Pricing Strategies: #2 Plan your Service Offerings using Plans
Meet Harvey & Mia, hailing from the same Tech school, carrying the dream of setting up their own IT maintenance firm in their location. They drew up a clear business plan and put their business in motion on New Year's Eve. They had great reception right from the beginning. Harvey was a little concerned about investing in a back-office solution and decided to work with basic tools for customer management, invoicing, and reporting.
Whereas Mia, even though she had a similar start to Harvey, liked to experiment and get into solid back office solutions upfront. Months went by, and the customer base grew to nearly a thousand.
"Another month, another batch of invoices.. "
That's what Harvey sighed every time he sat down to prepare billing for his IT maintenance clients. Every month looked the same: scan last month's invoice, tweak a few numbers, re-check the values, send again. But as his business grew, so did the inconsistencies. Some clients increased their usage, some reduced it, and some added new devices in the mid-month. Yet, his recurring invoices didn't reflect these nuances unless he manually intervened.
Meanwhile, his friend Mia seemed to scale effortlessly. Her billing wasn't tired of recurring invoices at all. She used subscription plans. Instead of repeating invoices, she packaged her offerings into structured plans that made sense to her customers. She presented multiple plans, each with a clear scope, usage allowance, and pricing model. Customers subscribed, upgraded, downgraded or extended without requiring Mia to rebuild or recalculate an invoice. Her billing ran on autopilot most of the time, while Harvey found himself buried in month-end edits.
This contrast highlights the importance of being ready for the shift, especially if you are offering services. Recurring invoices keep generating revenue, but subscription plans build businesses and help you strategise your sales.
Subscription Plans Vs Recurring Invoices
Recurring invoices repeat a charge. They don't really understand usage, limits, upgrades, downgrades or changes in the billing cycle. In contrast, Plans in Zoho Billing is designed to inherit usage, limits, and amendments, and to provide room for scaling.
Recurring Invoices | Subscription Plans |
Every billing cycle needs manual oversight. | Billing is automated based on a predefined frequency. |
Pricing adjustments require editing the template. | Pricing is structured by tiers or units. |
Usage changes are tracked separately. | Upgrades and downgrades are seamless and prorated. |
Customers have little clarity on what's included and what's not. | Customers understand precisely what they're paying for. |
Scaling takes lots of admin effort. | Scaling becomes operationally effortless. |
Tips: If you deliver services regularly, you can experiment by productising your services into plans rather than billing them as recurring invoices. It simplifies billing and strengthens your offerings.
Plans: The Foundation of Subscription-Based Billing
A subscription plan is more than a price bracket. It's a packaged version of your ongoing services. It defines,
What does the customer receive?
How often are they billed?
Does the usage limit apply?
How do pricing changes as they scale?
It transforms your service into a structured offering your customers can choose from, compare and grow with.
Zoho Billing arguably offers the best plan configuration for every service industry, from SaaS to membership, fintech, and consulting.
Different Pricing Models for Plans
Subscription plans are not always a single plan. You are free to add as many plans for the service as you like, with different inclusions and limitations for each. Zoho Billing allows multiple pricing models that help your services evolve naturally.
Flat Pricing
Flat pricing suits businesses whose service value remains consistent every month. Customers pay a fixed, recurring amount regardless of usage, providing simplicity for customers and stability for businesses.
Best Fit for:
Field Services or pre-booked services.
Legal or Accounting Services.
Financial services.
Memberships
Strategic Advantage:
Flat pricing reduces customer decision-making and makes your offering easy to understand and market.
Unit-Based Pricing
This pricing is transparent and straightforward. It allows you to charge your clients per user, per device, per site or per hour.
Best Fit for:
IT services.
HR or accounting services.
Maintenance industries.
Strategic Advantage:
Unit price gives clarity, and customers instantly understand what they're paying for.
Tier-Based Pricing
This pricing model allows you to charge exactly based on the pricing tier. Customers move through predefined tiers based on usage (eg, hours, tickets, devices, etc). Each tier has its own price and benefits.
