Refunds and Payment Payouts

This article covers two things — how you get paid for the courses you sell, and how to handle a refund when a student asks for one.

Getting paid

When a student buys a course, the payment goes through CourseFriendly. After a short settlement window, the money is paid out to your bank account.

To set up payouts:

1. From your dashboard, click Settings → Payments.
2. Connect a bank account by entering the account and routing number, or by linking through the secure bank-link flow.
3. Confirm the small test deposits when they arrive (usually one to two business days).
4. Save.

Once set up, payouts happen on a regular schedule. You can change the schedule under Settings → Payments → Payout Schedule:

• Daily. Money lands the next business day after each sale clears.
• Weekly. A single deposit each week with everything that cleared in the period.
• Monthly. A single deposit at month end.

Most creators start on weekly. Daily is convenient but creates a lot of small deposits; monthly smooths the rhythm but ties up your cash.

Reading your payout report

Click Reports → Payouts to see every payout, what made it up, and any fees that came out of it. Each payout line opens to show the individual sales it covered.

Useful columns:

• Gross. What students paid you, before any fees.
• Fees. Payment processing fees pulled out of each sale.
• Tax collected. Sales tax collected from the student. CourseFriendly handles the reporting for you in most regions.
• Net. What landed in your bank account.

Handling a refund request

A student emails or files a ticket asking for a refund. Some are clear-cut ("never used it, please refund"). Others need a bit of judgment.

A few questions to ask yourself first:

• Did the student get a meaningful amount of value already? Watching half the course and asking for a refund is different from never logging in.
• Is the request within your stated refund window? Most creators publish a 14- or 30-day window on the course page.
• Is the student stuck on a real problem (a video that will not play, a quiz that crashes) that we can fix instead? See Troubleshooting to walk them through the common ones first.

If you decide to refund:

1. From your dashboard, click Sales and find the order.
2. Click the order, then click Refund.
3. Pick Full refund or Partial refund, and enter the amount for a partial.
4. Add a one-line reason — it appears in your records, not on the student's receipt.
5. Confirm.

The student gets an email confirming the refund. The money goes back to the original card within a few business days. The fees on the original sale are not returned to you, so a refunded order shows as a small net cost on your payout report.

After the refund, the student loses access to the course unless you also click Keep Access on the refund form. Sometimes you want both — refund the money and let them keep watching. Sometimes you do not.

When you should refund without asking

• Any duplicate purchase (same student, same course, within an hour).
• Any purchase where the student says they never received the course access email and you confirm they did not.
• Any clearly accidental purchase (wrong course, wrong tier).

Doing these without a fight saves time and goodwill.

When you can decline

• A request well after your refund window with no clear reason.
• A request after substantial progress (the student finished most of the course).
• A repeat customer asking for refunds on multiple courses with no obvious problem.

Decline politely. Point them at the refund window on the course page. Offer to help with what they were stuck on.

Common questions

Can I issue a refund as store credit instead of cash? Yes. On the refund form, pick Store Credit. The amount becomes a credit on the student's account they can apply to a future course.

What about subscriptions? You can refund the current period and cancel the subscription, or just cancel future renewals without refunding the current one. The form shows both options.

What about chargebacks? If a student disputes a charge with their bank, we work with you to respond. Open the order and click Dispute Help. We will tell you what evidence to provide.