Billing | Zoho Creator Help

Billing

In a nutshell
Billing in Zoho Creator helps you easily manage your subscription, check your current billing plan, and understand the details and limits of your usage. You can view your plan type, number of users, app limits, data storage, and integration allowances. It ensures you stay updated on costs, plan features, and usage limits, helping you make informed decisions for your Zoho Creator apps
Availability
  1. Billing can be accessed in all plans of Creator.
  2. Only the super admin and admins can access Billing and upgrade the Creator subscriptions.

1. Billing in Creator

In Creator, the Billing page displays a comprehensive inventory that lists details of your current Creator subscription.
By reviewing usage trends often, you can:
  1. Monitor record usage: Track the total number of records created (such as orders, inventory updates, or staff attendance) to ensure data growth stays within your plan limits.
  2. Manage portal users: Review the number of active portal users (e.g., customers or external partners) to avoid exceeding the allowed user limit.
  3. Track email notifications: Analyze the volume of email notifications sent (such as order confirmations or supplier communications) to ensure they remain within the allotted quota.
  4. Review file storage: Keep an eye on file storage usage (e.g., scanned invoices, menu images) to plan for efficient storage management or determine if an upgrade is needed.
Explore the Usage Details for additional information and detailed insights.

2. Navigation guide

Once you sign in to your Creator account, you can find Billing under the MANAGE section in the left pane.

 3. Usecase 

Let’s say the finance team of a restaurant needs to efficiently manage their Zoho Creator resources while staying within their subscription limits. The Billing page provides a centralized view of critical usage metrics, including records created, portal users, email notifications sent, and file storage consumed.

This consolidated view helps the restaurant’s finance team control costs, manage resources effectively, and avoid service disruptions while focusing on daily operations.

 4.  Dashboard insights

The Billing Dashboard is divided into two main sections: Subscription and Usage Details.
The Subscription section shows your current plan, billing status, and renewal information.
The Usage Details section displays usage metrics and module-level insights, helping you monitor consumption and analyze trends.

 5.  Subscription

This section provides an overview of your current plan, billing cycle, and renewal details. It helps you stay informed about your account status and any plan-related changes.

The following general details of your subscription plan are displayed at the top of the Billing page:
  1. Current Plan - The name of your current plan.
  2. Support Plan - The support plan you have chosen for your Creator subscription. Support features such as timely responses to your service requests, live chat assistance, toll-free support, cooperation with a Customer Success Manager, and more, are provided based on this subscription.
  3. Subscription - Displays the billing duration of your plan. For example, Monthly or Yearly.
  4. Recurring on - The date on which the subscription needs to be renewed.
  5. Upgrade button - Clicking Upgrade directs you to the Zoho Store. You can view the Subscription ID, Payment History, subscription cost according to your plan customization, and more. You can also upgrade your Creator subscription and update your payment method from here.
Current Plan Details
The Current Plan Details is displayed against the corresponding maximum limit of the following sections:
  1. Users - The number of active users added in your Zoho Creator account. The total count includes the super admin, admins, and the solution-specific users.
  2. Apps - The number of applications you have created in Solutions.
  3. BI & Analytics - The number of BI & Analytics you have created in Solutions.
  4. Integration Flows - The number of integration flows that you have enabled in Solutions.

6. Usage Details

The Usage Details section offers an overview of usage data across your Zoho Creator account comprising of Applications, BI & Analytics, and Integration Flows. To provide streamlined insights, this section is divided into three distinct sections, with each dedicated to one solution type.

Applications Usage
The Applications Usage details apply to all the applications put together in your Creator account. The following modules are displayed against their corresponding maximum limit as per your subscription:

Module
Description
The number of applications created in the customer's account.
Records
The total number of records that has been added to all the forms present in your applications.
You can click on Records in the main Billing section to access a detailed view with metrics and usage insights.
Storage
The size of the files and attachments that are stored in the records in MB.
The number of approved portal users added in the Portal module.
The number of batches, that is, a grouped set of records that have been processed as part of all the batch workflows triggered in a day.
The total number of events scheduled and executed in the current month.

External Calls


The total number of API calls made from Creator on the current day. An external call is counted whenever your app tries to communicate with another system through an API. This refers to how many times your app sends a request from Creator to an external service or to another Zoho service, or even to the app itself, through an API within a single day.  This usually happens when an integration or function triggers an API request.

For example, consider you configure a workflow that sends lead details from Creator to another application whenever a form is submitted through an API. In this case, each form submission results in one external call. If 100 users submit the form in a day, then 100 external calls are recorded for that day.
 
Notes
Note :
  1. Executing the following Deluge tasks within your application consumes  your External calls:
    1. InvokeUrl 
    2. Pre-defined Integration tasks
    3. All Zoho AI tasks except Zia task
    4. SMS tasks
    5. GetUrl (Deprecated)
    6. PostUrl (Deprecated)
    7. InvokeUrl function (Deprecated)

      Each execution is counted as a separate external call. The system counts the number of actual executions, and not the number of times the task appears in the script. For example, one of the mentioned Deluge task is placed inside a for each task that iterates 5 times, the number of external calls consumed will be 5, even though the task appears only once in the script.

  2. Developer API calls (API calls made using Creator APIs) executed in a Creator account to perform tasks within itself are counted as both external calls and Developer APIs.

Cloud Functions
The number of NodeJs and Java functions that have been executed on the current day.