Best Fit for:
Growing teams with varying usage.
Service levels such as Basic, Standard, and Premium.
Strategic Advantage:
Tier creates a natural upgrade path and fair, usage-based billing.
Volume-Based Pricing
This pricing method provides a single rate based on total usage. This provides the convenience of offering lower rates for high-volume purchases.
Best Fit for:
Device management
Bulk service consumption.
Strategic Advantage:
Volume pricing encourages customers to consume more to unlock better pricing.
Package-Based Pricing
Packaging typically means combining one or more services into fixed bundles. This is popular as it appears to be more value for money.
Best Fit for:
SaaS Businesses
Streaming Services.
Strategic Advantage:
Package or bundle pricing increases product/service perceived value and simplifies decision-making.
What Subscription Plans Do for Your Business
Implementing plans shifts your service from "bill me monthly" to "subscribe to what fits me". It enhances customer experience and streamlines your operations.
With plans, your business gains predictable and stable recurring revenue. It automates changes to the subscription, including upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations. It makes it easy for customers to scale based on their requirements.
For CFOs and CEOs, Zoho Billing provides reports based on plans that envision the possible positioning of their product/service based on pricing, location, region or customer purchase behaviour.
That's the real power of subscription plans. They turn recurring services into recurring growth with more structured, predictable and strategically aligned for scale.
Up Next: Services Never Stop with just Plans.
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
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'sCommunity 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 youCommunity 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 mostIntroducing: 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
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
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
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Invoice template, how to change the text under "Notes" and "Terms and Conditions"
In "Invoice templates", there are two text/info sections at the bottom:"Notes" and "Terms and Conditions". It is possible to change the names of these two headings, but how is it possible to change/alter the text under it. As a standard it says "Thank you for your business" under Notes - I need to change it into something different- How? Thank you.Recurring Tasks and Reminders in Projects
Recurring tasks are tasks that are created once, and then recreated automatically after a designated time period. For example, the invoice for your billable tasks is due every week. You can set that task to recreate itself every week. Also, the futureUnable to remove the “Automatically Assigned” territory from existing records
Hello Zoho Community Team, We are currently using Territory Management in Zoho CRM and have encountered an issue with automatically assigned territories on Account records. Once any account is created the territory is assigned automatically, the AutomaticallyImproved Functionality PO Bill SO Invoice
Hello, I need to enter over 100 items, it's frustrating to scroll a few item rows and wait for more to load, then scroll again. It would be nice to have buttons that scroll to the top or bottom with one click. Furthermore, these items I'm adding are VATWishes for 2026
Hello, and a happy new year 2026! Let's hope it's better for everyone. I'd like to share some thoughts on Zoho One and what could be useful in the short, medium, and long term. Some things are already there, but not applied to Zoho One. Others seem likeHow to Integrate Zoho Books with Xero (No Native Connection Available)
Hi everyone, I’m currently facing an issue with integrating Zoho Books invoices with Xero, as I’ve noticed Zoho does not provide a native integration with Xero at this time. I would like to ask: What are the common or recommended solutions for syncingZohoSalesIQ.Chat cannot send messages
Chat cannot send messages. Our app implements the customer service chat window functionality by integrating the Mobilisten SDK. Recently, we encountered an issue: after successful SDK initialization and visitor registration, when the `startWithQuestion`Markup instead of discount??
Is it possible to have the discount field on an invoice or estimate be a markup instead? It's the very same functionality that I am looking for - to be able to markup an individual item by either a $ or a % and have that cost added (instead of subtracted) to the item cost. Currently, I use the tax feature to accomplish this, but it's very awkward to have "Markup 15%" listed after the subtotal. Plus, if I want to markup items at different rates, I end up with several "markup" lines in the totalsPlan switch
I thought I pressed the Free button, but after they set up the account, I see that I am on a Premium trial. Is this usual? How do I get onto the Free version?'Tax registration date'?
