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. Access your files securely from anywhere
Centralize Knowledge. Transform Learning.
All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.
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
AI secretary
In our company, Claude is the secretary and creates inquiries and schedules from Gmail. You no longer have to enter them yourself. The secret is that we created an MCP server that connects to CRM. https://x.com/Mac_nishio/status/1917954562566328694Como estruturar dados em aplicações Zoho Creator
A estrutura de dados é um dos pilares mais críticos no desenvolvimento de aplicações no Zoho Creator. Projetos bem estruturados escalam com facilidade, permitem automações mais robustas e reduzem drasticamente retrabalho. Já aplicações mal modeladas rapidamenteCreditos API
Queria saber se alguém poderia me ajudar a resolver um problema na compra e utilização de créditos de mensagens API do WhatsApp. ja tentei todos o tutoriais porem não consegui realizar a compre, pois ao clicar no botão de comprar créditos aparece a mensagemUsing Zoho Forms vs Zoho Survey
Hello - I'm looking for advice on whether to use Zoho Survey or Zoho Forms for our small non-profit. We have a Zoho One subscription, so have access to both. The main use case at the moment is application forms for our professional development programs.Custom CSS for Zoho CRM Team Bookings embeded widget
Hello, we are adding Zoho CRM Team Bookings (crm.zoho.com) in our public website. We know that we can change Theme Color, Font Color and Background Color: Zoho CRM Booking Styling But is it possible to change other CSS attributes e.g. Font Family, likeDashboard target enhancements
Often individuals in IT are creating dashboards for their sales team. The ability to create a single dashboard that can be used by multiple people is key. A components for a dashboard have the ability to filter by logged in user which is great. HoweverEnable integration of CRM CPQ functionality for ZohoOne customers using Zoho Finance application
Hi there. I can't believe I'm needing to launch this idea as I would have thought this was a little obvious. Following a number of conversations with the technical team it's become evident that the CPQ functionality within CRM cannot integrate with ZohoZoho Certified Workshops in Berlin | 20. - 21. April
Liebe Mitglieder der deutschen Zoho-Community! Wir freuen uns, Ihnen mitteilen zu können, dass unsere Zoho Certified Workshops am 20. und 21. April nach Deutschland zurückkehren! 📍Wo finden die Workshops statt? Die zertifizierten Workshops finden imZoho Payroll Expansion Plans
Dear Zoho Team, I truly appreciate the continuous innovation and improvements you bring to your suite of products. However, I—and I’m sure many others—would love some clarity on your Zoho Payroll expansion roadmap. Currently, it’s only available in theBulk upload images and specifications to products
Hi, Many users have asked this over the years and I am also asking the same. Is there any way in which we can bulk upload product (variant) images and product specifications. The current way to upload/select image for every variant is too cumbersome.sync two zoho crm
Hello everyone. Is it possible to sync 2 zoho crm? what would be the easiest way? I am thinking of Flow. I have a Custom Module that I would like to share with my client. We both use zoho crm. Regards.Is there a way to show contact emails in the Account?
I know I can see the emails I have sent and received on a Contact detail view, but I want to be able to see all the emails that have been sent and received between all an Accounts Contacts on the Account Detail view. That way when I see the Account detailExport Invoices to XML file
Namaste! ZOHO suite of Apps is awesome and we as Partner, would like to use and implement the app´s from the Financial suite like ZOHO Invoice, but, in Portugal, we can only use certified Invoice Software and for this reason, we need to develop/customize on top of ZOHO Invoice to create an XML file with specific information and after this, go to the government and certified the software. As soon as we have for example, ZOHO CRM integrated with ZOHO Invoice up and running, our business opportunitiesUsar o Inventory ou módulo customizado no CRM para Gestão de Estoque ?
Minha maior dor hoje em usar o zoho é a gestão do meu estoque. Sou uma empresa de varejo e essa gestão é fundamental pra mim. Obviamente preciso que esse estoque seja visível no CRM, Inicialmente fiz através de módulos personalizados no próprio Zoho CRM,How do I setup the performance review module?
