where applicable | Student payment options |
| teachable:pay | Daily, weekly, or monthly | Directly to bank account via Stripe Express | Yes, with BackOffice enabled | Yes |
- Credit/debit cards - PayPal for USD purchases - Google/Apple Pay |
| Monthly Payment Gateway | Monthly | PayPal | Yes, with BackOffice enabled | Yes |
- Credit/debit cards - PayPal for USD purchases - Google/Apple Pay |
| Custom payment gateway | Varies* | Varies* | No | No |
- Credit/debit cards - PayPal for USD non-recurring purchases |
*Custom payment gateways are set up directly with Stripe and/or PayPal. Payout schedules and payout destinations are managed directly with these third-party companies.
On teachable:pay and the Monthly Payment Gateway, you have the option to enable BackOffice services. With BackOffice, Teachable automatically handles author/affiliate payouts, collects tax forms for authors/affiliates, and provides PayPal as a payment option for students. Learn more about BackOffice and/or student payment options.
NOTE: Payments are processed through whichever gateway is active at the time of purchase. For example, if you switch from the Monthly Payment Gateway to teachable:pay, any sale made before switching gateways will be paid out according to the Monthly Payment Gateway's payout schedule. Once the switch is made, all payments—including existing recurring payment plans (e.g. subscription and payment plan payments)—will be processed using your new gateway.
Payment options for students
For each course, coaching product, or bundle in your school, you can set the price on the Pricing tab of that specific product. You can also set up multiple pricing options for each product, so that students can pick one of the available options. Learn more about setting up your product pricing in the Product Pricing Plans article.
Once your student navigates to the checkout page for the product, they will see what payment options are available to them (e.g., credit/debit card, PayPal, Google/Apple Pay). The payment options that are available to them will depend on various school and individual settings.
Learn more about purchasing a product as a student.
Credit/debit cards
By default, all students will have the option to pay with a credit or debit card.
When a student makes a purchase using a credit or debit card, their transaction is processed via Stripe. All major international cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) are supported by Stripe.
Students can choose to purchase with a credit or debit card by selecting selecting the Credit or Debit Card radio button when entering their payment details on the checkout page:
Link
Link offers the ability for students to quickly save their card or bank information in order to utilize 1-click checkout for future purchases.
For new students, they can save their information by clicking the checkbox under card information at checkout and adding their email and phone number. For students with an existing Link profile, their information will automatically populate after verification.
PayPal
When PayPal is enabled, students can purchase with PayPal by selecting the PayPal radio button on the checkout page, choosing their country and zip code, and then clicking the PayPal button. This will take them to a Pay with PayPal checkout screen.
For schools on teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway, PayPal is available through BackOffice. Learn more about BackOffice and enabling PayPal.
For teachable:pay/Monthly Payment Gateway, PayPal is not available on the checkout page if:
- The price is set in a currency other than USD (PayPal is only available in USD at this time)
- The student is purchasing a recurring payment option (i.e., a subscription or a payment plan) and added a coupon that applies to only the first payment
- The student is purchasing a recurring payment option (i.e., a subscription or a payment plan) and adds an order bump purchase at checkout
For schools with a custom payment gateway, PayPal is a payment option if you have set up your own PayPal account, and then enabled PayPal as a payment option from your Settings > Payments page. Learn more about setting up a PayPal custom payment gateway.
Apple Pay® and Google Pay™
If available on their device, students will have the option to purchase a course using Apple Pay or Google Pay on the checkout page. This will take them to the Apple Pay or Google Pay checkout overlay.
Apple Pay and Google Pay are only available for schools using teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway.
There are cases where Apple Pay or Google Pay will not be available as a payment option for students on Teachable's native payment gateways. These specific instances are as follows:
- Recurring payments (subscriptions and payment plans) where a coupon is applied at checkout
- Recurring payments (subscriptions and payment plans) where an order bump is applied at checkout
- Student’s device does not support Apple Pay or Google Pay
NOTE: For Apple Pay or Google Pay to be available as student payment options, students should ensure they have enabled those payment methods on their devices and are using supported browsers. For example, Apple Pay is supported by Safari, and not Chrome.
Buy Now Pay Later
Enabling Buy Now, Pay Later offers students the ability to use tools like Affirm, Afterpay, or Klarna to purchase products in your school. Learn more about enabling Buy Now Pay Later in your school.
Additional resources
The following Knowledge Base articles/sections have additional information regarding payments on Teachable:
- Teachable Pay - Learn if you are eligible for teachable:pay, how to set up teachable:pay, and how to receive your payouts on teachable:pay
- Monthly Payment Gateway - Learn how to set up the Monthly Payment Gateway and receive your payouts on the Monthly Payment Gateway
- Custom payment gateways - Learn if you are eligible for custom payment gateways and how to set up custom payment gateways
- BackOffice - Learn about Teachable’s BackOffice services and how to opt-in
- Product Pricing Plans - Learn how to price your individual courses, coaching products, and bundles
- Chargebacks - Learn about what happens if a student initiates a chargeback on any purchase made in your school
- Taxes - Review all of our documentation on taxes, which includes information about when taxes are applied to student purchases and how Teachable handles tax remittance
- Student Refunds - Learn about Teachable’s refund policies for students, and how to issue refunds for student purchases