The second question in setting up is 'Tax registration date'. My first question: which tax? My second question: why do you need the registration date?What if we don't have an ABN?
Australian business. Setting up. We have no ABN. It's not compulsory. Field not allowed to be blank. What to do?Keeping track of project expenses
I have talked to a few support techs and it is very hard for me to believe that Zoho's project accounting software can't keep accounts for my projects. I must not understand what they're saying. We get a contract to build something. So the project revenueLinking Multi-UOM Barcodes to Products in Zoho Books
Greetings, I'm using Zoho Books for retail shop and I'm running into a bit of a challenge with products that have multiple Units of Measurement (UOMs) and corresponding barcodes. For example, I sell cigarettes both as individual packets and in cartonsHow to change "from" email address when invoicing.
HELP! I'm new to Zoho Books and when I first set it up used a different email address than I currently want to use. I've tried to go to settings and change the default email address but when I generate an invoice it still shows the old email address (although I can't find it anywhere else). I really need to get this changed before I can use the program. Any help would be appreciated.Critical Issue: Tickets Opened for Zoho Support via the Zoho Help Portal Were Not Processed
Hi everyone, We want to bring to your attention a serious issue we’ve experienced with the Zoho support Help Portal. For more than a week, tickets submitted directly via the Help Portal were not being handled at all. At the same time no alert was postedHide/Show Subform Fields On User Input
Hello, Are there any future updates in Hide/Show Subform Fields "On User Input"?Cloning Item With Images Or The Option With Images
Hello, when I clone an item, I expect the images to carry over to the cloned item, however this is not the case in Inventory. Please make it possible for the images to get cloned or at least can we get a pop up asking if we want to clone the images asCustom validation in CRM schema
Validation rules in CRM layouts work nicely, good docs by @Kiran Karthik P https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/validation-rules/articles/create-validation-rules I'd prefer validating data input 'closer to the schema'Adding Default Module Image into mail merge field
As with most people finding their way to these forums i have a specific requirement that doesn't seem to be supported by Zoho I have created 2 custom modules to suit my purpose 1 is an inventory type module that lists aluminium extrusions, and all relevantIs it possible to roll up all Contact emails to the Account view?
Is there a way to track all emails associated with an Account in one single view? Currently, email history is visible when opening an individual Contact record. However, since multiple Contacts are often associated with a single Account, it would be beneficialManaging credit cards
Hi, I'm hoping someone on this forum can help me out managing credit card accounts. Transaction are entered as expenses using the credit card account and, as expected, the card balance shows as a negative since this is clearly money I owe them. Once I make a payment, of the full amount owed, I woudl expect the balance to become zero. It doesn't, the negative balance just keeps on increasing even though the payment is reflected correctly in my main operating account. No-one at Zoho seems to understandFree Training - Explore What’s New in Zoho One 2025
Greetings! We hope you have all had a chance by now to get hands-on with the new features and updates released as part of ZO25. Yes, we understand that you may have questions and feedback. To ensure you gain a comprehensive understanding of these updates,Quick way to add a field in Chat Window
I want to add Company Field in chat window to lessen the irrelevant users in sending chat and set them in mind that we are dealing with companies. I request that it will be as easy as possible like just ticking it then typing the label then connectingHow to create a two way Sync with CRM Contacts Module?
