Payment Processing for Online Course Creators and Coaches in Canada

The Core Decision: Platform Payments vs. Standalone Processor

When you sell courses or coaching in Canada, you face a fundamental choice: use the payment processing built into your course platform (Thinkific Payments, Teachable Payments, Kajabi's checkout), or connect your own payment processor (Stripe, PayPal, or similar).

Platform payments are simpler to set up. But they come with higher fees, less flexibility, and in some cases, the platform holds funds on your behalf — which can cause cash flow issues and complicates your GST/HST accounting.

Stripe for Canadian Course Creators

Stripe is the most commonly used standalone processor for course creators in Canada, and for good reason. It works with every major course platform and offers robust subscription billing.

Fees (Canada, 2026): 2.9% + $0.30 CAD per transaction for domestic cards. For international cards (US, UK, Europe), add a 1.5% cross-border fee, bringing the total to 4.4% + $0.30 for most US students paying in CAD. If you charge in USD, Stripe also applies a currency conversion fee (~2% on top of the cross-border fee).

Recurring billing: Stripe Billing is excellent — it handles subscription creation, dunning (failed payment retries), proration, and plan upgrades/downgrades. If you're running a membership with monthly payments, Stripe's Billing product is one of the best available. You can configure 3 automatic retry attempts over 7 days before a subscription cancels.

Payouts: Stripe pays out to a Canadian bank account in CAD, typically 2 business days after a transaction. You can also hold a USD balance and receive USD payouts if you have a USD bank account.

Limitation: Stripe is a US company. If Stripe holds your funds due to elevated chargeback activity or an unusual spike in sales (common after a successful launch), getting it resolved takes time and requires working with US-based support.

Stripe connects directly with Thinkific, Teachable, Podia, Kajabi, and most other course platforms as a payment gateway option.

PayPal for Canadian Course Creators

PayPal is still widely used, particularly for one-time purchases and as a second checkout option alongside Stripe. Some customers — especially older demographics and certain international students — strongly prefer PayPal.

Fees: 3.49% + $0.49 CAD for domestic transactions through PayPal Checkout. For subscription billing, PayPal charges 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction with no additional monthly fee. International transactions carry a 1.5% fee on top of the base rate.

Recurring billing: PayPal Subscriptions works but is less flexible than Stripe Billing. Dunning is limited — PayPal will retry failed payments but the retry logic is less configurable. Customers also need a PayPal account to use PayPal Subscriptions, which creates friction.

The big problem for course creators: PayPal is notorious for account holds and freezes on digital product sellers, particularly at higher volumes or after a significant sales spike. If you do a big launch and process $30,000 in a week, don't be surprised if PayPal holds 30% for 90–180 days. This is a very common complaint among Canadian course creators.

Recommendation: Offer PayPal as a secondary option, but build your primary billing infrastructure on Stripe.

Thinkific and Teachable Built-In Payments

Both Thinkific and Teachable offer native payment processing powered by Stripe under the hood. The difference: the platform sits between you and Stripe, charging an extra layer of fees.

Thinkific Payments: Available on Thinkific's paid plans. Transaction fees range from 0% (on higher plans at ~$199 CAD/month) to 5% (on the free plan). On the Basic plan (~$49/month), there's no additional transaction fee, but you're still paying 2.9% + $0.30 to Stripe underneath. Thinkific manages the payout to you.

Teachable: Teachable's free plan charges 10% per transaction. Their Basic plan (~$59 USD/month) drops this to 5%. Their Pro plan (~$159 USD/month) eliminates the platform fee. For Canadian creators, this means you're often paying 5%+ total on every sale on lower-tier plans. At $1,000/month in sales, a 5% platform fee is $50 straight to Teachable before Stripe's cut.

Teachable's payment timing issue: Teachable holds payouts and pays you monthly (not daily like Stripe). This is a significant cash flow issue for new creators. You might make $5,000 in week one but not receive it for 30 days.

Recommendation: Connect your own Stripe account to Thinkific or Teachable rather than using their native payments. You get the same Stripe rates without the platform markup, and Stripe pays you directly on its regular schedule.

