Key Features
Flexible payouts: Choose daily, weekly, or monthly payouts.
Automated tax remittance: Handles U.S. sales tax, EU/UK VAT, and more.
Fraud alerts: Helps prevent chargebacks.
Eligibility for BackOffice: Includes affiliate/author payouts, tax form collection, and PayPal checkout support.
Eligibility
You can use teachable:pay if your school is located in one of the supported countries (including the U.S., Canada, UK, EU countries, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the others listed in the table below.
Argentina | El Salvador | Lithuania | Saudi Arabia |
If you are not eligible for teachable:pay, you will have the Monthly Payment Gateway instead. If you have not yet set up teachable:pay, any sales you make will automatically be processed by the Monthly Payment Gateway until you set up teachable:pay.
If you think you are eligible for teachable:pay but are not able to go access it, you may have to change your country listed in your Settings > General menu.
Setup & Management
Important notes before you begin:
Only Primary Owners can set up or edit payment gateway details.
If you operate multiple schools, we recommend using different email addresses for each school so each school uses a separate teachable:pay account. That way, payouts remain separate and clear.
To set up teachable:pay:
Go to Settings → Payments in your school admin.
Select your country from the dropdown.
If the country is eligible for teachable:pay, you will continue the setup process
If the country is not eligible, the setup will default to the Monthly Payment Gateway.
Enter your phone number and click Continue. You will then be prompted to enter business details, tax status, and estimated earnings.
You’ll be redirected to the onboarding flow (powered by Stripe) to complete connection.
Back in Teachable, you will be prompted to:
Choose your payout frequency (daily, weekly, monthly). Free plan users are limited to monthly.
Enter your product details — topic and price range — to help Teachable understand your content.
Click Confirm payment settings to finish setup.
Note: During setup, you will be asked to connect your bank account. Based on your bank's location, Stripe may require varying account details and/or only support specific bank account types. Learn more about Stripe's supported bank types and required bank account details.
Additionally, you must specify your bank account currency. You must select the currency supported by your bank. Learn more about Stripe's supported settlement currencies.
Editing after setup:
You can change payout frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) at any time via Settings → Payments. Free plan users are still limited to monthly.
You can enable or disable BackOffice at any time. This only affects future sales (existing sales will use the setting in effect at the time of sale).
To change personal details like name, address, phone, email, or bank information — use your Stripe Express dashboard (accessed via Settings → Payments → View Payout Dashboard).
NOTE: Certain account details, such as business type, business name, or EIN number, cannot be changed via the teachable:pay dashboard. Contact Stripe support if you require assistance modifying further account details.
How payouts work
Your earnings are paid directly to your bank account via Stripe, according to the schedule you selected (daily, weekly, monthly).
Payouts happen on business days (excluding weekends and U.S. banking holidays) in your connected bank account’s currency. Currency conversion rates may affect the final payout amount.
Some transactions will be subject to Reserves, with all or part of the earnings temporarily withheld.
Payout schedule
Daily: Earnings and unlocked reserves are sent on a 2-business-day rolling basis. Example: A sale made Tuesday would payout by Thursday. A Sale made Friday would payout by next Tuesday.
Weekly: Payouts are made every Thursday.
Monthly: Payouts are made every 30 days on the first business day of the month. Free plan schools receive payouts on the 15th of the following month for earnings made in the prior month.
Note: If you upgrade from Free to a paid plan, only future transactions will be eligible for the faster payout cadence. Past earnings while on the Free plan will remain on the monthly/15th schedule.
Payout reporting
View upcoming and past payouts as well as account balance in your Stripe Express account via Settings → Payments → View Payout Dashboard
For more detailed payout history, go to Sales → Payouts.
At the Payouts page you’ll see:
Date — when payouts will arrive
Status — e.g., In Transit, Paid, Failed
Bank/Card — which account the funds were sent to
Earnings — the amount paid
You can filter by date, earnings amount, or payout location. You can also export a CSV report of your payouts.
If you click into a specific payout, you can view a full breakdown of each sale/transaction that was included in the payout. The Summary details the amount of individual sales, refunds, or chargebacks that occurred during the payout window which constitute the final payout amount.
To sort transactions in the Breakdown section, select from the following filters:
Earnings - Select a range from the drop-down menu and enter a value to sort transactions based on earnings amounts.
Event - Select from the drop-down menu to sort transactions by event type:
Earnings - The transaction generated earnings for the payee.
Refund - The transaction was partially or fully refunded.
Chargeback - The transaction was disputed by the purchaser.
Manual - In the rare occasion when a payout must be adjusted, the earnings were manually adjusted by Teachable.
