Pricing Strategies: #4 Counting on Discounts

"Is there any chance I can get a little discount on this month's service?"

Maya hears this almost every time at her fitness studio. She offers monthly subscription plans for various services, including yoga, strength training, wellness sessions, and personal training. Customers loved the classes, but they also loved looking for small savings whenever they could.

Some were first-timers hoping for a welcome deal.

Some were long-time clients asking for a loyalty benefit.

Others were referred by friends and were hoping for a referral discount.

 

At first, Maya tried to handle discounts manually by editing the invoice, creating a custom price and applying ad-hoc reductions. But as her studio grew, with multiple centres and more clients requesting discounts, she clearly understood that discounts weren't just giveaways; they were a strategic way to drive signups, retain customers, reward loyalty, and promote sales.

Unlike Maya, there are several thousand businesses and service providers who have considered offering discounts, but they end up creating a mess or stop midway due to an inappropriate configuration.

In this article, we are going to cover how Coupons in Zoho Billing offer convenience for giving discounts, setting up logic, and being transparent in their offerings.

Coupons in Zoho Billing 

Coupons allow you to apply controlled, rule-based discounts to subscriptions, invoices and addons. They help businesses attract customers, increase conversions and maintain long-term loyalty without losing control over revenue.

Zoho Billing's coupon system includes a wide range of powerful capabilities. Let's explore each of them in detail.

Discount Type 

Zoho Billing lets you design coupons with the discount calculation you want. It is done in two ways,

• Percentage-based discount. (Example 10% off)

• Flat rate discount. (Example $10 off)

Strategic Advantage:

Percentage discounts attract attention. It can be used for promotional sales and new customer incentives. At the same time, flat rate discounts maintain margin clarity, which can be used for targeted reductions or compensation credits. Align your discount type with your revenue model.

How are Discounts Deducted? 

The discount application affects how the subscriber actually experiences savings. Zoho Billing supports,

• Plan-level discount: Applied only for subscription plan pricing.

• Addon level discount: Applied only to selected addons.

• Invoice level discount: Applied to the total invoice amount.

• Recurring or one-time discounts: Apply either repeatedly or once, depending on how they are defined.

Strategic Advantage:

Control precisely where the discount applies so that promotions don't unintentionally reduce assured revenue.

Setting Up Expiry 

Coupons can be time-bound, ensuring urgency and promotional control. You can choose between,

• No expiry

• Specific calendar date for a limited promotional period.

Strategic Advantage:

Use expiries to create urgency ("Offer ends this Sunday!"), regulate campaign periods and avoid long-tern unintentional discounts.

Maximum Redemption 

Not all discounts are meant to be universal. Zoho Billing lets you limit how many times a coupon can be redeemed across all customers. You can set the redemption times as the number of times the discount gets applied to a subscription.

This is done to

• Prevent discount misuse.

• Keep promotions budget-friendly

• Make time-based campaigns more straightforward to manage.

Strategic Advantage:

Scarcity increases desire. Limited redemption coupons can rapidly boost signups.   

 Advanced Coupon  Management

Advanced Coupon Management addresses key challenges, including coupon duplication, eligibility control, and improved discount management. By enabling advanced coupons, the following configurations can be set up:

Customer Eligibility:

Advanced Coupon lets you define who can redeem the coupon. This is ideal for targeting specific groups, such as elite customers, new sign-ups, or high-value subscribers.

Example: Providing a 20% first-time discount for New signups.

Product Eligibility:

By creating separate coupons for different products, Advance coupons let you specify which product, plan, or addon is eligible for a discount. This way, you can configure coupons globally for all products.

Example: A coupon can be valid for "Plan A" and "Addon A" from "Product A", but restricted from use on "Product B".

Maximum Redemption Per Customer:

Businesses can now limit a coupon for a customer for a specific number of times, preventing excessive redemptions.

Example: A customer can redeem a 10% discount coupon for only two cycles, after which it becomes invalid.  

Strategic Advantage:

Advanced coupons help design lifecycle-based discounts (onboarding, reactivation, upsell nudges, etc) that increase retention.

Additional Coupon Codes 

Zoho Billing lets businesses generate multiple coupon codes linked to the same discount rule. You can create this in bulk or import it into the system, and it can be used.

A primary coupon is created by defining the discount structure (percentage or fixed amount), the maximum number of redemptions, and the expiry date. You can generate multiple coupons that link back to the Default Coupon in the following ways:

​
Manually Entering Codes: If you want to assign specific codes for tracking or personalisation. This will be helpful for small promotional campaigns.

​
Auto-Generate Codes: If you are running a large-scale campaign, you can let the system generate a batch of unique codes in bulk by defining the prefix, suffix, and the number of characters it takes.

This helps in,

• Tracking which marketing channel performs best.

• Personalising codes by customer segment.

