Pricing Strategies: #1 Nuances in Pricing

Pricing Strategies: #1 Nuances in Pricing

When Clara first opened her digital printing shop, pricing was simple. She sold handmade greeting cards, planners, business cards, and other physical items at fixed label prices, individually and in bulk. One SKU, one price, one bill, and that's all it took.


But as business grew, people started using digital signage and boards, and customers wanted more than just a one-time product from Clara. They needed event invites designed, corporate gift packages, annual print subscriptions, and even on-demand branding services for special occasions.

Suddenly, pricing wasn't simple anymore.

A business card might cost $2, but designing a wedding card set is a one-time creative service. Corporate print delivery repeats monthly, with many customisations. Branding projects take multiple stages before they're finalised. For Bulk orders, it requires a tiered or usage-based pricing slab. Clara had transformed into a mixed-model business that offers products, services, and subscriptions based on vendors and projects.

Clara realised that the pricing is no longer just numbers but a strategy to be well-crafted and executed.

Challenge with Evolving Business Models 

Most businesses eventually reach a point like Clara.

  • They sell physical/commercial goods at fixed pricing.

  • They offer one-time services with one-time service pricing.

  • They move to subscription revenue, where it is recurring or usage-based pricing.

  • They handle custom work under milestone or project-based pricing.

Every model has its own billing rhythm, revenue pattern, taxation logic, discount rules, and contract structure. And managing each manually in a spreadsheet or with individual tools for each invoicing model will be nothing but chaotic.


You need to be flexible with structure. You need a system that lets your pricing evolve without friction.

Zoho Billing is built for businesses that change, grow, experiment, and scale without burning time restructuring pricing.


Product/Physical Goods Pricing

For businesses that sell tangible items, pricing needs to be predefined and easily accessible at the point of sale. In Zoho Billing, you can configure each product as an item with its rate, unit, and tax preference, making invoicing a two-click process. Whether someone buys one note or 200, you don't need to remember pricing manually it;s already available and accurate. The convenience lies in setting it up once and using it multiple times across different invoices.


Idea
Tips: Turn pricing into a system that instantly recalls. The faster the invoice is generated, the faster the payment flows. Predefined product pricing reduces negotiation time, improves customer confidence, and supports sales growth without operational hiccups.


One-Time Service Pricing

When your service is delivered once, for instance, design work, installation, gardening, etc, you need a smooth way to charge for it without building a new billing structure every time. With Zoho Billing, one-time services can be created as items with fixed or variable billing units, making invoicing as simple as adding the service line. Instead of calculating cost per job repeatedly, pricing becomes standardised, repeatable and instant. You deliver value once, and billing follows instantly with clarity.


Idea
Tips: Productise service. When pricing is packaged, it becomes easier to pitch, scale and repeat. Billing isn't an afterthought; it becomes a part of your service proposition itself.

Subscription Ongoing Services Pricing

As a business scales, recurring revenue often becomes a significant source of income—through monthly retainers, annual supply contracts, maintenance services, SaaS offerings, etc. Zoho Billing allows you to convert services into subscription plans with predefined billing cycles, renewal trial options, and add-ons. Once configured, the system automates invoicing at scheduled intervals. All you need to do is define pricing once, and Zoho Billing bills on your behalf.


Idea
Tips: Build predictability. A subscription model isn't just about charging periodically. It's about removing effort from revenue collection. Once pricing is defined, the system manages recurring invoices while your focus shifts to delivery, retention, and scaling.

Project Pricing

Projects are dynamic, and the pricing varies based on time, milestones, and additional expenses. Zoho Billing helps manage these complexities by letting you bill based on hours worked, tasks completed, or pre-agreed stages. You can even link costs and convert them directly into a claimable invoice item. Instead of manually tracking across documents, everything feeds into one billing workflow. Project process, expense add-up, and invoice are reflected transparently, with pricing already defined and ready to deploy.


Idea
Tips: Balance freedom with financial clarity. When pricing models adapt to project scope without backtracking into manual recalculation, you win two battles at once: delivery agility and revenue accuracy. Every hour, every task, and every expense converts into billable value without delay or data loss.

