A student cannot access a paid course
Someone paid and cannot open the course. Work through this in order — the first three checks resolve most cases.
1. Which account are they signed in with?
The most common cause, and the hardest for the student to spot: they bought with one email address and are signed in with another, or bought as a guest and never created an account.
Ask them to check the address shown in their account area against the address on their order.
Prevent it: make sure the message a signed-in student without access sees names their address and offers a sign-out link. See My account settings.
2. What status is the order in?
Access requires a paid status. Pending, on-hold, cancelled, refunded and failed orders grant nothing.
Open WooCommerce → Orders and find theirs. A bank transfer awaiting confirmation, or a payment held for review, sits in a non-paid status and looks exactly like a completed purchase to the customer.
Completing the order grants access immediately — there is nothing to run afterwards.
3. Is the right product attached to the course?
Open the course and check which products are connected to it.
Frequent mistakes:
- The customer bought a different variant or product from the one attached.
- The course was duplicated and the copy has no product attached.
- The product was recreated, so the attached identifier points at a product nobody buys any more.
4. Is a permission rule set on the course?
If a rule is set, the rule alone decides and the purchase is never checked. A paid course that also has a rule blocks buyers who do not match the rule.
That is the classic misconfiguration behind "they paid and it still says no access". Remove the rule, or govern the course by the rule and not by the purchase.
5. Is it a subscription product?
For subscription products, a paid original order is not enough — the subscription must be active.
Check the subscription's status. Cancelled, expired, on-hold and pending-cancellation subscriptions do not grant access, and the student may not realize a payment failed.
6. Is WooCommerce active?
A paid course on a site where WooCommerce has been deactivated cannot grant access to anyone. Confirm it is active and the order data is intact.
Diagnosing quickly
Read the Access column in the student's My courses, if the course appears there at all:
| What you see | Means |
|---|---|
| The course is absent | No access at all — start at step 1 |
| Because you purchased… | The purchase is recognized; any problem is elsewhere |
| An active subscription for… | The subscription is active |
| Access granted by permission rule | A rule granted it, and the purchase was never consulted |
| Free course | The paid setting is not enabled on the course |
That last row is worth checking on your own account: a course you meant to sell showing as free means the paid flag was never turned on, and everyone has been getting it for nothing.
After a refund
Access ends when the order leaves a paid status. That is intended: refunding removes access.
The student's progress is kept. If they buy again, they resume where they were.
Confirm the fix
- Ask the student to sign out and back in.
- Confirm the course appears in their My courses with a correct access reason.
- Confirm a lesson opens.
If you changed the course configuration, re-test with your own test account too — configuration changes affect every student, not just the one who complained.