Sell a course

A paid course is sold as a product of your team's Store, with Store's checkout, orders, discounts, gift cards and refunds. Magpie takes no fee on course sales; Stripe's own fees are taken from each payment, as for any Store order. When an order is paid, the buyer gets access to the course.

Sell this course

1. In the course's Settings, set How students join to Paid or Paid, approved by you. The Selling band appears.
2. Choose Sell this course, enter the price and choose Make the Store product. The product is made from the course's title, description and cover, with one price.

Sell this course is for Store managers (Who can work in Store); others see the price and who sets it. A team with no Store gets one: a team admin names it in the same drawer, and it is made as a draft to publish in Store when you are ready (Set up and publish a Store). Buyers can pay once a team admin has finished payments setup (Connect Stripe to receive money).

The Store product goes live when the course is published, and needs a picture to go live: the course's cover is used. Until it is live, the course page shows Not open for enrolment. If the product is archived in Store, it stays archived when the course is restored; Sell this course makes a new one.

Prices

Each price of the course's product is a row in the Selling band. Click a price to change it. Open in Store opens the product, where you add more prices (such as With coaching) and change its description and tax. A course product cannot be duplicated in Store: duplicate the course in Courses, and sell the copy.

A course sells one at a time: its purchase limit per order is 1. A course price can go in a Cart with other products, in a bundle (Sell bundles of products), and with discount codes and gift cards. A course is not sold in person or in wholesale price lists. A course order has nothing to ship, and is fulfilled when it is paid.

When someone who already has access to the course starts a checkout for it, checkout stops with "You already have access to {course}." and a link to sign in or open the course. Access that has ended does not stop a new purchase. Someone paying for the course by a payment plan that is still running cannot buy it again either: checkout says so and, when they are signed in, links to Pay what is due on the course.

In a course taught in cohorts, each published cohort is a choice of the product, and the buyer chooses one. A new cohort's choice takes the price of the newest cohort. Each cohort's seats are its stock, set on the cohort's page, and its choice is for sale only while its enrolment is open (Cohorts and live sessions). A cohort's price cannot be part of a bundle, so a course taught in cohorts is not listed in a bundle's Add parts.

With Paid, approved by you, people apply first and choose one of the course's prices on the application; in a course taught in cohorts, the cohort they choose sets the price. Each one you approve is emailed a personal link to buy the course at that price, valid for 14 days. When the price has a payment plan, the email also offers the plan, with the same personal link.

Payment plans

A price can also be bought in monthly payments. Choose Payment plan on the price's row, then Monthly payments, the number of payments (from 2 to 12) and each payment's amount. The payments must add up to at least the price. The band shows the plan under the price; if the price is later raised above the plan's total, the band says so.

The course page offers the plan beside the price, such as Pay in 3 payments. A plan is bought on its own, by card, never in a Cart, and without discount codes or gift cards. Stripe takes the first payment at checkout and the rest monthly, then stops. Stripe charges its subscription fee on each payment, as well as its card fee; Magpie takes nothing. A change to a plan applies to plans bought after it; plans already bought keep their own payments.

The buyer has access from the first payment. When a payment fails, Stripe retries it by your Stripe settings and access continues. Access is paused when Stripe marks the plan unpaid or cancels it, or when a payment is still unpaid after 30 days. The student and your team's admins will be emailed, and the student's lesson pages say what to pay; paying the open invoice gives access back. In Stripe's Dashboard, under subscription retries, choose Mark the subscription as unpaid when all retries fail: an unpaid plan resumes when the open invoice is paid, and a cancelled one cannot.

The order's Payment plan band in Store lists each payment made, its Stripe fee and the payments to come. To stop the payments, choose Cancel payment plan… in the order's More menu, and choose whether the buyer keeps their access. The payments made are kept. Each payment is refunded on its own with its Refund… button; refunding does not stop the plan.

Supporters tiers

A team admin can include courses in a Supporters tier, with Change courses beside Courses included on the tier's page (Supporter tiers and posts). A supporter on that tier opens the course without paying, with Start course on its page, and keeps it while their support includes the tier. In a course taught in cohorts, the supporter chooses a cohort that is open for enrolment before Start course, and takes one of its seats. The course's Settings shows which tiers include it.

What buyers get

The buyer's access goes to the Magpie account with the email address used at checkout. If there is none, an account is made from the address, with nothing to fill in. The buyer will be emailed a link to the course, and signs in with an emailed link. If the address belongs to an account whose address has not been confirmed and that this order did not make, the access is held until the address is confirmed, from the link in that email.

The order's page in Store shows each course it gives and what happened: access given, held until the address is confirmed, or not given, with the reason. When access is not given, add the student in Courses (Course students and reports).

Refunds and disputes

• A full refund of the order ends its course access at once. A partial refund does not change access; to end it, use End access on the student's page.
• A lost dispute ends access, as a full refund does.
• For a payment plan, access ends with refunds only once every payment is refunded and the plan has ended.

A cohort seat frees when the student's access ends. A student's progress is kept when access ends, and comes back if they are given access again.

The course's Report shows its sales to Store managers who can see Store's reports.

If a buyer paid and did not get access, Contact support.