Kajabi

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for courses, memberships, coaching, and email marketing. Unlike Thinkific and Teachable, Kajabi does not allow you to connect a third-party payment processor — you must use Kajabi Payments (Stripe-powered) or PayPal.

Fees: Kajabi charges 0% transaction fees on all paid plans, but you pay Kajabi's plan fees ($149–$399 USD/month) plus Stripe's underlying rates. The lack of platform transaction fees is genuinely good — the problem is the high monthly plan cost.

Kajabi Payments: Because Kajabi uses Stripe's infrastructure, payouts and functionality are similar. The difference is that Kajabi manages the Stripe connection, and if there's a dispute or fund hold, you're dealing with Kajabi's support before you can escalate to Stripe.

Best for: Course creators doing $5,000+/month who want a fully integrated funnel, email, and checkout experience. Not ideal for Canadian creators just starting out due to the USD monthly pricing.

GST/HST on Digital Services: What Canadian Course Creators Must Know

This is where a lot of Canadian creators get caught out. Digital products and online courses sold to Canadian customers are subject to GST/HST.

The $30,000 threshold: If you earn more than $30,000 CAD in worldwide taxable sales in any 12-month period, you must register for a GST/HST number and charge GST/HST on sales to Canadian customers. The rate depends on the province:

• Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland: 15% HST
• BC, Manitoba, Quebec (QST separately): 5% GST + provincial tax
• Alberta, territories: 5% GST

Provincial breakdown: You need to charge based on where your customer is located, not where you are. Stripe Tax (Stripe's add-on feature) can automate this calculation and collection. Without it, you'll need to manually track customer provinces and calculate the correct rate.

International students: Sales to customers outside Canada are generally zero-rated for GST/HST purposes — you do not charge Canadian GST/HST on a course sold to a student in Texas or Germany. However, you may need to track these sales for reporting purposes. Stripe Tax handles this correctly when configured with your Canadian business address.

Digital services tax: As of July 2021, foreign digital service providers selling to Canadians must also collect and remit GST/HST if they exceed the $30,000 threshold. This doesn't affect Canadian creators directly but means your US-based competitors on platforms like Udemy or Coursera are also subject to Canadian tax collection.

See our GST/HST payment processing guide for more detail on registration, filing, and how to configure your processor for tax collection.

Handling Refunds

Refund policies matter more for courses than most digital products because of chargeback risk. If you have a no-refund policy and a student initiates a chargeback, the card networks generally side with the cardholder on digital products unless you have clear evidence of engagement (login records, video completion data).

Practical approach: Offer a 14 or 30-day refund policy with a clear process. Course platforms log student activity — if a student requests a refund after completing 90% of your course, you have documentation to contest a chargeback. If you issue refunds promptly yourself, you avoid chargebacks entirely.

Stripe refunds: Stripe's original transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30) is not returned when you refund. On a $500 course, you pay ~$14.80 in fees regardless of whether you refund. Factor this into your pricing and refund risk.

Chargeback rates: Course creators have naturally higher chargeback rates than physical goods sellers. Stripe and PayPal monitor your chargeback ratio — if it exceeds 1%, you're at risk of account suspension. Keep detailed course access records, send confirmation emails with clear terms, and respond to every dispute with engagement data.

Recurring Billing for Memberships

If you're running a membership (monthly access, ongoing coaching), recurring billing via Stripe Billing or Kajabi's built-in subscriptions is the way to go. Key points for Canadian creators:

• CAD vs. USD pricing: You can bill in either currency. Billing in CAD protects your Canadian customers from exchange rate surprises and simplifies your GST/HST obligations. Billing in USD may increase perceived value in international markets but complicates your Canadian tax reporting.
• Failed payment handling: Stripe's Smart Retries uses machine learning to retry failed payments at optimal times. In practice, this recovers 10–30% of failed charges that would otherwise result in cancellation.
• Annual billing discount: Offering an annual membership at 2 months free (10 months of charges) is standard practice. It reduces churn and improves cash flow. Stripe and Kajabi both handle this natively.