Billing Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services

Billing Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services

The logistics and delivery industry thrives on movement and precision. Every delivery completed, every kilometre driven, and every ton transported is a measurable activity. However, billing often lags behind. Many logistics companies still rely on fixed-rate or manual billing systems that don't account for fluctuating volumes, seasonal demands, or service variations.


As a result, businesses face challenges such as delayed invoicing, inconsistent revenue, and billing disputes with clients. In any industry where margins are thin and relationships depend on trust, these issues can significantly affect growth.

Zoho Billing brings automation and flexibility to the heart of logistics billing. Through usage-based billing, logistics providers can align their revenue directly with measurable usage, such as the number of deliveries, kilometres driven, or storage duration. This creates a fair, transparent, and scalable billing model for both service providers and clients.

The Traditional Billing Models 

Traditional billing methods in logistics rely heavily on static pricing structures. A flat monthly fee or a standard per-delivery charge may seem convenient, but they often fail to reflect operational reality. Shipment volumes can vary by 30-50% month over month, and manual reconciliation between dispatch data and invoice introduces errors and inefficiencies.

Common challenges include:

  • An invoice that doesn't reflect actual usage.

  • Lengthy reconciliation cycles.

  • Under-billing or over-billing due to manual error.

  • Disputes caused by a lack of billing transparency.

  • Difficulty scaling as the business grows.

 A static pricing model limits profitability and flexibility. Logistics businesses need billing systems that adapt dynamically to changing workloads, not the other way around.

What does usage billing mean for Logistics? 

Usage-based billing allows logistics companies to charge customers based on actual consumption rather than a fixed value. This aligns perfectly with logistics operations, where activities are measurable and variable.

Sample Metrics

Billing Basis

Sector

Number of Deliveries

per delivery completed

Courier and parcel services

Distance travelled

per km/mile

Long-haul transportation

Shipment weight

per kg/ton

Freight and bulk logistics

Value Added Services

per service event

Packaging services

 
With Zoho Billing, these metrics can be captured automatically from connected systems such as delivery tracking software, GPS devices or warehouse management tools. Each activity becomes a billable event, and invoices are generated automatically with complete transparency.

Let's look at two scenarios explaining how Zoho Billing helps logistics and delivery services based on consumption.


Scenario 1: 

A regional courier service manages shipments for multiple e-commerce clients. Shipment volumes vary drastically, ranging from 500 packages per month for small vendors to 3000 for enterprises. The company needs a flexible model that scales with customer growth while better rewarding higher-volume customers.

Pricing Tier

  • For 1-1000 deliveries: $2.80

  • For 1001-2000 deliveries: $2.50

  • For 2001 and above: $2.20

​If Client A completes 2300 deliveries a month. The billing will be as follows:

Item

Value

No of deliveries

2300

Rate per delivery:
Tier1: 1000x$2.80
Tier2: 1000x$2.50
Tier3: 300x$2.20


$2,800
$2,500
$660

Total Invoice Value

$5,960

 

​The service provider integrates the delivery tracking system with Zoho Billing using APIs. Zoho Billing automatically collects delivery data, calculates charges and generates an itemized invoice.
​
As a result, we get accurate, automated billing directly tied to usage. The invoice stays transparent and reduces administrative effort. Adopting a pure usage-based billing model along with a tier-based pricing model helps delivery businesses bill precisely for what is delivered, nothing more or nothing less.

Scenario 2:  
A nationwide carrier, services distributors and manufacturers. Clients have steady monthly shipment volumes but occasionally exceed their limit during high-demand periods. The service provider needs a pricing structure ensuring predictable revenue while capturing additional usage.
​
They offer a plan for $1,500 per month for up to 1000 shipments and an add-on usage cost of $1.20 per extra shipment beyond 1000.
​
If a company ships 1450 packages in a billing cycle. The billing will cover,

Item

Value

Base Plan Price (covers 1000 shipments)

$1,500

Additional Usage

450

Rate for additional shipment

$1.20/extra shipment

Total Invoice Value

$2,040

 
By integrating the dispatch management system with Zoho Billing using API, the additional shipments are tracked, the overage rate is applied, and a consolidated invoice is generated.

​This results in predictable revenue through the base plan and scalable income during peak sessions. Clear, detailed billing that strengthens customer trust.
​
The hybrid model offers flexibility for the service provider and the client, ensuring stability in slow periods and scalability in busy ones.
​
Move on with Zoho Billing 
​Every delivery, kilometre, and warehouse movement represents the value your logistics business creates. With Zoho Billing, that value is captured and converted into accurate, transparent revenue.
​
By leveraging usage-based billing, logistics providers can modernize their financial operations, improve cash flow, and offer customers fair, data-backed pricing. Zoho Billing brings automation and intelligence to the heart of logistics billing, helping businesses deliver precision on roads and through invoices.


NotesAs we move from usage billing to logistics, our next service will be Usage Billing in IoTs. Stay tuned!




