Custom Payment Gateways

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This article reviews custom payment gateways. It provides information on eligibility, setup, and payouts.

Overview

Payment gateways allow you to accept student payments for your products, and then receive payouts for your earnings from those sales. Eligible schools can set up custom payment gateways, which connect your Teachable school’s payments to your own Stripe and/or PayPal accounts.

TIP: To learn more about payment gateway options and accepting payments on Teachable, check out the Get Started with Payments article.

There are two distinct custom payment gateways:

  • A custom payment gateway for Stripe that accepts student debit/credit card payments, and then pays out the school owner to their own Stripe account
  • A custom payment gateway for PayPal that accepts student PayPal payments, and then pays out the school owner to their own PayPal account

A custom payment gateway for Stripe must be set up first in order to set up a custom payment gateway for PayPal—you cannot have a custom payment gateway for PayPal on its own.

Custom payment gateways are not considered a Teachable native payment gateway—and therefore, there are certain features that are not available for custom payment gateways:

Eligibility

If you are eligible for teachable:pay, you are not eligible to set up custom payment gateways. (teachable:pay is one of Teachable’s native payment processors — learn more about teachable:pay eligibility.)

If you are not eligible for teachable:pay and do not want to use Teachable's Monthly Payment Gateway instead, you can set up custom payment gateways if you are on the Pro plan or up.

The image is a flowchart to help determine eligibility for custom payment gateways. You can set up a custom payment gateway if you are not eligible for Teachable Payments and you are on the Pro plan and up.

Please note that schools in India are unable to set up a Stripe custom payment gateway due to Stripe's data storage policies. Any users who are unable to set up a Stripe custom payment gateway can use the Teachable Monthly Payment Gateway to process credit/debit card purchases.

Setup and management - Stripe

Only Primary Owners can set up or edit payment gateway details.

In order to set up a Stripe custom payment gateway, you must first create a Stripe account. For any issues with creating a Stripe account or to understand if you are eligible for a Stripe account, contact Stripe directly.

Once you have a Stripe account, you can connect it to your Teachable school by doing the following:

  1. Navigate to your Settings > Payments page. (If you have not set up a Monthly Payment Gateway yet, you will be prompted to do so. You can only switch to a custom payment gateway after you have already set up a Teachable native gateway. Learn more about setting up a Monthly Payment Gateway.)
  2. In the Credit card transactions section, click the Switch button.The screen shows the admin of a Teachable school. The SETTINGS tab is selected from the left side navigation menu, then PAYMENTS from the submenu. On the main screen, in the CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS section, there is a green SWITCH button.
  3. In the popup window, click the Switch Gateways button to confirm.
  4. You will be navigated to a Stripe setup page. Enter in the email address associated with your Stripe account. (If you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one).The screen shows a Stripe onboarding page that states GET STARTED WITH STRIPE. There is a field for EMAIL ADDRESS.
  5. Continue through the Stripe setup process, filling out required information when prompted.
  6. Once completed, the page will return to your Teachable admin page, where you should see the Stripe logo and your Client ID/API Key automatically filled in.The screen shows the admin of a Teachable school. The SETTINGS tab is selected from the left side navigation menu, then PAYMENTS from the submenu. On the main screen, in the CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS section, there is a STRIPE logo with a a Client ID and API Key.

If you need to reset your Stripe custom payment gateway at any point, click Switch to go back to the Monthly Payment Gateway. Then, you can set up a new Stripe custom payment gateway again.

Setup and management - PayPal

Only Primary Owners can set up or edit payment gateway details.

A custom PayPal gateway will be available after you have set up a custom Stripe gateway. You must have a PayPal business account in order to set up the custom payment gateway. For any issues with creating a PayPal business account or to understand if you are eligible for a PayPal account, contact PayPal directly.

Once you have a PayPal business account, you can connect it to your Teachable school by doing the following:

  1. Go to PayPal Developer and sign in to your PayPal business account. Keep in mind that this is different from the normal PayPal site, so ensure that you are on the right page before starting.
  2. Click your profile icon in the top right corner, then select Dashboard from the dropdown menu.The image shows the admin of a PAYPAL DEVELOPER account. In the top right corner, the profile icon is circled, then DASHBOARD is selected from the dropdown menu.
  3. Navigate to the My Apps & Credentials tab; then click the Live tab.The image shows the admin of a PAYPAL DEVELOPER account. From the left side navigation menu, MY APPS & CREDENTIALS tab is selected.
  4. Click Create App.
  5. Fill out the appropriate information. The App Name doesn't matter, but we do recommend calling it “Teachable” so it’s easier to keep track. Once finished, click Create App.The image shows a popup window from the admin of PAYPAL DEVELOPER. There is a field for APP NAME and a button for CREATE APP.
  6. Copy the Client ID from PayPal to the PayPal Client ID field on your Teachable Settings > Payments page.The screen shows the SETTINGS > PAYMENTS menu of Teachable school admin. There is an arrow pointing to the PAYPAL CLIENT ID field.
  7. On PayPal, click Show link to reveal a PayPal Secret. Copy the Secret from PayPal, then paste it in the API Key field on Teachable.The image shows the admin of a PAYPAL DEVELOPER account. There is an arrow pointing to the SECRET field.
  8. Copy your PayPal account email from PayPal into the Email field on Teachable.The image shows the admin of a PAYPAL DEVELOPER account. There is an arrow pointing to the PAYPAL ACCOUNT EMAIL field.
  9. On your Teachable page, click Save.

Once you set up the custom PayPal gateway, you still need to toggle on PayPal payments from your Settings > Payments menu in order to start accepting PayPal payments from your students:The screen shows the SETTINGS > PAYMENTS menu of Teachable school admin. There is a toggle for PAYPAL PAYMENTS which is turned on.

If you need to reset or change your PayPal custom payment gateway at any point, click the Reset button under your PayPal custom payment gateway credentials.

Payouts

When using custom payment gateways, Primary Owners are paid out by either Stripe or PayPal directly when the transaction takes place. Stripe and/or PayPal will pay you out in whichever currency you have specified within each respective payment processor.

Authors and affiliates

For transactions made on a custom payment gateway, it is the responsibility of the Primary Owner to distribute earnings to authors and affiliates. As such, it’s up to the school owner to determine their preferred payout schedule and method (e.g. PayPal, bank transfer, check, etc.) for their school's authors and affiliates.

You can track author and affiliate earnings using transaction reports. To determine the amount owed to your authors and affiliates, export a CSV of your transaction report processed through your custom payment gateways.

Fees

There may be processing fees for individual transactions which are determined by Stripe and/or PayPal. If you have any questions about processing fees, reach out to your payment processor directly.

Additionally, for schools in the US, there is a 2% integration fee per transaction in your school for sales on a custom payment gateway (Stripe only). 

Additional resources

The following Knowledge Base articles/sections have additional information regarding payments on Teachable:

  • Get Started with Payments - Read an overview about accepting and receiving payments on Teachable—includes information on your payment gateway options and student payment options
  • 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

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