Billing Management: #6 Usage Billing in SaaS

Imagine a customer shuffling across multiple subscriptions, a streaming service, a music app, cloud storage, and a design tool. Each one charges a flat monthly fee, regardless of how much or how little they use. Some months, the customer barely opens the subscriptions, yet the bill is the same. This is what we call subscription fatigue, meaning resistance from the customer towards fixed, recurring charges that don't match their actual usage.   

For SaaS, subscription fatigue is more than a buzzword. It's a business risk as a flat rate may appear overcharging for one, but others enjoy paying less for their high usage. This imbalance leads to churn, lost revenue and customer grievances.

The solution lies in usage billing, where the customer pays based on what they consume. By aligning cost with value, businesses can increase fairness and unlock sustainable growth. While the principle is simple, it requires a reliable way to track and monetise usage properly.

Zoho Billing Makes Usage Billing Seamless

Zoho Billing provides SaaS businesses with all the tools needed to implement usage-based pricing effectively. Key capabilities that Zoho Billing offers that work effectively for SaaS businesses include:

• Flexible Pricing Tiers: Businesses can create multiple plans with different prices and list them on their websites for direct signup.

• Zero value Plan: For charging customers purely based on usage alone, businesses can create $0 value plan and associate usage addons to charge appropriately.

• Addons: Attach both flat-rated addons and usage-based addons to the subscription.

• Hybrid Model: Combine a flat subscription fee with usage-based addons to monetise additional consumption fairly.

When a usage addon is attached to a subscription, Zoho Billing ensures that usage is tracked, recorded and billed accurately.

Scenario 1:

Sam runs a small consulting firm and uses a mailing application to communicate with his clients. His plan costs $200 and includes 500 GB of storage. Sam stays within the limit most months; however, with many attachments, proposals and reports during a particular month, his mailbox usage exceeds by another 100 GB. The mailing application provides a usage addon for $0.50/GB for the additional usage instead of offering a rigid higher value plan.

Item	Value
Base Subscription	$200
Included Invoices	500
Actual Usage	600
Extra Usage	100
Unit Price for Extra Usage	$0.50/GB
Additional Charge	$50
Total Invoice Value (Base Price+Added Usage)	$250

The billing team records the extra 100 GB usage in Zoho Billing using the manual usage entry method and nothing more. The system automatically calculates $50 overage fee and appends it to the invoice to make the renewal invoice for the period $250.

Scenario 2:

Imagine Smith Enterprise uses a cloud analytics SaaS product. The contract covers a base subscription plan and two usage add-ons: API calls and storage. The base plan costs $500/month and includes 100,000 API calls and 500 GB storage. For every API call they make, an extra $0.01 per call will be charged. Similarly, for extra storage, $0.10 will be charged per GB. 

During a particular month, the company consumes 250,000 API calls and 750 GB of storage, clearly above the usage limit. A subsequent invoice is created, and the charge based on the usage data is added to the base subscription value.

Addon 1		Addon 2
Item	Value	Item	Value
Included API Calls	100,000	Includes Storage	500 GB
Actual Usage	250,000	Actual Usage	750 GB
Extra Usage	150,000	Extra Usage	250
Unit Price	$0.01/call	Unit Price	$0.10/GB
Additional Charge	150,000x$0.01= $1500	Additional Charge	250x$0.10= $25

 

Item	Charges
Base Subscription	$500
API Call Overage	$1500
Storage Overage	$25
Total Invoice	$2025

The company exports the API call logs and storage usage data into a CSV file that can be imported into Zoho Billing. Zoho Billing digests both records, applies the pricing rule separately for each add-on, and generates a consolidated invoice.

Scenario 3: 

Roy runs a digital marketing agency offering various marketing campaigns across social media platforms. Roy owns a SaaS application that generates posts and charges $1.5 per post design. No fixed base price for this, but their clients are purely charged based on the number of posts made. During festive sessions, Roy's team schedules a maximum of 450 posts for a client.

Item	Value
Base Subscription	$0
Rate per post	$1.5
Actual Usage	450 posts
Total Invoice Value ($1.5x450)	$675

 

Using Zoho Billing, Roy records the usage manually or by importing them into the system. With no base price, the platform automatically calculates the total invoice based on the usage. Roy receives a clear invoice for $675, reflecting the value consumed.

SaaS Usage Billing Simplified

Usage Billing ensures that customers pay only for what they consume, whether extra storage, extra API calls, or purely based on the number of posts made. With Zoho Billing, SaaS businesses can seamlessly manage complex and straightforward usage billing scenarios. Adding usage to Zoho Billing is simplified through different methods. It can be added manually if there are fewer subscriptions, and usage data can be imported if there are more subscriptions and usage add-ons. Usage can also be pushed using APIs into Zoho Billing.

