How to switch from Thinkific to Heartbeat
Students, subscriptions, courses and progress, step by step. A typical import takes under 15 minutes.
Updated
Students, courses and progress all move. What happens to subscriptions depends on how you take payments. If your Thinkific site is connected to your own Stripe account, the subscription importer moves recurring students across on their existing renewal dates. If you use Thinkific Payments, Thinkific holds the payment data, so you’ll need Thinkific’s help, or your recurring students re-subscribe.
Students who paid once are simple: import them and grant access to what they bought.
What moves
| What | How it moves |
|---|---|
| Students | Export the Users report as a CSV, then invite from Heartbeat. |
| Subscriptions on your own Stripe | Subscription importer, self-serve. Typically under 15 minutes. |
| Subscriptions on Thinkific Payments | Need Thinkific to export and copy your payment data. Otherwise students re-subscribe. |
| One-time purchases | Grant access to the matching offer. Nothing to bill. |
| Courses | Pulse rebuilds them from your lesson content. Videos are uploaded or embedded. |
| Progress | Export Thinkific’s progress reports, and our team imports them. |
Before you start
Step by step
Create your Heartbeat community
Start building, then connect payments, which sets up the Heartbeat Stripe account your members will move into. Leave Thinkific running while you set up. Nothing on this page changes anything there until you cancel.
Export your students
In the Thinkific admin, go to Users, select all users and choose Export. Thinkific emails you a download link. Only visible columns are exported, so show the ones you need first (Thinkific’s guide).
Export progress reports
Under Users > Student Progress, open each course’s progress report and use Export CSV (Thinkific’s guide). Send these to our support team after your courses are built, and we import the progress so students pick up where they left off.
Rebuild your courses with Pulse
Gather your lesson text, slides and files, hand them to Pulse, and ask it to build each course. Upload your videos or embed them from where they’re hosted (video embeds). Heartbeat has no certificates or native quizzes, so link quizzes as embeds and plan certificates separately if you issue them.
Move your recurring students
Export your subscriptions from your Stripe account (Subscriptions > Export), or get the export from Thinkific if you use Thinkific Payments. Then run the subscription importer and choose Other, typing Thinkific.
- Platform and data. Go to Settings > Import Subscriptions and press + New Migration. Pick the platform you are leaving (or Other, and type its name), then upload your subscription CSV.
- Column mapping. Match the columns in your file to Heartbeat’s fields. Check the preview for duplicate entries.
- Offer mapping. Match each old product or price to a Heartbeat offer. If an offer doesn’t exist yet, Pulse can create it for you here.
- Customer copy. Copy your members’ saved payment details to your Heartbeat Stripe account. In the old Stripe account, go to Customers > Copy and paste the Heartbeat account ID the importer gives you, then accept the request in your Heartbeat Stripe dashboard. Copy only current subscribers or your whole customer list.
- Review and migrate. Check every member, offer and next billing date, then run the migration. Each member is billed the price you mapped them to, starting on the date they would have renewed.
The typical import takes under 15 minutes, from uploading your file to running the migration. Screenshots and the full walkthrough: Import and migrate existing Stripe subscriptions.
Cancel the old subscriptions
The importer doesn’t touch your old platform, so cancel the original subscriptions yourself. It gives you a CSV of exactly which ones to cancel, and it flags anyone who renews in the next 72 hours so you can cancel those first. Then tick the box confirming you have canceled them. This is what stops anyone being charged twice.
Invite your members
Send invites when the community is ready, not before. The importer’s last screen invites your paying members for you, and the rest come from your exported list. Tell them why you moved and when your Thinkific school closes. How invitations work.
Sources
What we checked about Thinkific, where, and when. Heartbeat steps come from our Help Center and the product itself.
| Claim | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions on Thinkific Payments are not migrated when switching processors | support.thinkific.com/hc/en-us/articles/17996907343255-How-to-Switch-Payment-Processors-from-Thinkific-Payments-to-Stripe | October 6, 2026 |
| Users report export (Users > select all > Export) | support.thinkific.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030370254-Users-Report-and-Filters | October 6, 2026 |
| Progress report CSV export | support.thinkific.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030369974-Progress-Reports | October 6, 2026 |
I use Thinkific Payments. Can my students keep their subscriptions?
Only with Thinkific’s help. Thinkific Payments holds your students’ payment data, and Thinkific says its subscriptions don’t migrate automatically. Ask Thinkific to export your subscriptions and copy the payment data to your Heartbeat Stripe account. Otherwise, students re-subscribe through your new offer’s signup link.
What about students who paid once?
There is nothing to migrate on the billing side. Import them, give them the offer that matches what they bought, and invite them.
Does Heartbeat have certificates and quizzes?
Not natively. Quizzes can be embedded in lessons. If certificates matter to your students, plan for them before you switch.
Do members keep their price and billing date?
Yes, if you map them to a matching price, which the importer can create for you. Each imported subscription is next billed on the date it would have renewed on the old platform. If that date has already passed, it moves to the next cycle.
How long does the switch take?
Moving recurring students is the quick part. The typical import takes under 15 minutes, from uploading your file to running the migration. If you use Thinkific Payments, allow time for Thinkific to export and copy your payment data first. Rebuilding courses takes longer the more lessons and videos you have.
Does Heartbeat charge for the migration?
No. The subscription importer and migration support are free on every plan. On the Scale plan, a dedicated onboarding rep runs the whole migration with you.