Gifting a Course or Product

Another way to generate revenue with your online course/product is to offer the option of gifting. 🎁 It takes only a matter of minutes to turn this feature on and set it up.

NOTE: When a customer buys your course using the gift option, the buying customer will NOT gain access to the course. They are only making a purchase on behalf of a separate customer which gets added to your Teachery account.

⚒ Setting Up Course Gifting

These instructions apply to our original payment page template. If you’re using our new Payment Page Builder or building a Product, gifting settings are available in the Product > Gifting section of the payment page. That said, you can find some useful tips below too.

Toggle ON the "Add Gifting Option (+)" button and customize the course gifting text that goes along with the checkbox a customer will click.

If you need to include any specific terms and conditions, simply hyperlink that checkbox text to any page on your website or a document you want a gift purchaser to read before buying.

New Payment Page Builder or Products

Note that any custom checkout fields added in the Checkout > Checkout Fields section of our new payment pages will not apply to gift purchases.

For the time being, here is a workaround for when you need customers to accept your terms and conditions during a gift purchase:

In the Product > Gifting section, you can include, for example, in the “Gifting option checkbox text” field, a hyperlink to your T&Cs. An example of what you can include in that field: “Yes, I'd like to buy this as a gift. By proceeding, I accept the <a href="#" target="_blank">Terms and Conditions</a>.” - where # should be replaced with the link to your T&Cs.

🤔 What Do Your (Gift Buying) Customers See?

Once you've toggled ON the "Gifting Option" your customers will have a checkbox to click on your payment page. When they click that ☑ a new set of fields will immediately appear in the payment page.

The new fields that appear are:

• Recipient's First Name

• Recipient's Last Name

• Recipient's Email Address

• Confirm Recipient's Email Address

• Course Welcome Email (Send Now or Schedule Later)

🔮 What Happens after a Gifting Purchase?

Your gifting customer will fill out all the payment page fields, and purchase information, and will end up on a "Success!" page (a.k.a purchase confirmation screen).

Here's an example of what the default text looks like (the page will include your course header image above this text, if you have one). In the left sidebar of a course editor’s Payment Pages section, you'll find a "Success Page" where you can customize the text.

New Payment Page Builder or Products

If you’re using our new Payment Page Builder or building a Product, the confirmation page/text is available in the Product > Gifting section of the payment page. Once enabled, note that if a customer makes a gift purchase, they will not see your standard purchase confirmation screen but a dedicated gift purchase confirmation screen (see screenshot below). Be sure to update both when setting up your payment page.

📬 Gifting Customer and Course Recipient Emails

Gifting Customer Email

A purchase confirmation (with Teachery branding) will immediately be sent to the gifting customer from us. This email cannot be customized, but it is very simple and contains the information the gifting customer submitted on the payment page.

Stripe Receipt Email

Note that it is the gift recipient’s email address that appears in Stripe as they are the ultimate end customer/student (i.e. the customer that actually gets created in Teachery). However, it’s the gifting customer that will receive the Stripe receipt email, assuming you have Stripe checkout receipts turned on.

Course Recipient Email

The gift recipient will receive a (standard Teachery) welcome email to access the course/product based on the schedule chosen by the gifting customer:

• If the welcome email was scheduled for immediate delivery, the gift recipient will have immediate access granted.

• If the welcome email is scheduled in the future, Teachery will send that welcome email at the specified date and time (and that's when access will be granted to the gift recipient).

Given that gift recipients receive the same welcome email as standard customers, we recommend removing the purchase amount that appears by default in your welcome emails. Customers who buy the course/product as a gift will still receive a separate purchase confirmation indicating the price they paid. All standard buyers of a course/product will receive a Stripe receipt (if you have them enabled) so the price/amount needn’t be reflected in the welcome email.

🛒 Customer Activity for Gift Purchases

When viewing your Customers Page, in the activity feed you'll notice a "Gift from: [email address]" in the FLAG column for any gifted purchase.

If you need to issue a refund to the gifting customer, you can do so in the gift recipient’s customer profile just like any standard customer.

If you need to revoke the access of the gift recipient (the customer that actually gets created in Teachery) that can also be done in the Actions menu of that customer profile.

📧 Capturing Email Subscribers

If you’re using any of our integrations (Kit, Flodesk, Mailchimp, MailerLite) to capture email subscribers, note that only the gift recipient will be added to your list of subscribers. The exact workflow may be different depending on which third-party tool you’re using and whether you make use of double opt-in. Please consult the respective help docs.

🤑 What about Affiliates and Gifting Courses?

Affiliates will still get credit for any gifted purchase with no extra work required on your part. A gifted purchase OR a direct (standard) purchase are treated the exact same way. Easy peasy!