How to Pre-Sell a Thinkific Course Before You Create It

Thinkific’s Pre-order state lets you accept course purchases before the lessons are ready. Buyers see Coming soon on their Student Dashboard and cannot enter the Course Player or view lessons until you publish the course. This guide helps US course creators, coaches, and education businesses prepare a paid offer, save its sales page, open pre-orders, and then deliver or refund. Thinkific documents this purchase-without-access behavior here.

The important distinction: Pre-order delays content access, not payment. Subscriptions and payment plans start charging at purchase, and any configured enrollment duration starts then, too. Prepare the offer, payment settings, price, and saved page before activating Pre-order, because activation makes the offer visible on your Thinkific website.

What you need before you begin

• Thinkific Site Owner access. Only the Site Owner can set up or change Thinkific Payments.
• An eligible Thinkific account and payment route. This walkthrough uses Thinkific Payments, a one-time price, and AI Landing Pages. Thinkific Payments supports US businesses.
• A site theme at version 1.13.0 or higher. Thinkific lists Pre-order as available on all plans, but it requires that minimum theme version. This does not mean a free commercial plan is included.
• A delivery commitment you can fulfill: a defined learner, outcome, course scope, format, firm launch date, access period, and support arrangement.
• Applicable customer terms, permissions, and cancellation/refund arrangements, established with appropriate local guidance before you accept money. Configuring the software is not a legal-compliance determination.
• A desktop browser for editing AI Landing Pages, plus your business verification documents, bank details, and a course-card image.

The Pre-order requirements, Thinkific Payments setup rules, and AI editor documentation establish these platform prerequisites.

1. Validate the offer and commit to a realistic delivery plan

A useful presale tests a specific paid offer—not just whether people like your topic. It can provide development funding, early feedback, and a reason to commit to production, but orders do not guarantee future sales or profitability.

Interview prospective learners and bound the curriculum

1. Ask relevant prospective buyers what they want to accomplish, what they have already tried, and where they get stuck.
2. Ask which previous learning experiences helped or disappointed them, and why. Their answers can inform your format, examples, support, and point of difference.
3. Write one concrete learner outcome, then outline the teaching sequence needed to reach it. Start with the problem and outcome rather than an arbitrary number of modules.
4. Identify what is outside the offer. A minimum viable curriculum should be small enough to produce reliably but complete enough to deliver the promised result.

For example, an illustrative introductory reporting course could promise one reusable report built from a sample dataset. Its outline might cover data preparation, report construction, and review, with a defined feedback channel. That is a bounded offer; “master reporting” is not.

There is no universal interview count, module count, or production period. SendPulse’s offer-planning guidance supports asking about desired features and previous learning experiences; the scope and schedule still need to fit your own capacity.

Write the delivery promise and green-light goal

Create a short offer document containing:

• Intended learner and problem: who the course serves and what they need to do.
• Outcome and planned curriculum: the result and teaching sequence, without presenting unfinished materials as complete.
• Format and firm delivery date: recorded lessons, live components, or a clearly described combination, scheduled around your actual production and support capacity.
• Access and support: how long access lasts, what feedback or assistance is included, and how buyers can contact you.
• Price and early-buyer benefits: only benefits you can deliver. A discount is optional; invented deadlines or seat limits are not a substitute for a stronger offer.
• Cancellation/refund arrangements: what buyers can expect if plans change or you cannot deliver.
• Green-light goal: the enrollment or revenue level you choose before promotion to decide whether to proceed.

Choose a small, relevant initial audience segment—such as previous customers or people who regularly engage with your material. You do not need an email list to operate Pre-order, but you do need a credible, permitted way to reach prospective buyers.

Thinkific recommends a firm launch date, a creator-defined green-light goal, and a small warm-audience test. Free registrations show interest, not willingness to pay. Paid orders provide evidence about this offer, price, audience, and promotion—not the entire market.

Completion check: your written offer contains every commitment above. Decide in advance whether weak enrollment would lead you to serve a small cohort or cancel, communicate, and refund. Neither choice depends on an industry-wide minimum cohort size. Keep refund capacity in your budget: original Thinkific Payments fees are not returned when you refund buyers.