Party Change - The transaction was retroactively credited to a different user (e.g. transactions credited to deleted authors/affiliates will be paid out to the primary owner of the school).
Reconciliation - The earnings for a specific transaction were adjusted by Teachable. In the rare occasion when a payout must be adjusted, Teachable will contact the payee beforehand.
Transaction ID - Enter a unique transaction ID to sort by specific transactions.
Authors & Affiliates
If you have BackOffice enabled, author and affiliate earnings are paid out monthly via the Monthly Payment Gateway (not via your Teachable:pay schedule).
Authors must add a valid PayPal account in the Payout Details of their author dashboard. Affiliates must do likewise in their affiliate dashboard.
If BackOffice is disabled, then the school owner is responsible for paying authors and affiliates directly outside the platform. Their earnings will still show up in the Transactions report but will be paid out via the school owner’s Stripe Express account.
Reserves
To protect against negative balances (resulting from refunds, chargebacks, etc.), Teachable withholds a reserve from some transactions.
Variable reserve rates
The standard reserve rate: 10%, with earnings unlocked 45 days after purchase
New schools may face a 100% reserve rate with a 14-day unlock period, to cover Teachable’s 14-day refund window.
Account activity changes may lead to temporary adjusted reserve rates/unlock periods; you’ll be notified via email.
Some of your transactions may be eligible for a 0% reserve rate and will be paid out directly to your Stripe Express account without any delay
Unlocked reserves
Once unlocked, reserves are transferred to your Stripe Express account and then paid out according to your payout schedule.
Example: A purchase on Jan 1 → reserve unlocks Jan 15, then paid out according to your schedule (daily/weekly/monthly) from that date.
To view reserve details, go to Sales → Reserves, where you will find the withheld reserves for your school and a schedule for their release
To export a CSV report of your reserves amounts, click the Export CSV button in the top right corner of the page.
Fees
Your transactions processed via Teachable:pay incur the following fees:
Teachable transaction fees
These vary by plan:
Starter Plan: 7.5% of total transaction value (product price including taxes)
Builder, Growth, Advanced, Business plans: 0% transaction fee for Teachable:pay.
Processing fees
Same across all plan levels; varying by payment method and student location:
U.S. card: 2.9% + $0.30
U.S. PayPal: 3.49% + $0.49
International card: 3.9% + $0.30
International PayPal: 4.99% + $0.49
Buy Now Pay Later: 6.99% + 30¢
BackOffice fees
If you have BackOffice enabled, an additional fee applies: calculated on total transaction value (price including taxes) before processing fees. The rate may vary, but the standard BackOffice fee is 2.8%.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why haven’t I received my payout yet?
Follow these steps to find the status of your payout:
View the Sales > Payouts menu:
If a payout has already been prepared by Stripe, it will appear in this table
Navigate to the Settings → Payments menu:
Check your payout schedule, keeping in mind:
Daily payouts: Earnings and unlocked reserves paid ~2 business days after sale. E.g., sale on Tuesday → payout Thursday; sale on Friday → payout next Tuesday.
Weekly: Every Thursday.
Monthly: Every 30 days on the first business day of the month.
Free plan: Monthly on the 15th of the following month.
Select the View Payout Dashboard link to access your Stripe Express account and check your account balance
Visit the Sales → Reserves menu:
You can view all the funds currently held in reserve, and the schedule for release
Navigate to the Settings → Taxes menu to ensure you have a saved tax form
Payouts won’t be sent if earnings exceed $500 and required tax forms haven’t been submitted for each account you control
Why is my payout amount different than expected?
View the Sales > Payouts menu and select the payout to see a detailed breakdown:
Verify which transactions were included as this can vary with timezones and processing times
Check for refunds or chargebacks which may be reducing the total payout amount
Select individual transactions to see if a portion of the earnings are being held in reserve
I enabled BackOffice and PayPal, but PayPal isn’t showing at checkout. Why?
From the Settings → Payments menu, verify:
BackOffice is enabled
PayPal is enabled
PayPal may still not show if:
The pricing plan currency is not USD
The purchase is a subscription/payment plan with a first-payment-only coupon
The purchase has an order bump on top of a subscription/payment plan
How do I fix a failed payout due to incorrect bank details?
Update the incorrect details in your Stripe Express account. Ensure the accountholder name exactly matches your banking records.
After correction, Stripe will automatically retry the payout until it succeeds.
Monitor the payout status in your Stripe Express dashboard to confirm resolution.
How do I check if Stripe has all required information for my payouts?
In Teachable, go to Settings → Payments → View Payout Dashboard
Review notifications or missing document requests. If you need further help, contact Stripe Support directly from your dashboard