What Pricing Flexibility Offers to Businesses 

Business growth introduces multiple revenue models, but with Zoho Billing, each can be priced, pre-configured, and billed effortlessly. Whether you're selling goods, delivering services, managing subscription contracts, or long-term projects, pricing remains consistent, organised, and, on top of it all, completely scalable.


As a business, pricing is not just what you charge; it's how effectively and smoothly you present it to the customer. 

Notes
Up Next: Plan your service offering with Plans. 

    Access your files securely from anywhere

        All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.







                              Zoho Developer Community




                                                    • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                    • Digest


                                                    • Functions


                                                    • Meetups


                                                    • Kbase


                                                    • Resources


                                                    • Glossary


                                                    • Desk Marketplace


                                                    • MVP Corner


                                                    • Word of the Day


                                                    • Ask the Experts



                                                              • 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


                                                              Manage your brands on social media



                                                                    Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                        Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                          Zoho Books Resources


                                                                            Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                              Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                                Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                  Qntrl Resources


                                                                                    Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                        Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                        • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                          CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                        • Kaizen

                                                                                          Kaizen

                                                                                        • Functions

                                                                                          Functions

                                                                                        • Meetups

                                                                                          Meetups

                                                                                        • Kbase

                                                                                          Kbase

                                                                                        • Resources

                                                                                          Resources

                                                                                        • Digest

                                                                                          Digest

                                                                                        • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                          CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        • MVP Corner

                                                                                          MVP Corner









                                                                                            Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                            Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                            Get Started Now


                                                                                              Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                                Zoho Writer

                                                                                                Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                                Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                  Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                                                                                    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                        ご検討中の方




                                                                                                                • Recent Topics

                                                                                                                • How to Send Email from within a custom module (with or without an email template)

                                                                                                                  It is possible to send an email from the Deals module. However, I can't find a way to send an email from any of our custom modules. I have tried adding an email field to the modules (even though we don't really want one or need it there). That doesn't
                                                                                                                • Zoho Inventory - Managing Items With Multiple Suppliers

                                                                                                                  Hi community, I'm working on a project at the moment for a car parts wholesale business. Each Item (part) has its own original manufacturer part number (sometimes more than one part number for the same item). When purchasing parts from 3rd party suppliers,
                                                                                                                • How do I see the total leads during a certain period?

                                                                                                                  I understand I can get the count of leads and potentials but the total number of leads in a certain period should be equal to Leads+potentials because when we convert a lead it gets moved to potentials and no longer exists there. is there a way i could
                                                                                                                • Where is the Global Search field?

                                                                                                                  I am looking for an alternative to SF.com. Zoho CRM seems to be work fine, and be customizable in terms of the fields and reports. But there's one big thing missing and it's going to prevent us from using it: there's no global search box at the top of
                                                                                                                • Keeping start and end time logged, when using the timer

                                                                                                                  As it seems to be now: I sometimes forget to stop and restart the timer, when switching projects. And switching between projects happens upto 10 times a day. Since there's no indication to when a timer was started or stopped, I have to guess how many hours I have to remove from one project and add it to another.
                                                                                                                • In place field editing for candidates

                                                                                                                  Wondering about any insight/best practices for efficiently updating candidate records while reviewing them in a Job Opening pipeline. We can do in-field editing (e.g. update job title or City) only when we have the full candidate record open, however
                                                                                                                • Default tax type for mileage?

                                                                                                                  Where we are, mileage includes a government tax. Is there any way to set a default tax for the Personal Car Mileage category of expense? (Or any other way?)
                                                                                                                • Cliq File Upload

                                                                                                                  While uploading large file like 500MB, it takes time, that fines. But if you resize window or move window in other screen, that uploading disappears. After upload complete & sent it will be visible
                                                                                                                • Constant color of a legend value

                                                                                                                  It would be nice if we can set a constant color/pattern to a value when creating a chart. We would often use the same value in different graph options and I always have to copy the color that we've set to a certain value from a previous graph to make
                                                                                                                • What's New in Zoho POS - October 2025

                                                                                                                  Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS's monthly updates, where we share our latest feature updates, releases, changes, and more. Let’s take a look at how October went. Process returns for refunds, exchanges, or offer store credit Returns and exchanges can
                                                                                                                • Zoho Connect Module in Zoho Trident

                                                                                                                  Hi I really like where Zoho Trident is going. Having Mail and Cliq in one place is especially powerful. However, Zoho Connect really needs to be included to make this a true communication and collaboration hub. I would like to request that Zoho Connect
                                                                                                                • File Field Validation

