Sell an online course in Germany with e-invoices: payment link, course access, DATEV

Selling without a platform in between

The usual course platforms and resellers put themselves between you and the buyer: they make the contract, they issue the invoice, and they keep a percentage commission. What you get is a payout that you then have to book yourself. For many course creators this was the simplest route for a long time, because running your own billing with EU VAT and bookkeeping took a lot of work.

Rechnungskit turns this around. You sell under your own name with your own payment provider, whether that is Stripe, Mollie, PayPal or Unzer. The buyer sees your checkout, your legal texts and your invoice.

Rechnungskit also charges per document (Beleg), not a percentage of your revenue.

What the buyer sees

The payment link from the product checkout leads to a checkout page under your name. The buyer enters their billing address and chooses private individual or business. Businesses also enter their VAT ID (USt-IdNr.), which Rechnungskit checks live with the German Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern). For digital content, the buyer agrees before the purchase that delivery starts right away and confirms that this ends their right of withdrawal (§ 356(6) BGB). The legal notice (Impressum), terms, withdrawal policy and privacy policy are your own and are linked.

After paying, the buyer lands on the confirmation page and can download the invoice as a PDF right away. If you have turned on invoice delivery by email, it also goes out in your name. You can add your own thank-you page through the return URL on the product.

VAT on online courses

A video course that the buyer works through on their own after paying counts as an electronically supplied service for VAT: largely automated, with minimal human involvement (section 3a.12(1) UStAE, the German VAT application decree). Private customers in Germany pay the standard rate (§ 12(1) UStG). For private customers in other EU countries, the rate of their country of residence applies above the 10,000-euro threshold, or below it if you waive the threshold (§ 3a(5) UStG), and you report it through the OSS procedure (the EU One-Stop Shop). Rechnungskit knows the rates of all EU countries and prepares the OSS return.

If a business from another EU country buys with a valid VAT ID, the reverse charge applies: the invoice shows no German VAT and carries the note that the recipient owes the tax (§ 14a(1) UStG). Rechnungskit checks the number at purchase and issues the invoice accordingly. If you are a Kleinunternehmer under § 19 UStG (small-business VAT exemption), the checkout shows no VAT and the invoice carries the required note.

Two cases fall outside this. Live formats with interaction, such as a webinar with a Q&A, usually do not count as electronically supplied services because of the human involvement (section 3a.12(1) UStAE), and different place-of-supply rules apply to them. A VAT exemption for teaching under § 4 no. 21 UStG usually requires private providers to hold a certificate from the responsible state authority. Clarify both with your tax advisor.

Course access without Zapier

If your courses live in Memberspot, Rechnungskit connects the course platform directly: after payment, it unlocks the assigned offer, and Memberspot creates the account if needed and sends the invitation. If your community runs on Ghost, Rechnungskit sets the matching membership tier instead. When a subscription ends or a purchase is fully refunded, Rechnungskit takes the access away again. During payment reminders, access stays in place.

For other platforms, there is the checkout webhook. It reports every purchase with product, buyer and invoice number to Make, Zapier, n8n or your own system. If you want to measure purchases from ads, report them server-side to Meta Ads; the checkout asks buyers for consent through a slim bar.

What reaches your tax advisor

Every purchase becomes an e-invoice in ZUGFeRD format. It contains the structured XML part that German law requires for B2B sales once the 2027 and 2028 transition periods end (§ 27(38) UStG). The invoice is stored with a hash in the GoBD archive and is ready in the DATEV export with revenue account, VAT rate and date of supply (Leistungsdatum). OSS sales carry the destination country and the EU VAT rate in the fields DATEV reads for its OSS evaluation. If you sell access for a fixed term or annual memberships and keep double-entry books, deferred revenue comes into play; the article on pRAP for online courses explains when it applies. Set up memberships with monthly payments in the subscription checkout.