I am pretty adept when it comes to learning software and I've set up quite a few Zoho Apps over the past 3 years. But for the life of me, I can not figure out Zoho People performance reviews. I've figured out the "Organization" & LMS Modules, but theCRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users
Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storageRecurring Addons
Hi, I know you can set the pricing interval for addons to weekly, monthly and yearly & set it for one off or recurring, which these are fine as a base addon item. It really would be helpful if when creating a subscription when you add on the addon itemCancellation Fees
Hi, It really would be good if Billing could take subscription management further with cancellations & being able to apply or set a cancellation fee for a plan that is either fixed or prorated. It is not uncommon in subscriptions for cancellation feesBulk Associate Tasks/Task Lists to Milestones (Similar to Issues)
Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement regarding Milestone management for Tasks in Zoho Projects. Current Behavior: In the Issues module, it is possible to select multiple issues and easily associateAllow agents to enable or disable notifications from certain departments
Agents who are part of multiple departments receive notifications frequently from across the departments. They may not be actively involved in performing every action in all departments. For example, an agent could be a part of both the sales and supportWorkDrive API returning empty response even after placing file in Team Folder
Hi everyone, I am trying to fetch a file from Zoho WorkDrive using a Deluge standalone function in Zoho People. The API call executes successfully using a configured connection, but the response is coming back empty. I have verified the following: TheAddress Typeahead Extension for Zoho Books
I installed the Address Typeahead extension for zoho books but when I went to configure it, it said that that version was deprecated. Is there a newer version somewhere?Transaction Rules & Customer Payments
So I have a situation as follows. We have many clients who are all invoiced on the 1st of each month on a recurring invoice for 1 of 10 plans. This means that almost all payment dates are the same (some people pay late) and that a lot of the amounts areCan I Integrate ADP Payroll with Zoho Books?
Hi, I am hoping that I can integrate ADP Payroll with Zoho Books so that I do not need to manually input the payroll journal entries. Is this possible? If so, how do I do that?Zoho Books | Product updates | February 2026
Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From Advanced Reporting Tags to the ability to mark projects as completed, explore the latest updates designed to improve your bookkeeping experience. Introducing Advanced ReportingDarshan Hiranandani : How many participants can join a Zoho Meeting at once?
Hi everyone, I'm Darshan Hiranandani, trying to find out the maximum number of participants that can join a Zoho Meeting at once. Has anyone here used Zoho Meeting for larger groups and can share their experience or knowledge about the participant limit?Ask The Expert: Deep Dive into Zoho CRM, Desk, SalesIQ, and Campaigns!
Are you using Zoho to power your sales, support, and marketing, and have questions about configuration, automation, or best practices? We have great news: the “Ask The Expert” session is coming to the Zoho Benelux Community! This session is specificallyHow to create a new Batch and update Stock via Inventory?
Hi everyone, We are building an automation where a user enters batch details (Batch Number, Mfg Date, Expiry, and Quantity) into a Custom Module. I need this to trigger an API call to Zoho Inventory to: Create the new batch for the item. Increase theZoho books Inventory valuation report VS Stock GL value
At one client, we track inventory using composite (bundled) items, and in the system settings we have enabled the option to prevent stock from going below zero. After the year-end physical count and quantity adjustments, we identified a mismatch: InventoryZoho Zoom extension for CRM
When meetings are booked through Zoho using the Zoom extension, the Zoom link in the invite is a host start link that contains an expiring ZAK token. The invite should instead use a standard attendee join link or a non-expiring host link - why is thisStereo audio
L.S. Is stereo audio supported in Zoho Meetings? I would like to conduct music lessons with Meetings, but the audio needs to be good (if not great!) and stereo, and not too much compressed and such.Is Zoho Sites still actively being developed?
Hello, Is Zoho Sites still actively being developed as part of the Zoho ecosystem? I noticed that the What's New page (https://www.zoho.com/sites/whats-new.html) does not show any updates since Q1 2025. We were considering migrating our website from SquarespaceZoho Surveys
Dear Zoho Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to inquire about the availability and documentation for the Zoho Survey API. Background: I am currently working on a project that requires programmatic access to survey data andZoho FSM API Delete Record
Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,Duplicate Leads Concerns with Round Robin and Lead Approval Process
It is great to have the Duplicate Lead Approval Process, there are a few issues with the process that I would greatly appreciate taken consideration in enhancing. It appears that A Lead comes in Lead owner assigned by the Round Robin Check for Duplicate,Cliq iOS can't see shared screen
Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? RegardsIncoming email replies not automatically associating with Deals/Opportunities - Is this possible in Zoho CRM?
Hello Zoho Community, I'm running a travel agency (B2B and B2C) and we've been struggling with what seems like a basic functionality that we cannot get to work properly. Our use case: We send emails to suppliers (hotels, transportation companies) andWriting SQL Queries - After Comma Auto Suggesting Column
When writing SQL Queries, does anyone else get super annoyed that after you type a comma and try to return to a new line it is automatically suggest a new column, so hitting return just inputs this suggested column instead of going to a new line? AnyoneNew Enhancements to Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator Integration
Hello Everyone, We’ve rolled out enhancements to the Zoho Creator and Zoho CRM integration to align with recent updates made to the Zoho Creator platform. With enhancements to both the UI and functionality, This update also tightens access control byDesk API that can search Merged Tickets
Is there any method that can still search a ticket that was already merged? zoho.desk.searchRecords - doesn't explicitly mentionNext Page