                                                                                                                  Hello all, We are tracking our customer NDA agreements in our CRM and have created 2 fields to do so, an execution date field and a file upload field. I want to create a validation rule to ensure that when the execution date field is populated that the
                                                                                                                • 100 record view limitation

                                                                                                                  I have just migrated from another CRM and am starting in ZOHOcrm with over 5000 contacts. It seems that my searches and sorts are limited to 100 live records....or am I missing something. This seems to be very limiting...in a lot of scenarios (mass email,
                                                                                                                • Categorise Attachments

                                                                                                                  We take ID, proof of address, right to work documentation and more.  I can upload a single file in to field, but we often receive multiple files for each category e.g. someone may send a separate file for the front and back of their national ID card.  My team don't have time to manipulate the files in order to upload them as a single file. The options, as far as I can tell, would be to create additional fields on attachments in order to categorise what the file is, or to be able to upload single
                                                                                                                • Scheduling a meeting for just a 1:1 phone call

                                                                                                                  My business is B2C and many of my customer's don't want to engage in an online meeting for what can be handled in a regular phone call. I am trying to create a new meeting invitation, but there is no venue optoin for "phone call". How are other's handling
                                                                                                                • Need more details on API Usage Dashboard

                                                                                                                  Hi Team, We have implemented Zoho Expense for a client and has done some integrations with well known third party ERP via api. Recently we have noticed a huge spike in the API consumption. But we couldn't get the root cause for the same. I accept there
                                                                                                                • Power of Automation:: Automating SLA Timelines for First Response & Resolution for Issues module.

                                                                                                                  Hello Everyone, Ever wished SLAs could update automatically based on issue severity i.e no manual tracking, no missed timelines? That is exactly what one of our customers, Alex, wanted to achieve in the Issues module. So, we have setup a simple automation
                                                                                                                • Power of Automation :: Quick way to associate your Projects with Zoho CRM

                                                                                                                  A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks and
                                                                                                                • Move orders scan ISBN

                                                                                                                  Hi We have ISBN setup to be searched in items zoho but move orders dissent recognize the ISBN is there q missing configuration? regards, JS
                                                                                                                • What's New - October 2025 | Zoho Backstage

                                                                                                                  Hey everyone! We’ve been busy rolling out a host of upgrades for Zoho Backstage. While some major features are still going through final rounds of testing to make your event experience smooth as butter, here’s what was new and improved in October 2025.
                                                                                                                • Zoho People Attendance Regularization – Wrong Total Hours Displayed

                                                                                                                  While using Zoho People, I observed that the attendance regularization is showing wrong total hours when applied to past dates. For example, if a check-in is added at 10:00 AM and check-out at 6:00 PM for a previous date, the system sometimes calculates
                                                                                                                • Add Flexible Recurrence Options for Meeting Scheduling in Zoho Cliq (e.g., Every 2 Weeks)

                                                                                                                  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, when scheduling a meeting inside Zoho Cliq, the recurrence options are limited to Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. There is no ability to set a meeting to occur every X weeks — for example,
                                                                                                                • Subform Disabled Fields Should Remain Disabled on Edit/View

                                                                                                                  Currently, when we disable a subform field using on user input or on add new row, it works perfectly during the initial data entry. However, when the record is saved and reopened for viewing or editing, these disabled fields become editable again. This
                                                                                                                • Hide "Section" headers when using a form as a subform in "List view"

                                                                                                                  When using a form as a subform and setting the "View Type" to "List View" it is not possible to hide the section headers. This can become an issue if I have a section which is not applicable to this subform and I hide the fields within that section and
                                                                                                                • Add additional field to quick search results

                                                                                                                  IN the advanced search, we can add any field to the columns. In the regular search results (before you press enter, there is no option to modify the results. It would be super useful to include a custom field where it currently displays the pipleine
                                                                                                                • Need Help: Updating Related Records via Subform Entries in Zoho Creator

                                                                                                                  Hi everyone, I’m trying to set up a workflow in Zoho Creator where each row in a subform updates related records in another form automatically. Here’s the situation: My main form (e.g., “Receipts”) contains a subform where each row selects a related record
                                                                                                                • Disable signing in using email aliases?