Newbie creator here (but not to Zoho CRM). I want to create an app that operates on a sub-set of CRM Contacts - only those with a specific tag. I want the app records to mirror the tagged contacts in CRM. I would like it to update when the Creator appHow to import data from PDF into Zoho Sheet
I am looking to import Consolidated Account Statement (https://www.camsonline.com/Investors/Statements/Consolidated-Account-Statement) into zoho sheet. Any help is appreciated. The pdf is received as attachment in the email, this document is passwordTrigger Workflow, Approval Process, Blueprint by Deluge in Zoho CRM
#Tips & Trick If you intend to activate your Workflow, Approval Process, or Blueprint through either the deluge script or Zoho CRM API during the creation, updating, or deletion of a record Try this Script mp = Map(); trigger = List(); // Workflow trigger.add("workflow");Zoho Projects Android app: Integration with Microsoft Intune
Hello everyone! We’re excited to announce that Zoho Projects now integrates with Microsoft Intune, enabling enhanced security and enterprise app management. We have now added support for Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) policies throughCant't update custom field when custom field is external lookup in Zoho Books
Hello I use that : po = zoho.books.updateRecord("purchaseorders",XXXX,purchaseorder_id,updateCustomFieldseMap,"el_books_connection"); c_f_Map2 = Map(); c_f_Map2.put("label","EL ORDER ID"); c_f_Map2.put("value",el_order_id); c_f_List.add(c_f_Map2); updateCustomFieldseMapSet connection link name from variable in invokeurl
Hi, guys. How to set in parameter "connection" a variable, instead of a string. connectionLinkName = manager.get('connectionLinkName').toString(); response = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.googleapis.com/calendar/v3/freeBusy" type :POST parameters:requestParams.toString()Possible to connect Zoho CRM's Sandbox with Zoho Creator's Sandbox?
We are making some big changes on our CRM so we are testing it out in CRM's Sandbox. We also have a Zoho Creator app that we need to test. Is it possible to connect Zoho CRM's Sandbox to Zoho Creator's Sandbox so that I can perform those tests?I Need Help Verifying Ownership of My Zoho Help Desk on Google Search Console
I added my Zoho desk portal to Google Search Console, but since i do not have access to the html code of my theme, i could not verify ownership of my portal on Google search console. I want you to help me place the html code given to me from Google searchTimeline Tracker
Hi Team, I am currently using Zoho Creator – Blueprint Workflows, and I would like to know if there is a way to track a timeline of the approval process within a Blueprint. Specifically, I am looking for details such as: Who submitted the record Who clickedPrimary / Other Billing Contacts
If you add an additional contact to a Zoho Billing Customer record, and then mark this new contact as the primary contact, will both the new primary and old primary still receive notifications? Can you stop notifications from going to the additional contactsIs it possible to enforce a single default task for all users in a Zoho Projects ?
In Zoho Projects, the Tasks module provides multiple views, including List, Gantt, and Kanban. Additionally, users can create and switch to their own custom views. During project review meetings, this flexibility creates confusion because different users[Free Webinar] Zoho Creator webinars - Learning Table and Creator Tech Connect Series in 2026
Hello everyone, Wishing you all a wonderful new year! May 2026 and the years ahead bring more opportunities, growth, and learning your way 🙂 We’re excited to kick off the 2026 edition of the Learning Table Series and Creator Tech Connect Series ! LearningReply and react to comments
Hi everyone! We're excited to bring to you a couple of new features that'll make your sprint process simpler. A cloud application brings with it an array of social media features that can be efficiently used in your organizational setup. As an agile scrumModule Customisation - Lookup function not available
Good evening, Within my business, I can have multiple customers, who have multiple mobile assets. When I set these assets up, I enter information such as vehicle registration, Vehicle identification number (VIN), Unit number, YOM, in addition to others.zoho click, and nord VPN
Unfortunately, we've been having problems with Zoho Click, where essentially the line cuts off after about a minute's worth of conversation every time we are on VPN. Is there a way we can change this within the settings so it does not cut the line offZoho Calender
a) does the clanender in zoho project allow you to see the name of the event in the celnder view, it currently says either "Task (1) or "Milestoen (1)" b) Alternatively does the calender in Zoho project integrate with zoho calender?Matching ZOHO Payments in Banking
Our company has recently integrated ZOHO Payments into our system. This seemed really convenient at first because our customers could pay their account balance by clicking on a link imbedded in the emailed invoice. Unfortunately, we can't figure out howNext Page