Payment plans: let students pay a course in installments

A payment plan lets a student pay for a course in several smaller charges instead of one. The headline price doesn’t change — you simply let them start with a fraction (say ₹3,000 of a ₹9,000 course) and pay the rest on a schedule. It turns "too expensive right now" into "yes, today", which is exactly the objection that kills higher-priced courses.

The rest is collected for you. The student approves the plan once at checkout and each later installment is debited automatically on its due date — by UPI Autopay or card e-mandate through Razorpay in India, and by card through Stripe on international (USD) checkouts. Nobody has to remember a due date, open a link, or be chased. If you’d rather they paid each one by hand, reminder-based collection is still there as a choice.

The whole journey: you turn it on, the student pays the first installment and approves auto-pay, and every later one is collected for them.

Turn it on for a course

Payment plans live in the publish flow, not a separate settings page. Open the course and click Publish — the Monetize wizard opens on "How will students get in?".

The Monetize wizard asking how students get in, with One-time purchase, Payment plan and Membership only. — Step 1 of the Monetize wizard — pick Payment plan.

Choosing "Payment plan" reveals three settings: how many installments (2, 3, 4, 6 or 12), how often to charge (every 7, 15, 30 or 60 days), and — the important one — how the rest gets collected.

Plan details: number of installments, charge every, and a choice between Automatically (recommended) and On reminders. — Automatically is the default for new plans. On reminders is the older, manual behaviour.

"Automatically" means the student approves one mandate at checkout and the gateway debits each installment on its due date. "On reminders" means they pay each one themselves from an emailed link. Courses you set up before auto-debit existed keep collecting on reminders until you switch them — nothing changes under your students without you choosing it.

Changing this affects NEW buyers. A student already part-way through a plan carries on exactly as they started, so switching a course to auto-debit never re-writes an agreement someone already accepted.

Finish the wizard and publish. The course is now live on an auto-debit plan.

The course page after publishing, now live. — Published — every new buyer is offered the plan.

What the student sees at checkout

The checkout button charges only the first installment, and the note underneath spells out the whole commitment before they pay. The amounts are computed on our server from your real course price, so they’re always exact and can’t be edited by the buyer.

Checkout showing Pay 3,000 now, with a note explaining installment 1 of 3 and that the rest is collected automatically. — A ₹9,000 course on a 3-part plan: ₹3,000 now, and the note says the rest is collected automatically.

Pay ₹3,000.00 now

Installment 1 of 3. You'll pay 2 more of about ₹3,000.00, one every 30 days
— collected automatically, so there's nothing to remember. You can cancel
or pay early any time from your library.

Approving the plan — India (Razorpay)

On an INR checkout the student authorises a Razorpay mandate: UPI Autopay, a card e-mandate, or net-banking. Razorpay states the terms in its own words before they approve — including the date the mandate ENDS, because the plan is capped at the number of installments you set.

Razorpay checkout showing a price summary: a payment of 3,000 now, then 3,000 every month until 2 Oct 2026. — Razorpay’s own summary: ₹3,000 now, then ₹3,000 monthly — and it stops on its own after the last installment.

That end date is the guarantee worth knowing: the mandate is created with a fixed number of cycles, so a student can never be charged more times than the plan you configured — even if nothing on our side intervenes.

Approving the plan — international (Stripe)

On a USD checkout the student goes to Stripe’s hosted page in subscription mode. Same shape: the first installment is charged now and the rest are scheduled.

After they subscribe, Stripe returns them to your academy and the course unlocks immediately.

The post-purchase page after returning from Stripe. — Back from Stripe — access is granted the moment the first payment clears.

The plan in the student’s library

From then on the student has a "Payment plan" card in their library. It reports rather than asks: how much is paid, what’s next, and when it will be taken.

Library card reading Payment plan 1/3 paid, auto-pay is on, installment 2 will be collected on 27 Aug 2026. — 1 of 3 paid. “Auto-pay is on — installment 2 will be collected on 27 Aug 2026.”

When the gateway takes the next installment, the card ticks over on its own. Neither of you does anything.

Library card reading Payment plan 2/3 paid with installment 3 scheduled. — The second installment, collected automatically.

There is still a "Pay installment" button, deliberately quiet — a student is always allowed to pay early and clear the balance ahead of schedule.

When a debit fails

Automatic doesn’t mean silent when something genuinely breaks. An expired card, insufficient balance or a cancelled mandate is the one case that needs a human, so the student is told that day, the plan is flagged in their library, and the button becomes a real call to action.

Library card warning that we could not collect the last installment automatically, with a Pay installment button. — “We couldn’t collect your last installment automatically” — with a way to fix it in a few taps.