2. Create a draft course with the right page system

Create the course container now; you do not need finished lessons to accept pre-orders later. This walkthrough uses AI Landing Pages, so set that preference before creating the course.

Choose AI Landing Pages before creation

1. Open Settings → Site → Course landing page.
2. Select Landing page, the option with the simplified builder and AI content.
3. Click Save.

The alternative, classic Product page, uses Site Builder and supports more extensive customization, including custom CSS and apps. Choose based on your requirements, not merely the editor’s appearance. This tutorial continues with the AI page system.

Changing the preference affects newly created products only. It does not convert an existing page. Moving an existing AI-page course to classic pages involves duplicating the course and rebuilding the page, as explained in Thinkific’s page-system guide.

Name the course and optionally save its outline

1. Open Products → Courses → + New course.
2. Name the course so a prospective buyer can recognize its subject and intended result. For the illustrative offer in step 1, “Build Your First Reusable Report” is more specific than “Reporting Academy.”
3. In the Course Builder, open Curriculum if you want to store the planned outline.
4. Click Add Chapter, enter a Chapter title, and click Save. Repeat for the chapters you need.

A chapter is a container for lessons. When actual content is ready, locate its chapter, click Add Lesson, select the lesson type, enter Lesson Title, add the content, and click Save. These are the documented chapter and lesson controls.

Do not publish the course to make an outline visible. Pre-order will keep course content inaccessible, and step 6 explains how to show a planned curriculum on the sales page without relying on published lessons.

Completion check: the named course exists in the Course Builder with an AI landing page. Any chapters you added are saved. Keep the course in draft while you prepare the remaining settings.

3. Save the course-card image and description

The course card is a compact introduction to your offer. Its image and description can appear in different site and checkout locations, depending on your theme.

Upload the image and save the description

1. Open Products → Courses → your course → Settings → Image & description.
2. Beside Course image, click Upload.
3. Choose or drag in an image. Thinkific recommends JPG, PNG, or GIF, at 760 × 420 pixels, with a maximum file size of 4 MB.
4. Click Upload, then Save settings.
5. Enter your Course description, up to 250 characters, and click Save settings again.

Use a branded graphic or an appropriately licensed photograph that suits the course. The description should explain the outcome rather than repeat a vague topic label. For example: “Build a reusable report from a sample dataset, from preparation through final review.” Put full timing and cancellation details on the sales page rather than trying to fit the entire offer into this short field.

These upload limits and save actions come from Thinkific’s image and description instructions.

Review the saved card and its eventual waiting-state label

Review the image and visible description in the card locations your theme uses. The field accepts 250 characters, but the theme and body font size can cause less text to display. Put the most useful information first and shorten the description if its meaning is cut off.

Keep the default Pre-order and Coming soon wording for this workflow. Those labels appear after activation; a draft course does not need to display them yet. The supplied card example illustrates that eventual buyer-facing state.

4. Connect Thinkific Payments and confirm the account status

Connect a processor before setting a paid price. Thinkific Payments is the supported US route used here; direct Stripe and PayPal are alternatives discussed in the next step, not additional setup requirements.

Prepare accurate business and banking information

Sign in as the Site Owner. Have your business address, applicable EIN or TIN, bank details, and digital identity/address documents ready. US onboarding can also require an SSN. Enter real production information that matches your official documents—not illustrative names or sample tax identifiers.

If you are migrating from direct Stripe, do not disconnect that integration before the migration is complete. Thinkific’s Payments documentation warns against disconnecting it during this process.

Submit verification and connect the bank account

1. Open Settings → Payments.
2. In Where are you located?, select the correct business country. For a US business, choose the United States. Check carefully: changing the country after enabling Thinkific Payments requires support.
3. Click Set Up Thinkific Payments to open Stripe-powered verification.
4. Select the correct Type of business, then click Continue. Business-type details also have restrictions on later changes.
5. If you selected Company, provide its business information exactly as it appears on official tax or business documents, then click Continue.
6. Enter your Personal details, including your legal name, email, and address. Match your government-issued ID and continue through any additional fields required for your country and business type, such as business-director or public customer details.
7. Review the submission. For any Information Needed badge, click Edit and supply the missing information.
8. Click Agree & Submit to return to Thinkific’s Payments tab.
9. Click Add Bank Account, enter your bank details, then click Add Bank Account again.