• Running simultaneous campaigns using different code names.

• Avoiding manual discount creation to prevent duplication.

Strategic Advantage:

Multi-code campaigns let you measure Return on Investment across social media, email, influencers, events, referral sources and so on, all with the sample discount logic.

 What Coupons Do for Your Business 

Coupons are more than just discounts; they are a customer behaviour tool that drives more than just monetary advantage for a business. Different coupon configurations provide different outcomes.

They help you,

• Increase signups with welcome offers.

• Reactivate old customers with comeback incentives.

• Encourage plan upgrades with timed discounts.

• Drive referral and viral sharing.

• Introduce urgency that pushes customers to act.

 Coupons help businesses attract, retain, and re-engage customers while maintaining complete control over the revenue. Not all discounts are equal, but with the right system, they become a competitive advantage.

Up Next: Stay local & sell global.

 

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• Important Update: Google Ads & YouTube Ads API Migration

  To maintain platform performance and align with Google's newest requirements, we are updating the Google Ads and YouTube Ads integrations by migrating from API v19 to the newer v22, before the official deprecation of v19 on February 11, 2026. Reference:

• WhatsApp IM in Zoho Desk always routes to Admin instead of assigned agent

  Hello Zoho Experts, I connected WhatsApp IM to my Zoho Desk account. I only assigned my Customer Service (CS) agent to the WhatsApp channel, and I did NOT include Admin in this channel. However, every new WhatsApp conversation automatically gets assigned

• Zoho Recruit Community Meetup - London 🇬🇧

  Hello Recruiters! We’re excited to announce that the Zoho Recruit team is coming to the UK for an in-person Zoho User Group (ZUG) Meetup in London! This is your chance to connect with fellow Zoho users, learn from experts, and walk away with actionable

• Power Pivot and Data Modeling functionality in Zoho Sheet

  When will MS Excel functionalities like Power Pivot and Data Modeling functionalities be available in Zoho Sheet?

• Sender Email Configuration Error.

  Hello Team, Hope you are all doing well. We are in the process of creating the Zoho FSM environment in the UAE. When we try to add the sender email address “techsupportuae@stryker.com”, we receive the error message: “Error occurred while sending mail

• [Webinar] Solving business challenges- Handling the challenge of transitioning to Zoho Writer from legacy tools

  Moving to Zoho Writer is a great way to consolidate your business tools and become more agile. With multiple accessibility modes, no-code automation, and extensive integration with business apps and content platforms, Zoho Writer helps solve your organization's

• Canvas View bug

  I would like to report a bug. When clone a canvas view from an existing canvas view, if the original canvas view have canvas button with client script. Then the new create canvas view will have canvas button, it is make sense. But when I try to delete

• Global Search placement in the new UI

  Having a hard time with the global search placement in the UI redesign. Surely I can't be the only one. Previously global search placement was perfect. A bar at the top/center of the page. Exactly where you would expect it to be. Since the new UI has

• Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

  Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

• What's New - January 2026 | Zoho Backstage

  Welcome to 2026! If you thought last year was big, buckle up. We’re stepping into this year with a singular focus: unimaginable growth, elite scalability, and performance benchmarks that leave the old ways of event management in the rearview mirror. As

• Cliq on your mobile phone

  Some of the employees in my company get their cliq on their mobile phones but it will not let them answer the call. The employee has to go to their laptop to access it. 

• Scheduled sending of a poll and its results

  Is there a way to schedule sending a poll to all my users and have the results sent separately to the team?

• Bulk Delete Messages in Cliq

  Isn't it possible to bulk delete messages in Cliq? I have them delivered to me as notifications from another service but most of them need to be deleted as not of value. I get dozens of them per day, and deleting them is already difficult is the "Delete"

• stock movement report by each transaction for each item

  Dear Sir we are using zoho inventory for foodstuff and we lack the transaction report which clearly shows movement of an item from Opening balance of the month to Goods received in, Supplier return out, Invoice out, Sales return In, Transfer out and Transfer

• Does zoho inventory need Enterprise or Premium subsrciption to make Widgets.

  We have Zoho One Enterprise and yet we can't create widgets on inventory.

• Select the task view on the board in the Zoho Connect iPhone app

  Hello. How do I select the task view on the board in the Zoho Connect iPhone app? The Android app has this functionality.

• Unable to change Company Logo

  Hi Guys, I have an issue where I've uploaded a Company image in Gif format and the logo has now got a black background whereas the logo is supposed to be black not the background. I didn't think it would be an issue so I created a PNG version to upload

• Metadata API Access to Functions

  I think it would be incredibly helpful to have api access to every function's code. Our team primarily uses deluge functions to update fields across modules according to business logic. I would like to create a visual dependancy model for our CRM, but

• Historical Sales Info - Blend with Finance Invoice Line Items, Access in CRM and Desk

  My company has been using Zoho One since 2021, with sales data going back through 2020. However, we have been in business much longer, and we have historical sales information that we want to have at our fingertips when talking with customers (usually

• Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

  Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

• Introducing Record Category in CRM: Group options to see record status at a glance.