Developer APIs
The number of incoming API calls received in an account, on the current day. It includes calls made both from within a Zoho account and from external services.
Notes
Note : Developer API calls (made using Creator APIs) executed in a Creator account to perform tasks within itself are counted as both Developer APIs and external calls.
The total number of emails that have been sent on the current day.
The number of active sender emails that have been added and verified in Email Management.
The number of active domains that have been verified and authenticated in Domain Authentication.
The number of enabled datasources that have been created in Microservices.
The number of active user connections that have been created in Microservices.
Custom AI Fields
The number of AI fields that have been added in the application forms based on Custom AI models.
Ready to use AI Fields
The number of AI fields that have been added in the application forms based on Ready to Use AI models.
The total number of API calls, that are made while accessing Creator's AI services, in the current month. These calls are executed every time an AI model is deployed in your Creator applications.
Custom Connectors
The number of enabled custom connectors that have been created in Microservices.

BI & Analytics Usage
The BI & Usage details apply to all the BI & Analytics solutions put together in your Creator account. The following modules are displayed against their corresponding maximum limit as per your subscription:
Module
Description
Rows
The sum of all rows/records stored across all your workspace tables present in BI & Analytics solutions.
The number of workspaces which have been created.
The number of emails scheduled under the Schedule Email section of the Email dialog.
Scheduled Alerts
The number of data alert notifications which have been scheduled under Data Alert.
Scheduled Imports
The number of data imports scheduled from various data sources.
The number of Query Tables that have been created.
The number of Data Snapshots that have been scheduled.
The number of API Units consumed in the current day. It includes only the incoming API calls.
Notes
Note: The API units consumed by your application will be calculated based on how often the different API methods are invoked in your application on a per day basis. Each API request consumes a specific number of units based on its complexity.
The number of Private Links generated for views & slideshows in your account.


Integration Flow Usage
The Integration Flow Usage details apply to all the integration flows put together in your Creator account. The following modules are displayed against their corresponding maximum limit as per your subscription:
  1. Flows - The number of enabled integration flows present in your Creator application.
  2. Flow Tasks - The number of successfully executed flow tasks in the current month.

6.1. Usage details insights

Each module card in the Usage Details page shows only basic information of that module, such as usage counts. Clicking a module's card opens the corresponding insights page containing detailed insights, KPIs, and charts. The insights page is available only for the following eight modules.
  1. Records
  2. Batch Blocks
  3. Schedules
  4. External Calls
  5. Developer APIs
  6. Custom APIs
  7. Email Notifications
  8. AI Calls
Modules with usage details

When you click on any of the seven modules other than Records in the Usage Details page, you will be taken to the corresponding module's usage page.

The available data points include:
  1. Average Usage: Displays the average number of API calls within the selected time frame. Example: {0} calls/day.  
  2. Limit Overflow: The number of days the usage exceeded the allowed maximum limit.  
  3. Average Overflow Hits: Shows the average number of overflow hits during the selected time frame.
  4. Highest Overflow Count: Displays the maximum recorded overflow hits in a single time frame.
  5. Usage Trend: Visual representation of API usage patterns over time. All available alert percentages are configured to monitor API usage.
  6. Usage by Hit Count (applicable only for Developer APIs): Displays a list the top 5 Apps/APIs based on the API usage.
  7. Time period: You can select the time period for which data and insights are displayed using the drop-down in the top-right corner, next to Configure Usage Alerts. The available time periods are:
    1. Today
    2. Yesterday
    3. Current week
    4. Previous week
    5. Current month
    6. Previous month
    7. Last 30 days
    8. Last 90 days
Daily usage     

To get a detailed insight, select the Average Usage card. This will open a dashboard that provides detailed information about daily API usage.

The available data points include:
  1. Date: The specific day for which usage is recorded.
  2. Usage Count: Total API hits recorded on that date.
  3. Maximum Allowed Count: The daily limit configured for the API.
Limit overflow

To get a detailed insight, select the Limit Overflow card. This will open a dashboard that provides detailed information about daily Limit Overflow.

  1. Date: The day on which the overflow occurred
  2. Overflow Count: The number of times the limit was exceeded
  3. Maximum Allowed Count: The maximum usage limit defined for that module
Records
When you click on the Records card in the Usage Details page, you will be taken to the Records Usage page. This page features a dashboard that provides detailed insights into your record usage.

The available data points include:
  1. Application: Name of the app utilizing records.
  2. Form Count: Number of forms associated with each app.
  3. Record Count: Number of records consumed per app.
Selecting an application displays more detailed insights, showing the record usage for each form within the app.

6.2. Usage alerts

Usage Alerts help monitor account limits and consumption patterns by sending notifications when predefined thresholds have been reached.
They serve as an early warning system, notifying designated users when consumption reaches predefined percentage thresholds. This helps prevent limit breaches and avoids data loss caused by overflow hits. Learn more about Usage Alerts here.

2. Points to note

  1. Upgrading your subscriptions increases the limit of certain modules, such as Storage, Records, Custom Schedules, Connections, Datasources, and more.
  2. All billing related information will be emailed to the super admin of the Creator account.
  3. API calls made while implementing JS API tasks will not be counted as external calls or developer API calls.
Call Limits
  1. The super admin will be intimated through an email when the call limits reach both 90% exhaustion and 100% exhaustion accordingly.
  2. Call limits are then replenished at 12 midnight based on the timezone of the organization (mentioned when the Creator account was first signed up).
  3. Upgrading call limits can be achieved by contacting the Zoho Creator Support team.
  1. Usage Alerts
  2. Zoho Creator subscription plans and pricing
  3. Zoho Creator support plans

What's next
What's next
  1. Configure Usage Alerts 
  2. Explore our knowledge base.