Check status and currency before selling

Use the status shown under Settings → Payments:

• Pending verification: the account is being reviewed. Thinkific says payments can still be accepted during this state; its described verification period is 24–48 hours, not guaranteed approval.
• Verified: the account has been verified and Thinkific Payments is active at checkout.
• More Details Required: click Update and supply the requested information.
• Restricted: Thinkific Payments is inactive at checkout. Contact Thinkific support to resolve the restriction before relying on this payment route.

Confirm the displayed currency before setting your course price. For this US USD workflow, make sure it is USD. If necessary, use Change Currency before your first sale. Thinkific discourages later currency changes because an existing buyer account cannot purchase in multiple currencies—for example, a buyer who purchased in USD would need a different account to purchase after a switch to CAD. Account statuses and currency behavior are documented here.

Budget for the US payment fees

Thinkific’s official schedule, inspected for this October 17, 2026 guide, lists a US domestic USD card baseline of 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction. Conditional additions include 1.5% for international cards, 1% for currency conversion, and 0.7% for subscriptions or payment plans. The variable portion follows the business country; the fixed portion follows transaction currency.

These are not an all-in operating cost. The Sales Tax & VAT Solution charges 0.5% of the total paid when tax is assessed, including qualifying zero-rate assessments. Optional invoicing adds 0.4%, capped at $5 for USD invoices. Other payment methods and instant payouts have separate fee rules. Consult the official fee schedule for the transaction types you intend to accept.

Completion check: your business submission and bank details are entered, the account status is visible and addressed, and the currency matches the price you plan to advertise.

5. Choose and save the presale price and access duration

Use a one-time price for the executable workflow in this guide. It keeps the payment promise straightforward: the buyer pays once now and receives course access after publication.

Understand the payment choices

Option	Supported payment route	Payment timing	Buyer access consequence
One-time payment	Thinkific Payments, direct Stripe, or PayPal	One charge at purchase	Lessons and Course Player remain locked during Pre-order
Subscription	Thinkific Payments or direct Stripe	Charging begins at purchase and recurs on the selected interval	Paying does not unlock pre-order lessons
Payment plan	Thinkific Payments or direct Stripe	Charging begins at purchase; monthly installments have an end date	Paying does not unlock pre-order lessons
Free pre-order	No payment is collected	No charge	Enrollment without lesson access; measures interest rather than paid demand

A subscription is ongoing recurring billing. A payment plan splits a finite price into monthly payments and has an end date. Neither is a promise to start billing at launch: Thinkific’s preselling guide states that subscriptions and payment plans charge immediately. Its pricing guide establishes the supported processor choices.

Choose the price around the bounded result and delivery/support commitment you defined, rather than assuming a discount is required. If you advertise a later standard price or an early-buyer benefit, make it genuine and explain the conditions.

Save a one-time price without shortening the promised access

1. Open Products → Courses → your course → Pricing.
2. Select One-time payment.
3. Enter your presale amount in Price. For an illustrative $100 USD offer, enter 100 with USD confirmed in payment settings.
4. Decide whether to use Enrollment Duration, measured in days. Leave it blank for unlimited access, or enter a duration only if its purchase-based clock fits your offer.
5. Click Save.

Enrollment duration starts at purchase, even while lessons are locked. It does not restart when you publish. For example, a 90-day duration with a 30-day wait would leave about 60 days after release—not 90. Do not configure a duration that could expire before launch or contradict the access period you advertised. See one-time pricing and the Pre-order duration rule.

If you cannot set a paid price, return to the payment connection in step 4. If your goal is only to collect interest, a free pre-order is an alternative—but its registrations should not be counted as paid validation.

Hypothetical US example: reserve enough to refund the full sale

Assume a US business sells ten one-time $100 pre-orders to US buyers paying with domestic cards in USD through Thinkific Payments. There is no conversion, recurring billing, invoicing, or instant payout. The tax solution assesses a zero rate on every order, so its 0.5% assessment fee applies.

