Subscription Management

Subscription Management

Subscription Management is the process of managing your customer's subscription, including purchasing, modifying and cancelling the subscription. We have two modes of Subscription management - Partner or Reseller Purchase mode and Subscription API mode. Let's look at them in detail.

1. Partner/Reseller Purchase mode 

In the Partner/Reseller mode, it is the partner or owner of the vertical solution who manages the customers' subscriptions on their behalf. The partner manages each of his customer's subscriptions from the Manage Customers section in the Developer Console. In this mode, the solution subscribers can view their subscription details in their account, but they cannot make changes to their subscription. Since the client or end-user does not have direct access to modify their subscription, they must get in touch with the solution provider if they wish to make any changes. 

Every time a customer requests for an addition or modification in subscription, the partner charges the customer directly and makes necessary purchases on his behalf from the Developer Console. The partner sends the customer an invoice and receives payment directly into the partner's account. Whenever a new purchase or renewal is made from the partner's Developer Console, Zoho sends an invoice to the partner and charges the Zoho partner balance or the saved card in the account.


To manage your Customer's subscription:
  1. Log-in to your Zoho Developer account.
  2. Select the app from the listed apps.
  3. Click on Manage Upgrades from the side panel menu.

  4. Click on Manage Customers. All the customers for the selected app will be listed down.
  5. In the Customer Overview screen, click on the checkbox corresponding to the customer, and you will get three options.
    1. UPGRADE HISTORY - To view the app version upgrade history for the customer.
    2. MANAGE - To manage the subscription details.
    3. REQUEST ACCESS - Te request developer access.

  6. Click on MANAGE option for subscription management.
  7. In the Subscription Details window, the DOWNGRADE and UPGRADE options let you increase or decrease the license count and storage. 

  8. In the Subscription Details window, select the Change Plan option to change the subscription plan for the customer. A Change Plan screen will be displayed. Select the required plan, and click on Pay, this will take you to the Payment screen. The payment can be done via Zoho partner balance or . After payment and successful subscription, the partner can generate an invoice for the customer and charge them. 

2. Subscription API Mode

Scaling becomes challenging for the partner with regard to subscription management while using the partner/reseller purchase mode. As and when the customer base increases for the partner, manually managing each of the customer's subscription becomes tedious. The Subscription API mode can be used to get around this.
In this mode of subscription management, you can create your own customized pricing and payment pages for Vertical Solutions. This can be done using any subscription management software like Zoho Subscription, backed by a middleware application developed by the partner. This model allows customers to manage their subscriptions just like they would under the current subscription model, on their own. In this scenario, Zoho will bill the partner in the same way as in the Reseller Purchase model. The payment made by the subscriber goes directly to the partner's account. 

 When using the subscription API mode, the customer is the only one in charge of managing the subscriptions. Your custom or third-party page for subscription and payments is integrated to accomplish this. You can use subscription management software such as Zoho subscription for this. 


To manage subscriptions with Subscription API mode, the first step is to create pricing plans in Developer Console.
  1. Log-in to your Zoho Developer account.
  2. From the app listing page, select the app.
  3. In the app console side menu, select Pricing  from the Package menu header.

  4. Click on Create Plan to add a new plan.

  5. In the New Plan page,
    1. Enter a name in Specify Plan Name.
    2. For Select Module, choose the modules you want to give the customers access to. Select the modules from the List of Modules list box and move it to the Selected Modules list box using the arrow button.
    3. For Select Extension, select the checkbox of the Zoho App you want to include in this pricing plan.
    4. Click Save.
The new plan will now be saved to your list of subscription plans. To view your pricing plans, navigate to the app home page, and from the Package menu header, select Pricing. Note that the amount shown on this page is the amount you will be charged by Zoho for each plan, and that it doesn't include your commission amount. Your Zoho partner balance will be charged with the base price each time a subscription occurs. The saved card in your account will be charged if there are insufficient funds in your wallet. The transaction will fail if the card payment is unsuccessful, and your customer's request will be turned down.

For each plan, the following are generated.
  1. Plan Code (Yearly): The identifier to use when creating a yearly plan for your product in your subscription management software.
  2. Plan Code (Monthly): The identifier to use when creating a monthly plan for your product in your subscription management software. The format of the plan code is appdomain_planid_M.
  3. Subscription APIs: APIs for ADD, MODIFY and CANCEL subscription. When the user creates a new subscription or modifies or cancels a subscription using the broker application, these APIs should be used to send details of the newly created subscription to Developer Console.
The following are common for all the plans.
  1. ZAPIKEY: The key used to authenticate the response flow from the subscription management software to the broker application and the Developer Console.
  2. Manage Subscription URL: The landing page URL of the broker application. This URL is for the GUI of your broker application where customers create, modify, cancel, and view subscriptions. While all other values are automatically generated when you create a new plan, you have to fill out the Manage Subscription URL once you have you have your broker application ready and hosted. 

After creating the plans in the developer console, you have to set up your Subscription Management Software and the Broker application. In the Subscription Management Software, create plans and associated add-ons using the plan and add-on codes already generated. You should also create webhooks to notify the broker application about subscriptions created, modified or cancelled by the customers.

The final step is to create a Broker Application for delivering subscription details from your Subscription Management Software to the Developer Console. Use the callback URLs generated in the developer console when you create each plan, for subscription requests. Host the application and fill out the URL of the landing page of the application in the Manage Subscription URL field in the developer console.

The objectives of the broker application are :
  1. Provide a GUI for managing subscriptions
  2. Fetch the subscription details from the Subscription Management Software
  3. Send the subscription details to Developer Console This is done using the Subscription APIs.
 The Subscription Management Software contains the user details whereas the Broker application contains all the user details, plan details and subscription details, whereas the actions are initiated by the broker application. These actions include creating, modifying and cancelling subscriptions. You can find an example of how to integrate Vertical CRM with any third-party subscription service here.