                                                                                                                  Hi, I currently have user accounts that have multiple aliases, for example: Main: name@domain.com Alias: alias1@domain.com, alias2@domain.com Currently, I am able to use any of those 3 emails in the 'username' box during login, and it will log me into the email. Is there a way to setup so that email aliases cannot be used to sign on? I'd still be able to receive and send emails using those aliases in the main email account like it works now, except only the main email can be used to login. Cheers!
                                                                                                                • Zoho Desk - Community - Customer Portal - Description Field UX Improvement

                                                                                                                  Hi Zoho Desk Team, As a prolific user of Zoho Cares Community, I find it very frustrating that I cannot increase the size of the Description box (this one which I am typing this message). Many apps with multi line text fields have a small handle in the
                                                                                                                • Add the same FROM email to multiple department

                                                                                                                  Hi, We have several agents who work with multiple departments and we'd like to be able to select their names on the FROM field (sender), but apparently it's not possible to add a FROM address to multiple departments. Is there any way around this? Thanks.
                                                                                                                • Lead to Contact Conversion with multiple email address fields

                                                                                                                  We are a B2C business with a strong repeat cycle, and as such it's not uncommon for customers to use multiple email addresses with us. We have both our Contacts & Leads modules set up with 3 email fields. (Primary Email / Secondary Email / Historic Email)
                                                                                                                • Exporting Charts from ZohoCRM

                                                                                                                  Hi...I'm relatively new to ZohoCRM, but very happy with it so far. I have all my leads and potentials accurately entered, and like the reports that I can view, with charts at the top of the data. But when I export the data, I'm receiving only the data, whether I export as excel, csv or pdf. How can I export both the chart and the data? In case it makes a difference, I'm using the free version right now. I tried researching the other editions to see if a paid version of the software offered the ability
                                                                                                                • Automatically Update Ticket Status in Zoho Desk Based on Actions in Zoho Projects

                                                                                                                  Hi Zoho Desk Team, Hope you’re doing well. We’re using the Zoho Desk–Zoho Projects integration to manage tasks related to customer tickets, and it works well for linking and tracking progress. However, there are a few important automation capabilities
                                                                                                                • sms long credits

                                                                                                                  I’m trying to purchase Long Code credits so I can send SMS campaigns to my contacts. However, when I click the “Buy Now” button, the page appears blank and doesn’t load any purchase options. Could you please assist me in purchasing the Long Code credits
                                                                                                                • Tip #48- Power Your AI Workflows with Zoho Assist on Zapier’s MCP- 'Insider Insights'

                                                                                                                  We’re thrilled to announce that Zoho Assist is now part of Zapier’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), bringing remote support automation right into your AI ecosystem. What is MCP? The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Zapier’s new framework designed to connect
                                                                                                                • Insert Cookie Policy in Zoho Sites

                                                                                                                  Hello, i need to insert a banner on my site because i'm in Italy so i have to respect EU laws for Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy. I see that i need to insert a code in <head> section of my site to show a banner/popup with cookie info. How i can do this? Thank you Luca
                                                                                                                • Forced Logouts - Daily and More Frequent

                                                                                                                  In the last month or so, I've been getting "power logged out" of all of my Zoho apps at least daily, sometimes more frequently. This happens in the same browser session on the same computer, and I need to re-login to each app separately after this happens.
                                                                                                                • ENTER key triggering Submit

                                                                                                                  Is it possible to stopped the ENTER key from the mandatory triggering of the Submit button on Creator form? I want forms submitted "ONLY" when the Submit button is pressed. 
                                                                                                                • Is it possible to assign Client user to external task ON PROJECTS' TEMPLATES?

                                                                                                                  Is it possible to assign Client user to external task ON TEMPLATES PROJECTS?
                                                                                                                • Cliq does not sync messages after Sleep on Mac

                                                                                                                  I'm using the mac app of Cliq. When I open my mac after it was in sleep mode, Cliq does not sync the messages that I received. I always have to reload using cmd + R, which is not what I want when using a chat application.
                                                                                                                • Link to images

                                                                                                                  I have added images in pages. I would like to link those images with linked in URL so that they open in new window. There is an option of image -> link but I am not able to use the same to open URL in new window. Please check the attached image. Can you
                                                                                                                • Next Page