  Release update: Currently available for CN, JP, and AU DCs (all paid editions). It will be made available to other DCs by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to introduce Record Category in Zoho CRM - a new capability where the user can get an overview

• Change Last Name to not required in Leads

  I would like to upload 500 target companies as leads but I don't yet have contact people for them. Can you enable the option for me to turn this requirement off to need a Second Name? Moderation update (10-Jun-23): As we explore potential solutions for

• Zoho recruit's blueprint configuration is not functioning as mapped

  Current Status: Zoho Blueprint is not functioning as configured. Issue: We are moving a Candidate status in Zoho Recruit "for active file" but we encountered: "Status cannot be changed for records involved in Blueprint." This happens to various client

• Zoho CRM Layouts

  I have customised all our modules, Leads, Contacts and deals, and within them, I have created lots of different layouts depending on the type of Lead or contact, for example. Since the new Zoho UI came out, they have all disappeared. I have gone into

• Service disruption in Zoho Cliq (EU Region) – February 9, 2026

  Hello everyone, We’d like to inform you about a brief service disruption that affected Zoho Cliq users in the EU region earlier today. The issue has been resolved, and all services are now operating normally. Summary On February 9, 2026, Zoho Cliq experienced

• Spotlight series #26 - Build slides with visual clarity using Diagram

  Hello all! The feature in the spotlight this month is Diagram. Let's say you are a part of a project kickoff meeting and your teammate starts explaining the project life cycle like this: "First we ideate, then we create an initial prototype and share

• Client scripts for Zoho Books ?

  Good day everyone, I am looking for a way to be able to interact with the Quotes and Invoices as they are being created. Think of it like Zoho client script in Zoho CRM. But for the life of me I dont see a way to do this. The issue with having function

• Uplifted homepage experience

  Hello everyone, Creating your homepage is now much easier, more visual, and more impactful. Until now, your homepage allowed you to display custom views, widgets, analytic components, and Kiosk. With the following improvements, the homepage is now a smarter,

• Unable to produce monthly P&L reports for previous years

  My company just migrated to Books this year. We have 5+ years financial data and need to generate a monthly P&L for 2019 and a monthly P&L YTD for 2020. The latter is easy, but I'm VERY surprised to learn that default reports in Zoho Books cannot create

• What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

  Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally

• Sort by age

  It would be very helpful if there was a way to sort by age in the Age column. Please add this function if possible. Thanks!

• How to list services on quote instead of products

  I need to create a customer facing estimate that displays our services. The default quote layout only allows products to be listed. Is there a way to correct this?

• Task Order

  Hello! I've recently switched to Zoho Projects and a long time user of MS Project, Asana and LiquidPlanner (which has recently been purchased) and I'm running into a frustration I'm hoping someone can assist with. It has to do with how tasks are ordered

• Crossbeam

  Does anyone use Crossbeam with their Zoho CRM? I'm looking for a way to import Crossbeam partner leads into Zoho CRM. If so: - What's your experience been like? - Are you able to automatically import Crossbeam leads > Zoho CRM? How? - What doesn't work

• Access forms within a form

  I have multiple forms that I would like to create access to for users within one form. Example: I have forms A, B, C, D. I would like to create a form with the links to forms A, B, C, & D. That way we can send one link and then the user can select the

• WorkDrive issues with Windows Explorer Not Responding

  We are using WorkDrive to collaborate on editing video content. We have a lot of files and quite a few are a few gigs. Recently anytime I try and work with the files Explorer freezes for a couple minutes whether it's dragging the files into Premiere or

• Multiple Cover Letters

  We are using the staffing firm edition of Recruit and we have noticed that candidates cannot add more than one cover letter. This is a problem as they might be applying for multiple jobs on our career site and when we submit their application to a client,

• Issues with Actions By Zoho Flow

  Hi, I have a workflow that fires when a deal reaches a stage. This then sends out a contract for the client to sign. I have connected this up through Actions by Zoho Flow. Unfortunately this fails to send out. I have tracked it down to the date fields.

• Fill Mail Merge document up with subform fields of an Inventory module record being in the Related List

  Hi, I try to insert subform fields from an inventory module record being on the Related List of another inventory module record into a Mail Merge template without success. For example: we use ratecards in licensing and this ratecard items are available

• Enhancements for Currencies in Zoho CRM: Automatic exchange rate updates, options to update record exchange rates, and more

  The multi-currency feature helps you track currencies region-wise. This can apply to Sales, CTC, or any other currency-related data. You can record amounts in a customer’s local currency, while the CRM automatically converts them to your home currency

• Next Page