• Gross receipts: 10 × $100 = $1,000.
• Card fees: 10 × ($100 × 0.029 + $0.30) = $32.
• Tax-assessment fees: $1,000 × 0.005 = $5.
• Known processing fees: $32 + $5 = $37.
• Receipts after those fees: $1,000 − $37 = $963.

$963 is not profit. Platform subscription, production, support, acquisition, and other costs are excluded. A full cancellation still returns $1,000 to buyers, while the original $37 in fees stays charged. As practical reserve advice, do not treat all after-fee receipts as money available to spend on production. The calculation uses the official fee schedule and retained-fee refund rules.

Completion check: the saved price matches your written offer, and its duration does not consume access you promised buyers after release.

6. Prepare and save the AI sales page before activation

The sales page must explain what buyers are purchasing now and what they will receive later. Treat generated text as a starting point to edit, not a ready-made delivery promise.

Write the actual offer and planned outline

1. On desktop, open Products → Courses → your course → Landing Page → Edit page.
2. Click each relevant text box and replace generic copy with your actual offer.
3. State prominently that the course is a pre-order and its lessons are not available yet. Give the firm delivery date near the main offer and enrollment call to action.
4. Describe the learner outcome, planned scope, format, price, access period, support, and applicable cancellation/refund terms. Add instructor information that explains why you can teach the subject.
5. Describe any early-buyer benefits accurately. Use authentic previous-learner reviews only when you have them; do not imply they are reviews of an unfinished course.

For the illustrative reporting course, the page could state: “Pre-order: lessons are in production. The course will guide you through preparing a sample dataset, building one reusable report, and reviewing the result.” Add your real delivery date and support/access terms before selling.

Do not rely on the automatic Curriculum section to show an unfinished outline. It excludes draft lessons and chapters without published lessons. A practical solution is to place your planned outline in editable static text, clearly identified as planned scope. This follows from the AI editor’s curriculum visibility and text-editing rules.

Arrange sections and apply local design changes

Use sections to make the purchase decision easy to understand: outcome, planned curriculum, instructor, delivery/access details, and terms.

1. To add a section, click + Insert section, choose a category, then click the desired section.
2. To reorder it, hover over the section and use its arrow icons.
3. To remove it, click the trash icon → Delete section.
4. To change its layout, click the section’s pencil icon → Layout, choose a layout, and click Apply.
5. To change its background color, use pencil → Background → Color → Background color, select the color, and click Apply.

If you have useful, genuine course imagery, click the media field, select Image → Upload → Select Files to Upload, choose the file, and click Open. Optional crop/rotate adjustments use Save; then click Upload. Do not use a fabricated course screenshot to suggest finished materials exist.

For an optional introductory video, add a supported video section, click its media field, and choose either Select from your video library or Embed a YouTube link. Select the library video or paste its share URL into Video URL, then click Apply. A video can explain the offer; it does not replace the written date and terms.

Customize the header, footer, or global theme only if needed

For header/footer edits:

1. Open Page Settings → Page Layout.
2. Choose Header, Content, Footer, then click Save.
3. Click Edit Header, update its links/design, and click Apply Changes.
4. Click Edit Footer, update its design, and click Apply Changes.

For global styling, click the top-right paintbrush, adjust Theme, Colors, Fonts, or Corners, then click Save. These changes affect all existing and future landing pages, not just this course. Use section-level changes when you do not intend a global redesign.

The palette controls affect section backgrounds, primary buttons, and text. In its five-color palette, the first two colors cover different section backgrounds, the third controls primary buttons, the fourth covers Title and paragraph backgrounds, and the fifth controls text and secondary-button outlines. Check readability after changing them.

AI pages do not support custom fonts, footer code, course page code, the documented Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Pages feature, or After Purchase Flow. These are limitations of this page system, not a claim that every other legal or checkout mechanism is absent. Make sure your chosen page system fits your established seller requirements. Mobile page editing is unsupported. Thinkific documents these editor controls and limitations here.

Save the complete page and copy its URL

1. Click outside any active text box or other element.
2. Click the top-right Save button. Do not assume that editing text or applying a section setting has saved the complete page.
3. For a product that is already published, the top-right control is Publish changes instead; clicking it makes the edits live.
4. Review the page again to confirm the pre-order status, delivery date, scope, price, access, support, and terms remain correct.
5. Return to the Landing Page tab and click the icon beside the URL to copy the sales-page address, following Thinkific’s URL instructions.

