Student Refunds

This article goes over Teachable’s refund policy and shows how to issue a refund to students as a school owner.  If you are a student looking for a refund, please see this Knowledge Base article. 

Teachable:pay and the Monthly Payment Gateway

Student Refund Policy

As per our Terms of Use, if a school is using one of Teachable’s payment gateways (i.e., teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway), then their students are entitled to a full refund within 30 days of their initial payment for course purchases.

For coaching and digital download products, or any bundle that contains a coaching or digital download product, creators are solely responsible for setting the refund policy. These products do not need to adhere to the 30 day refund policy. However, you can still refund coaching and bundle purchases through the Teachable admin up to 30 days after purchase.

Issuing a Refund

School owners can issue refunds through Teachable within 30 days of the purchase date. After 30 days, school owners no longer have the ability to issue refunds using Teachable. In order to issue a refund after 30 days, school owners have to issue refunds through a third-party service (e.g. PayPal, check, wire transfer, etc.).

Issuing a refund does not impact the student's enrollment in the product or stop future payments of a subscription/payment plan. To unenroll a student from a course and/or cancel their future payments, visit the Enrollments tab of their user profile.

When a refund is issued for a transaction processed through teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway, then all transaction and processing fees are returned to the school owner. If a partial refund is issued, then school owners are only charged transaction and processing fees for the non-refunded amount of the transaction—the rest of the fees are returned to the school owner. Similarly, if a student had VAT tax added to their charge, the tax amount is refunded in proportion to the refund. For example, if you refund 50% of the total payment, 50% of the VAT tax will be refunded as well.

Students should allow for their credit/debit card refunds to take up to 7-10 business days to process.

If you enabled PayPal as a payment option for your students, and a student requests a refund on a PayPal payment, then the refund will be issued to their PayPal account immediately.

To issue a refund to a student, complete the following steps:

1. Select Users from your admin sidebar and click Students. 

   Alternatively, locate the transaction that you wish to refund in the Sales > Transactions section of your school admin (skip to step #6).

2. Click the student you want to refund from the list.
3. Inside the individual student profile, click Purchases. Then, click the specific transaction you would like to refund from the Purchases History section.
4. Scroll down to the Refund section. Click Refund Transaction.

1. Enter the Refund Amount and the Refund Reason (optional) in the modal that appears. 
2. Click Refund Transaction to issue the refund.

Custom Payment Gateways

Student Refund Policy

Transactions processed through custom payment gateways are handled by a third-party processor. Therefore, Teachable’s refund policy does not apply.

Issuing a Refund

School owners can issue refunds to students through Teachable (as outlined above) or through their Stripe and/or PayPal accounts. For more information about issuing refunds, contact Stripe or PayPal support.

Refund Issues

There are several reasons why a student may not have received their refund. Before contacting Teachable Support, we recommend reviewing the following:

• Refund Date - If the refund was issued on a credit/debit card transaction, then it may take up to 7-10 business days to process with Stripe.
• Refund Destination - Refunds are issued to the student’s original payment method. Make sure that your student is checking the correct account and/or bank statement.
• Statement Details - If the original transaction was processed by teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway, then the refund will appear on the statement as Teachable. If the original transaction was processed by a custom payment gateway, then the name of your school will typically appear on the student’s statement.
• Chargeback - If the student disputed the transaction with their credit/debit card company or PayPal, then the transaction is put on hold by their bank and a refund cannot be processed until the student withdraws their dispute.

Additional Resources

If you continue to have issues with refunds, you can check this troubleshooting article for common browser-related issues. Otherwise, please contact our Customer Support team for assistance.