Enroll students who paid outside Ruzuku

In this article: Two methods for giving course access to students who paid through your own website, Gumroad, ThriveCart, a coaching contract, or any other tool outside Ruzuku. All Plans

Not every sale happens through Ruzuku's checkout. You might collect payment through your own website, a tool like Gumroad or ThriveCart, a corporate invoice, or even a handshake agreement with a coaching client. Regardless of how the money changed hands, the student still needs a way into your course.

Ruzuku gives you two approaches. Each one has different tradeoffs around security, automation, and effort.

Method 1: Send a free invitation (most secure)

An invitation is a personal enrollment link tied to a specific email address. The student receives an email from Ruzuku, clicks the link, creates an account (or logs in), and they're enrolled. Nobody else can use that link.

Set it up:

1. Open your course and go to Manage Course → Invitations.
2. Enter the student's email address (or paste in multiple addresses to invite a group at once).
3. Click Send Invitation.

Each student gets an email with their unique enrollment link. After clicking it, they land inside your course and can start immediately.

Best for:

• Enrolling a known list of people (corporate teams, coaching clients, scholarship students)
• Situations where you want tight control over who gets in
• One-off enrollments where automation isn't needed
• Beta testers or soft-launch participants

Limitations: Invitations are sent manually from the Ruzuku dashboard and are available on Core and Pro plans only. If you're processing dozens of external sales per week, this method requires ongoing effort.

For the full walkthrough, see Send free invitations.

Method 2: Share a free price point link (automated)

A free price point creates a checkout page where students enroll without paying. You embed this link in your external payment flow so students can self-enroll after completing their purchase elsewhere.

Set it up:

1. Go to Manage Course → Price Points.
2. Click Add Price Point and choose Free.
3. Name it something clear, like "Access Your Course" or "Enroll Here."
4. Click Create Price Point.
5. Copy the checkout link for this price point. (See Find links for your sales page and price points if you need help locating the link.)
6. Add the link to your external payment flow:
   • Put it on the thank-you page after purchase.
   • Include it in the confirmation email your payment tool sends.
   • Set up an automatic redirect to the link after checkout completes.

When students click the link, they see a simple enrollment page where they create a Ruzuku account and get instant course access. No payment information required.

Best for:

• Automated enrollment after an external checkout (Gumroad, ThriveCart, Shopify, etc.)
• High-volume situations where manual invitations would be too time-consuming
• Workflows where you want zero manual steps after the initial setup

Limitations: The link isn't secured to specific people. Anyone who has it can enroll. To reduce risk, set a signup limit on the price point so the link stops working after a certain number of enrollments.

Alternative: Use a 100% discount coupon. Instead of a free price point, you can create a coupon that discounts the price to $0. This gives you more control because you set the coupon code, and you can limit how many times it's used.

Which method should you use?

Add a signup limit for extra control

If you use a free price point link and want to limit how many people can enroll through it:

1. Go to Manage Course → Price Points.
2. Click the free price point you created.
3. Set a Signup Limit. Once the limit is reached, the link stops accepting new enrollments.

This is useful when you sell a fixed number of seats externally. Set the limit to match the number of seats you sold, and the link closes automatically.

For details, see Set limits on price points.

Combine with Zapier for full automation

If you use Zapier, you can connect your external payment tool directly to Ruzuku. When someone completes a purchase in Gumroad, ThriveCart, or another supported tool, Zapier can automatically trigger enrollment in your Ruzuku course.

This removes the need for the student to click a separate link at all. For setup details, see Set up your Zapier integration.

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