Completion check: your page content and relevant subsettings are saved. The course is still in draft: a saved page is preparation, not activation of a purchasable offer.

7. Activate Pre-order last and check the buyer view

Activate only when the saved page, price, payment account, delivery plan, and applicable seller prerequisites are ready. Setting Pre-order makes the offer visible on your Thinkific website.

Open purchases with the Pre-order control

1. Open Products → Courses.
2. Select your draft course.
3. Click Publish, then Set to preorder.
4. Click Set to preorder again to confirm.
5. Refresh the landing page so the banner’s call-to-action label updates for the new status.

This is the operation-specific activation path. If Pre-order is missing, check that your site theme is version 1.13.0 or higher. Also confirm you are editing a course: bundles, memberships, digital downloads, and Coaching & Webinars cannot themselves be set to Pre-order. Eligible pre-order courses can be included in bundles or memberships.

Check the public offer and enrolled-student waiting state

Open the copied sales-page URL in a private browser window. Confirm that the public offer accurately displays its unfinished status, delivery date, scope, price, access, support, and terms, and that the enrollment call to action leads toward purchasing the correct course.

The expected enrolled-student state is different from the public sales page:

• Course cards on supported site pages carry a Pre-order indicator.
• The purchased course appears on the student’s dashboard as Coming soon.
• The student cannot open its Course Player—the learning environment—or view lessons.

Use those outcomes when checking an enrolled buyer’s experience. A private-window sales-page check alone does not demonstrate the logged-in dashboard state. Thinkific’s Pre-order documentation defines both views.

Remember what activation does not change: payment is collected under the chosen price, and a configured enrollment-duration clock starts at purchase. Content access comes later, through final publication in step 9—not from the date written on your page.

8. Share the public page, gather feedback, and update buyers

Share the sales-page link—not a link that takes enrolled students directly into the course. Start with the relevant audience segment you chose in step 1, then use the response to refine your message and assess the offer.

Finalize and check the link before promotion

1. Open Products → Courses.
2. Click the course card’s ellipsis, then choose Copy page link. Alternatively, use the URL copy icon in the course’s Landing Page tab.
3. Do not substitute Copy product link: that option takes students directly into the course rather than to the public sales page.
4. If you want a clearer URL slug—the product-name portion of the address—open Landing Page, click the pencil beside the URL, edit it, and click Save before sharing externally.
5. Test the final address in a private browser window.

An illustrative slug such as build-your-first-report uses supported hyphens. URLs are case-sensitive and cannot use the listed special characters _, :, ., +, &, or / in that editable portion. You can change the product-name portion, not the full URL structure.

Changing the URL deactivates its previous address, so avoid renaming it after emails, ads, or posts are live. These distinctions and rules come from Thinkific’s landing-page URL documentation.

Promote to a relevant segment and learn from actual orders

Use appropriate email, social posts, blog content, or advertising to bring relevant prospects to the page. You can explain the problem the course addresses, demonstrate your subject expertise, and invite buyers to review the planned result and delivery terms. Keep any deadline or capacity limit genuine.

Track paid orders against the enrollment or revenue goal you set before promotion. Ask prospects and buyers what was compelling, what was confusing, and what questions remain about the outcome, format, or timing. Revise unclear copy, save or publish the edits, and test another relevant segment if appropriate. Weak response may call for changes to the offer, not simply more traffic.

An email list is not a Thinkific interface requirement. Without one, you still need an audience-acquisition route; free registrations are a different signal from paid commitments.

Send progress updates regularly. Thinkific suggests weekly updates and notifying customers when the launch date changes. Explain what is complete, what comes next, and any change that affects the purchase promise.

Apply US commercial-email rules to promotion

For commercial email, including B2B promotion, the FTC’s CAN-SPAM guidance requires accurate sender/header information and subject lines, clear advertising identification, a valid physical postal address, and a clear way to opt out of future marketing.

Keep the opt-out mechanism working for at least 30 days after sending and honor requests within 10 business days. Do not charge for opting out or require unnecessary information or extra steps. You remain responsible when another company sends marketing on your behalf.

