Payment configurations

Payment configuration is set per program offering. It defines how students can pay for a cohort: full payment upfront, a deposit with the balance later, a monthly payment plan, or enrollment without payment. You also control when any remaining balance is due (relative to the cohort start or end date). You can enable any combination of these options. Whatever you turn on becomes a choice the student sees at checkout.

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Where to configure

When you create or edit a program offering, open the Payment Configuration section.

• Payment options appear only when the offering uses platform (hosted) enrollment. If the offering sends students to an external link or is inquiry-only, no payment configuration is needed and the section is replaced with a short notice. Starter can only use the external link and inquiry-only modes, so the section never appears on Starter.
• The full payment options only appear when the offering has a tuition amount greater than zero. A $0 offering is treated as free (see Free offerings).

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Tuition amount

• Tuition Amount ($): The total price for the offering in dollars (e.g. 1200.00). This is the full amount a student owes before any promo code discount. It drives every downstream calculation (deposit balance, payment-plan totals).
• Setting tuition to 0 makes the offering free — see below.

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Payment options (paid offerings)

Enable one or more of the following. Each enabled option becomes a payment method the student can pick at enrollment.

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Allow full payment upfront

• Label at checkout: “Pay in Full”
• Checked (default): Students can pay the full tuition (or the discounted amount after a promo code) in one payment at enrollment.
• Unchecked: Students cannot pay in full at enrollment; they must use a deposit, payment plan, or “enroll without payment” if you allow those.

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Allow deposit payment

• Label at checkout: “Pay Deposit Now”
• Checked: Students pay a set deposit at enrollment. The rest becomes a balance due later, billed by invoice (with a payment link).
• Deposit Amount ($): The dollar amount paid at enrollment (e.g. 300.00). Required when deposit is enabled, and must be greater than zero and less than the full tuition. The balance-due schedule (below) controls when the remainder is invoiced.

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Allow payment plan (monthly installments)

• Label at checkout: “Payment Plan”
• Checked: Students pay a down payment at enrollment, then a fixed number of equal monthly installments that are automatically charged to the card they enroll with.
• Configure three fields:
  • Payment Plan Total ($): The total the student pays across the whole plan. Leave blank to match the tuition amount. Set it higher than tuition to add a financing fee — the difference is shown to the student as an “includes financing fee” note. It cannot be lower than tuition.
  • Down Payment ($): The amount paid upfront at enrollment. Must be less than the plan total.
  • Number of Monthly Installments: How many monthly payments follow the down payment. Allowed range is 1–24.
• As you fill these in, a live preview shows the resulting schedule, e.g. “$300 down + 6 payments of$150/mo = $1,200 total.”

After enrollment, the platform auto-charges each installment on a monthly schedule, retries failed charges, emails the student on each attempt, and lets you pause, resume, or cancel the plan. See Payment plans for the full lifecycle.

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Allow enrollment without payment

• Label at checkout: “Enroll Without Payment”
• Checked: Students can complete enrollment without paying anything at enrollment. The full balance is billed by invoice, due according to the balance due rules below.
• Unchecked: Every student must pay something at enrollment (full, deposit, or a payment plan’s down payment).

Use this for internal billing, sponsor-paid enrollments, scholarships, or when you collect payment outside the platform and record it manually.

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Balance due (invoice due dates)

When a student has a balance due — from a deposit or a “no payment” enrollment — the platform creates an invoice for the remaining amount. This section controls that invoice’s due date. (Payment-plan installments have their own monthly due dates and are not governed by this setting.) The balance-due settings appear when deposit is enabled, or when enrollment without payment is enabled.

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Invoice Due Date Reference

• Days before cohort start date — Due date = cohort start date − X days.
• Days before cohort end date — Due date = cohort end date − X days.

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Balance Due Days Before Start / End

• Balance Due Days Before Start: Used when the reference is “start.” Example: 7 → the balance is due 7 days before the cohort starts. Default is 7.
• Balance Due Days Before End: Used when the reference is “end.” Example: 7 → the balance is due 7 days before the cohort ends. Default is 7.

If a cohort has no end date, the platform falls back to the start date so the due date is still valid.

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Free offerings ($0 tuition)

Set Tuition Amount to 0 to make an offering free. Payment options are hidden and students complete enrollment without payment.

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Invited students

The options above cover students who sign up on your public page. Invited students is a separate block that covers people your staff invite to a class by email. It sets what the invite form opens with, and it decides which options an invite may offer at all. It appears under Payment Configuration on a paid offering, below the other options.

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How invited students are billed

Pick one. Staff can change it on any single invite.

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What they can choose to pay

Shown only for Must pay before enrolling. Check the ways an invited student may pay:

• Pay in full — needs Allow full payment upfront turned on above.
• Pay a deposit — needs Allow deposit turned on above. You can set a separate Deposit for invited students; leave it blank to use the program deposit. The rest is invoiced after they join.
• Payment plan — needs Allow payment plan, a down payment above $0, a number of installments, and a Growth or Scale subscription.

An option you have not turned on above is greyed out, with a line telling you what to switch on. This is enforced on the server too, so an invite can never offer something the program has switched off.

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Hold the seat for (days)

How long a pay-first seat stays reserved while you wait for payment.

• Range: 1 to 90 days. Default: 14.
• A hold never outlives the cohort start date. If the number would run past it, the hold ends at the start date instead.
• If payment does not arrive, the invite is cancelled and the seat is released automatically, once a day.

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Terms are locked in when the invite is sent

Every invite copies these settings onto itself at the moment it goes out. If you edit the program later, invites already sent keep the terms the student was shown. Full walkthrough of the invite form: Students and invites.

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Plan requirements at a glance

Starter cannot take any money online. It cannot connect a Stripe account, so there is no checkout, no online invoice payment, and no card on file. Anything a student has to pay for needs a Growth or Scale plan. See Plan tiers and limits. * On Starter you can still invite someone and invoice them after, but they cannot pay that invoice online. Collect by check or another method outside the platform, then record a manual payment against the enrollment.

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Summary table

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Examples

• Full payment only: Enable full payment; leave the others off. Everyone pays in full at enrollment.
• Deposit + balance: Enable full payment and deposit; set the deposit (e.g. $300). The student chooses “Pay Deposit Now” or “Pay in Full.” The balance is invoiced with a due date, e.g. 7 days before start.
• Payment plan: Enable the payment plan; set a $300 down payment and 6 monthly installments, leaving the plan total blank to match tuition. The student pays$300 to enroll, then $150/mo for 6 months, auto-charged.
• Payment plan with financing fee: Same as above, but set the plan total above tuition (e.g. tuition $1,200, plan total$1,320). The student sees the $120 financing fee and the installments are sized against the higher total.
• Invoice-only (no payment at enrollment): Enable “enroll without payment.” Students enroll and receive an invoice for the full amount, paid by link or recorded manually.
• Free cohort: Set tuition to $0. Payment options are hidden and enrollment is free.

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Related

• Payment plans — how installment plans are charged, retried, paused, resumed, cancelled, and defaulted.
• Sponsored payments — let an employer, department, or agency pay on a student’s behalf.
• Invoices and balances — managing balances, payment links, reminders, and manual payments.
• Coupons (promo codes) — discounts applied at checkout.
• Students and invites — sending invites and what the student sees.

Configurations are saved with the offering and apply to cohorts created from that offering until you edit the offering again.