Post your use cases in the comments and find the best way to handle them using Zoho Billing.

Next, we will dive into Usage Billing in Telecom and Internet Service Providers, showing how this model powers those sectors. 

• 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

• Project Change Orders and Additions

  We are in the process of migrating from QuickBooks Online to Zoho Books. We have Zoho One and like the ability to sync all of our data across everything. And I like that projects work in a way that's less dumb than QuickBooks. I'm trying to figure out

• ZOHO Desk - Description of slave ticket disappeared after Merge

  Dear Support, On Zoho Desk the description of a ticket disappeared after merging two ticket. The one which was the slave one completely disappeared. The problem that in this description there was an image which i had only on Desk in that ticket. Could

• How do I insert a cross-reference link to a different section within one Knowledge Base article using Zoho Desk?

  I would like to insert a link within a Knowledge Base article to a different section of that same article. The section I want to link to is formatted with the Heading 3 style and is displayed within my TOC. However, I do not see any way to add a link

• Problem Adding Facebook Account

  Hi, I'm new here, I'm having trouble setting up my Facebook account as a social channel. I think the issue is down to how my Facebook is set up, which is pretty confusing. I have a personal Facebook account (let’s called it A) which is my main Facebook

• Zoho Desk Teams App is not loading

  Hi Zoho Desk support. Need an assistance on the Zoho Desk Teams app. Once I click View Ticket, it isn't showing anything. Kindly refer to attached: ZohoDesk Teams App_View Ticket Error.jpg For our Dashboard, we are still experiencing the same issue. Kindly

• About Meetings (Events module)

  I was working on an automation to cancel appointments in zoho flow , and in our case, we're using the Meetings module (which is called Events in API terms). But while working with it, I'm wondering what information I can display in the image where the

• Zoho People - Retrieve the Leave Details - get("LeaveCount")

  Hi, Zoho People I need to collect all of an employee's leave requests for the calendar year and check how many half-days they have taken. If I run the script on the query he just modified, I can retrieve the information related to that query and use the

• Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

  Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

• Which WhatsApp API works seamlessly with Zoho CRM?

  I’m exploring WhatsApp API solutions that integrate seamlessly with Zoho CRM for customer communication, lead nurturing, and automation. I would love to hear insights from those who have successfully implemented WhatsApp within Zoho CRM. My Requirements:

• Allow people to sign a zoho form by using esign or scanned signature

  Allow people to sign a zoho form by using esign or scanned signature

• Button to Reapply Filters on Sheet(s)

  I wrote a macro that I attached to a button to reapply the filters on all my sheets and it says it works, but it doesn't actually do anything. What is wrong with it? Is there another way? Or even make it work for one sheet? Sub UniversalFilterRefresh()

• Integrate Multiple ZohoBooks organization with zoho projects

  We have successfully connected our Zoho Books with Zoho Projects for synronizing timesheet data. Our Business specialty is, that the staff of the Main company (A) is working on several projects, but the Clients are sometimes contracted and paying to a

• Zoho OAuth Connector Deprecation and Its Impact on Zoho Desk

  Hello everyone, Zoho believes in continuously refining its integrations to uphold the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of this ongoing improvement, the Zoho OAuth default connector will be deprecated for all Zoho services

• Flexible Partial-Use Coupons (Stored Value Credits)

  Subject: Feature Request: Ability for users to apply partial coupon balances per transaction Problem Statement Currently, our coupons are "one-and-done." If a user has a $50 coupon but only spends $30, they either lose the remaining $20 or are forced

• Unable to Assign Multiple Categories to a Single Product in Zoho Commerce

  Hello Zoho Commerce Support Team, I am facing an issue while assigning categories to products in Zoho Commerce. I want to assign multiple categories to a single product, but in the Item edit page, the Category field allows selecting only one category

• How do I add todays date to merge field

  I don't see any selection of todays date when creating a letter. Surely the date option of printing is standard? John

• Polish signer experience to compete with docusign

  I would like to suggest that someone spend the little bit of time to polish the signer experience, and the email templates to more of a modern professional feel. They are currently very early 2000s and with some simple changes could vastly improve the

• Add RTL and Hebrew Support for Candidate Portal (and Other Zoho Recruit Portals)

  Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to set the Candidate Portal to be Right-to-Left (RTL) and in Hebrew, similar to the existing functionality for the Career Site. Currently, when we set the Career Site

• 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,

• Tracking Emails sent through Outlook

  All of our sales team have their Outlook 365 accounts setup with IMAP integration. We're trying to track their email activity that occurs outside the CRM. I can see the email exchanges between the sales people and the clients in the contact module. But

• Whats that

  Price?

