Occasionally you’ll need to give a learner their money back or remove their access to a course. Klimb makes both straightforward while protecting you from costly mistakes: because refunds move money and revoking removes access, each action requires explicit confirmation before it happens.
Issuing a refund
Refunds return a learner’s payment through Stripe Connect, the same channel the original charge ran through. To refund a purchase:
- Open the learner’s profile in Learners, or find the purchase in your billing records.
- Select the purchase you want to refund.
- Click Refund and review the amount.
- Confirm the refund in the dialog. Klimb will not process a refund on a single click — this safeguard exists because the action is irreversible.
The refunded amount is returned to the learner and deducted from your Stripe balance, typically netted against your next payout. For how this affects your earnings, see Understanding payouts and fees.
What happens to access after a refund
By default, refunding a purchase revokes the matching entitlement, so the learner loses access to that course. If you’d rather refund someone but let them keep access — for goodwill, say — you can choose to leave the entitlement in place. The reverse is also true: you can revoke access without issuing a refund.
Revoking an entitlement
Sometimes you need to remove access without touching money — for an accidental grant, a policy violation, or a duplicate entitlement. To revoke:
- Open the learner’s profile and find the course entitlement.
- Select Revoke access.
- Confirm in the dialog.
Once revoked, the learner immediately loses access to that course and it disappears from their dashboard. Their progress is preserved in your records, so if you re-grant access later, they pick up where they left off.
Refund and access scenarios
- Standard refund — return the money and revoke access. The most common case.
- Refund, keep access — return the money but let the learner finish the course. A goodwill gesture.
- Revoke, no refund — remove access for a free/comped learner or a policy issue, with no money involved.
- Re-grant later — manually enroll the learner again to restore access; their progress resumes. See Managing your learners.
Disputes and chargebacks
If a learner disputes a charge with their bank instead of asking you for a refund, Stripe handles it as a chargeback in your Stripe Dashboard. You can submit evidence — proof of access and your stated refund policy — to contest it. A clear, visible refund policy on your academy reduces disputes.
Best practices
- Publish a refund policy so expectations are set before purchase.
- Confirm the learner and course before refunding — refunds can’t be undone.
- Log the reason in your own records for support history.
- Watch your balance around refund-heavy periods so payouts aren’t a surprise.
These tools let you resolve support requests cleanly and fairly while keeping your money and your learner data fully under your control.