Their access continues while it’s settled inside the three-day grace window. Only if it stays unpaid past that does access pause — and paying restores it instantly. The button works on both gateways: an INR plan reopens the Razorpay checkout, a USD plan goes to Stripe, and either way only that one installment is charged.

Students on a healthy automatic plan are deliberately left alone until a debit actually fails. Emailing “your installment is due” about money that is about to be collected for them is how you teach people to distrust the automation.

Finishing the plan

When the last installment clears, the plan is settled, the mandate stops, and the course is theirs permanently. On Razorpay the mandate expires on its own; on Stripe we cancel the subscription the moment the final installment lands, so nobody is ever debited after they’ve paid in full.

Library card reading Payment plan 3/3 paid, COMPLETED, with all three installments listed as paid. — 3 of 3 paid — “Fully paid, thank you!” and the mandate is closed.

Access: fair by design

A student keeps access as long as they’re paying. If an installment goes more than three days past its due date — because a debit failed and they didn’t rescue it, or because they never paid a reminder — access to that course pauses and the lesson player shows a friendly “pay to resume” screen instead of the lessons. The moment they pay, access comes back. This works identically on automatic and manual plans.

Access pauses only after a 3-day grace window, and resumes the instant the overdue installment is paid.

Coupons and add-ons

A coupon discounts the course and the discount is spread across every installment — a 50% code on a ₹9,000 course in 3 parts makes each installment ₹1,500 instead of ₹3,000. An order bump (a one-time add-on like a resource pack) is charged ONCE, with the first installment only, since the student receives it up front. It is never folded into the recurring amount, so it can’t be charged again every cycle.

Coupon → spread evenly across all installments
One-time add-on → charged once, on installment 1
Every amount computed server-side from your real prices
The plan’s terms come from the COURSE, never from the browser — a tampered request can’t author its own repayment schedule

What automatic collection needs from you

Auto-debit runs on your own payment account, so your payouts are unchanged — the money settles to you exactly as a one-time sale does. What it needs is recurring payments enabled on that account: Razorpay calls it Subscriptions and it has to be switched on for your account; on Stripe it works out of the box.

INR checkouts run on Razorpay — needs the Subscriptions feature enabled on your account
USD checkouts run on Stripe — works with a standard connected account
Which one a buyer sees follows the gateway YOU connected, not where the buyer is
Academies connected with “Sign in with Razorpay” (partner OAuth) can’t use auto-debit yet and stay on reminders

If auto-pay can’t be started for any reason — recurring not enabled, a gateway hiccup, a connection that needs re-linking — checkout does NOT fail. It quietly falls back to the reminder flow: the student still pays installment 1, still gets in today, and picks up the rest on emailed reminders. You lose the automation for that sale, never the sale.

Worth knowing before you switch a course over: banks cap how much can be auto-debited without the customer re-approving it (in India that limit is set by the RBI, and education fees get a higher allowance than most categories). If a single installment is large, some students may be asked to approve each debit rather than it running silently. Splitting a high-priced course into more, smaller installments avoids this entirely — and tends to convert better anyway.

Reminders, and who gets them

On a reminder-based plan the student gets an email three days before each installment is due, another on the due date, one the day after if it’s still unpaid, and a final “access paused” email if it slips past the grace window. On an automatic plan they hear nothing until a debit actually fails — then they get the same escalation, worded as a collection failure rather than a missed payment.

Reminders go out by email automatically. They also go out on WhatsApp when two things are true: the student has a WhatsApp number on file, and an approved template named installment_reminder exists in your Meta account with your WhatsApp credentials set. Until that template is approved, reminders are email-only — nothing fails silently.

Common questions

Can a student pay early? Yes — the “Pay installment” button on their library card is always available, and clears the next one ahead of schedule. It charges that installment only, and never grants the course twice.
Can they cancel? They can cancel the mandate from their bank or gateway like any standing instruction. The unpaid installments then behave like a manual plan: pay them, or access pauses after the grace window.
Do I get the money differently? No. Each installment settles into your own Razorpay or Stripe account, at 0% platform commission, exactly like a one-time sale.
What if I change the plan later? New buyers get the new terms; students already on a plan keep the one they agreed to.
What happens if I refund someone mid-plan? Refunding the original order stops the auto-debit mandate at the gateway and takes the plan off auto-pay, so they are never charged again for a course you refunded.
What if a charge notification goes missing? The plan self-heals. Razorpay only reports a mandate as finished once every installment has been charged, so that signal settles anything we never heard about — a student who has paid in full is never left looking overdue.
Does a payment plan change my price? No. A ₹9,000 course on a 3-part plan still earns ₹9,000 — the student just begins with ₹3,000.