An existing buyer still has marketing opt-out rights. A delivery-progress message is not automatically the same as a promotional message: the FTC classifies email by its primary purpose. Keep fulfillment updates focused on the agreed purchase rather than assuming every email to a customer is transactional.

Completion check: your first audience segment receives the checked public page link, paid results are compared with your goal, and buyers have a clear progress-update and feedback channel.

9. Deliver and publish the course—or cancel and refund

The presale ends with fulfillment or an explicit cancellation—not simply with collecting orders. If only a few people buy, you can still deliver the promised course to that cohort. If you abandon delivery, communicate the decision and refund customers.

Prepare launch content and release access

1. Create the content required for the promised launch. Use the saved chapter and lesson controls from step 2 as you build.
2. Preview the course as a student and check the content, sequence, and learning experience. Ensure lessons intended for release are not set to draft.
3. Update the sales-page copy, any early-bird price, and welcome messaging so they describe the now-available offer. Save price changes and use Publish changes for edits to a live AI page.
4. In the documented tab-based release interface, open Products → Courses → your course → Publish tab.
5. Select Published, then click Save.
6. Notify buyers that the course is ready and tell them how to access it.

After final publication, existing students and new signups receive access to the available course content, and pre-order text disappears from course cards. The written launch date does not perform this publication action. See Thinkific’s launch preparation checklist and final-publication instructions.

If your offer releases content over time, drip scheduling is a separate setting from Pre-order. Thinkific’s launch checklist identifies two relevant choices: a course-start-date schedule begins when the student first accesses the course after launch; a calendar-date schedule follows specified dates. Choose the approach that matches the promise you sold before configuring a separate drip schedule.

Delivery check: confirm the course is Published, launch lessons are available rather than draft, and existing students can reach the intended content. If a lesson is missing, check its draft status and any intentional drip restriction.

Communicate cancellation before processing refunds

If you will not deliver, tell buyers what happened and that you are refunding their purchase. A smaller-than-hoped cohort does not erase commitments to the people who paid.

Before submitting refunds, ensure you can fund the full amounts owed. Thinkific Payments uses available revenue first and can withdraw from your bank account when that balance is insufficient. Refunds cannot be reversed or canceled, and original fees are not returned.

Refund a Thinkific Payments transaction and choose access treatment

For each applicable transaction:

1. Open Sales → Transactions.
2. Click the transaction’s ellipsis → Refund.
3. Review Refund amount. It defaults to the full amount, or the remaining refundable balance if you previously issued a partial refund. For a full cancellation, keep the full remaining amount.
4. Optionally choose Duplicate, Fraudulent, or Requested by Customer as the reason when appropriate. You can skip the reason rather than select an inaccurate one.
5. Decide whether to check Also remove this student's access from all products associated with this payment. Select it when canceled enrollment should be removed, taking account of every product associated with that payment.
6. Recheck the student, amount, and access choice, then click Refund.
7. Confirm the separate refund transaction appears in the Transactions Report. Its type is Refund, with the amount shown as negative; the payment reflects Refunded or Partially refunded as applicable.

Refunding does not automatically remove access. The checkbox is a separate decision. Refund receipts are emailed when order receipts are enabled. A full refund returns associated collected tax; a partial refund returns the proportional tax amount. These controls and consequences are documented in Thinkific Payments: Refunds.

If a transaction was processed through direct Stripe or PayPal, refund it through that provider account instead. The Provider column in the Orders Report identifies the route; connecting Thinkific Payments later does not move those refund operations into its refund flow.

Cancellation check: each intended refund appears as a separate transaction, the amount matches what is owed, and access has the treatment you selected.

Quick reference: the controls that complete the job

• Save a draft AI page: exit the active element, then click top-right Save. A live product’s page uses Publish changes.
• Open pre-orders: Products → Courses → draft course → Publish → Set to preorder → Set to preorder.
• Release content in the tab-based interface: Publish tab → Published → Save.
• Refund a Thinkific Payments purchase: Sales → Transactions → transaction ellipsis → Refund, with access removal selected separately.

Your launch is ready when the public page accurately describes a purchasable pre-order, enrolled students remain in the Coming soon state before release, and you can fulfill the promise through publication—or fund and record the required refunds.