I have an online business (service provider and educational branch).
Essentially, I have a course platform with a community on heartbeat.chat and plan on creating my AI tools in pickaxe. So ppl will pay for the initial program / course of mine + gain access to a starter set of credits in pickaxe.
I wonder if there are ppl here with this presumably common use case.
Two options I see:
OPTION: Use my own checkout e.g. via ThriveCart
Zapier → sending buyers to my heartbeat.chat course / community platform (I already set this up / use this )
Zapier → granting buyers access to an access group in pickaxe with a starter-set of credit, they can individually top-up etc. ( Is this possible?)
OPTION: Using the pickaxe checkout via Stripe
The initial purchase would include not just the AI credit fee but my course / program fee granting buyers access to an access group with a starter-set of credit, they can individually top-up later ( Is this possible as: A) in the initial payment is amount X (course-fee + starter credits) + B) the later top-up credit purchase is different amount Y?)
Zapier → granting buyers access to an access group in my heartbeat.chat course / community platform ( Is this possible?)
Looking forward to a helpful reply as this determines if pickaxe is the right platform for my use case.
Hi @alexven, welcome to the Pickaxe community! I think this might be your first post here, so glad to have you.
I also checked out heartbeat.chat after reading your message. It actually looks really aesthetically pleasing. <3
I like the idea of combining community, courses, and tools in one place like that.
Coming to your question. In many cases it’s honestly easier to keep as much as possible inside Pickaxe. Since Pickaxe already has Stripe built in, you can manage payments, access, and credits directly from the studio without needing too many external automations.
For example, you can create a product that includes access to specific Pickaxes plus a starter set of credits. Once users run out, they can simply purchase more credits later. That setup works pretty well for most course + AI tool use cases.
That said, every business workflow is a little different. Some people prefer using their existing checkout tools and connecting things with Zapier. Others keep the entire flow inside Pickaxe because it’s simpler to manage.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. But in a lot of cases Pickaxe can handle the end-to-end setup pretty smoothly, which reduces complexity over time.
Happy to brainstorm the cleanest setup with you if you want to share a bit more about how your course and AI tools will connect.
P.S: Happy to jump on a call as well if you’d like to brainstorm the idea together.
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Is this possible?)