• 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

• The same Contact associated to multiple Companies - Deals

  Hi, I would like to know if there is an option to associate the same contact with multiple companies (two or more) deals, using the same contact details for all. This is because we have contacts who are linked to different companies or branches of the

• Convert invoice from zoho to xml with all details

  How to convert an Invoice to XML format with all details

• Portals-Adjust Column Sizes

  I am trying to adjust the column widths in Portals tabs. Columns that don't need to be wide are wide and longer ones are very short. I thought adding more to the digits box in Edit would widen them, but it doesn't. Anyone know how to adjust these?

• Add link/button to open approved record from approval list and detail views?

  Hi, How do I allow users to click on an approval record and open that submission? For example, userA submits a quotation then userB approves/rejects. They both can see the quotation on "completed task" list & detail views, but there's no way for them

• record submitted from creator and invoice is creating in books , but the workflow of books is not tiggering on create of record in books

  record submitted from creator and invoice is creating in books , but the workflow of books is not tiggering on create of record in books headermap = Map(); headermap.put("X-ZOHO-Execute-CustomFunction","true"); response_inv = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3/invoices/fromsalesorder?salesorder_id="

• Prevent editing of a record after getting approved/rejectedr

  Hi, I'd like to block any user from editing a record after it was approved or rejected, how can I do that?

• Formula Field/Campo de Fórmula

  Hello everyone, I have a purchase requisition form in which each department submits a request, and the request is automatically routed to the person responsible for that department. In this form, I have several fields with the following link names: Quantidade1,

• Free Webinar: Zoho Sign for Zoho Projects: Automate tasks and approvals with e-signatures

  Hi there! Handling multiple projects at once? Zoho Projects is your solution for automated and streamlined project management, and with the Zoho Sign extension, you can sign, send, and manage digital paperwork directly from your project workspace. Join

• Formatting Problem | Export to Zoho Sheet View

  When I export data to Zoho Sheet View, ID columns are automatically formatted as scientific notation. Reformatting them to text changes the actual ID values. For example, 6557000335603071 becomes 6557000335603070. I have attached screenshots showing this

• Introducing Workqueue: your all-in-one view to manage daily work

  Hello all, We’re excited to introduce a major productivity boost to your CRM experience: Workqueue, a dynamic, all-in-one workspace that brings every important sales activity, approval, and follow-up right to your fingertips. What is Workqueue? Sales

• Feature Request - The Ability to Link A Customer with a Vendor

  Hi Finance Suite Team, Many businesses buy and sell products from the same companies or individuals. For example, a car sales business may buy a car from a member of the public, and that member of the public may also buy a new car from us. This makes

• Long table name (sync from Zoho Creator)

  Dears, How can I remove the suffix in parentheses? These tables are synced from Zoho Creator and are treated as system tables, so their names cannot be changed. This issue makes the aggregation formulas look awful.

• [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Streamlining incident management process with Zoho Creator

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to another edition of the Learning Table Series webinar. As you may already know, we've moved to a purpose-based approach in the Learning Table Series this year. Each session now focuses on how a Zoho Creator

• Unattended - Silent

  How can I hide the tray icon / pop up window during unattended remote access for silent unattended remote access?

• Importing into Multiselect Picklist

  Hi, We just completed a trade show and one of the bits of information we collect is tool style. The application supplied by the show set this up as individual questions. For example, if the customer used Thick Turret and Trumpf style but not Thin Turret,

• Text snippet

  There is a nice feature in Zoho Desk called Text Snippet. It allows you to insert a bit of text anywhere in a reply that you are typing. That would be nice to have that option in Zoho CRM as well when we compose an email. Moderation Update: We agree that

• Marketing Tip #18: Make your online store mobile-friendly to improve traffic

  Most online shoppers browse on their phones first. If your store is hard to read, slow to load, or tricky to navigate on mobile, they’ll bounce fast. A mobile-friendly store doesn’t just look nice; it improves engagement, reduces drop-offs, and helps

• [Need help] Form closed. Please contact your form administrator for further assistance.

  https://forms.zohopublic.com/cceinfoifly1/form/CCE2025CCEFocusGroupRegistrationForm2025Fall/formperma/s_8XcLETTbFxZ_TAS4r_W6W5UBl8o5oxEnIX35IBKg4 I checked we didn't exceed the usage limit and form availability is enabled, Please help us enable this form

• Next Page