      • 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

        • Recent Topics

        • webinar registration confirmation are landing in SPMA folders

          I am trialing zoho webinar and do not have access to custom domains. When I test user registrations, they are working but the resulting confirmation email is landing in a spam folder. How can I avoid this?

        • Delegates should be able to delete expenses

          I understand the data integrity of this request. It would be nice if there was a toggle switch in the Policy setting that would allow a delegate to delete expenses from their managers account. Some managers here never touch their expense reports, and

        • Add Save button to Expense form

          A save button would be very helpful on the expense form. Currently there is a Save and Close button. When we want to itemize an expense, this option would be very helpful. For example, if we have a hotel expense that also has room service, which is a

        • Multiple organizations under Zoho One

          Hello. I have a long and complicated question. I have a Zoho One account and want to set it up to serve the needs of 6 organizations under the same company. Some of the Zoho One users need to be able to work in more than 1 organization’s CRM and other

        • Error AS101 when adding new email alias

          Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.

        • Unbundle feature for composite items

          We receive composite items from our vendors and sell them either individually or create other composite items out of them. So, there is a lot of bundling and unbundling involved with our composite items. Previously, this feature was supported in form

        • Regarding the integration of Apollo.io with Zoho crm.

          I have been seeing for the last 3 months that your Apollo.io beta version is available in Zoho Flow, and this application has not gone live yet. We requested this 2 months ago, but you guys said that 'we are working on it,' and when we search on Google

        • MTD SA in the UK

          Hello ID 20106048857 The Inland Revenue have confirmed that this tax account is registered as Cash Basis In Settings>Profile I have set ‘Report Basis’ as “Cash" However, I see on Zoho on Settings>Taxes>Income Tax that the ‘Tax Basis’ is marked ‘Accrual'

        • workflow not working in subform

          I have the following code in a subform which works perfectly when i use the form alone but when i use the form as a subform within another main form it does not work. I have read something about using row but i just cant seem to figure out what to change

        • Fetch data from another table into a form field

          I have spent the day trying to work this out so i thought i would use the forum for the first time. I have two forms in the same application and when a user selects a customer name from a drop down field and would like the customer number field in the

        • Record comment filter

          Hi - I have a calendar app that we use to track tasks. I have the calendar view set up so that the logged in user only sees the record if they are assigned to the task. BUT there are instances when someone is @ mentioned in the record when they are not

        • How to View Part Inventory and Warehouse Location When Creating a Work Order in Zoho FSM

          Hi everyone, We’re currently setting up Zoho FSM and would like to improve how our team selects parts when creating a Work Order. Right now, when we add a part or item to a Work Order, we can select it from our Zoho Inventory list but we don’t see any

        • FSM too slow today !!

          Anybody else with problem today to loading FSM (WO, AP etc.)?

        • Not able to Sign In in Zoho OneAuth in Windows 10

          I recently reset my Windows 10 system, after the reset when I downloaded the OAuth app and tried to Sign In It threw an error at me. Error: Token Fetch Error. Message: Object Reference not set to an instance of an object I have attached the screenshot

        • Mapping a custom preferred date field in the estimate with the native field in the workorder

          Hi Zoho, I created a field in the estimate : "Preferred Date 1", to give the ability to my support agent to add a preferred date while viewing the client's estimate. However, in the conversion mapping (Estimate to Workorder), I'm unable to map my custom

        • The sending IP (136.143.188.15) is listed on spamrl.com as a source of spam.

          Hi, it just two day when i am using zoho mail for my business domain, today i was sending email and found that message "The sending IP (136.143.188.15) is listed on https://spamrl.com as a source of spam" I hope to know how this will affect the delivery

        • Delegates - Access to approved reports

          We realized that delegates do not have access to reports after they are approved. Many users ask questions of their delegates about past expense reports and the delegates can't see this information. Please allow delegates see all expense report activity,

        • Split functionality - Admins need ability to do this

          Admins should be able to split an expense at any point of the process prior to approval. The split is very helpful for our account coding, but to have to go back to a user and ask them to split an invoice that they simply want paid is a bit of an in

        • Is there a way to request a password?

          We add customers info into the vaults and I wanted to see if we could do some sort of "file request" like how dropbox offers with files. It would be awesome if a customer could go to a link and input a "title, username, password, url" all securely and it then shows up in our team vault or something. Not sure if that is safe, but it's the best I can think of to be semi scalable and obviously better than sending emails. I am open to another idea, just thought this would be a great feature.  Thanks,

        • Single Task Report

          I'd like a report or a way to print to PDF the task detail page. I'd like at least the Task Information section but I'd also like to see the Activity Stream, Status Timeline and Comments. I'd like to export the record and save it as a PDF. I'd like the

        • Auto-response for closed tickets

          Hi, We sometimes have users that (presumably) search their email inbox for the last correspondence with us and just hit reply - even if it's a 6 month old ticket... - this then re-opens the 6 month old ticket because of the ticket number in the email's subject. Yes, it's easy to 'Split as new Ticket', but I'd like something automated to respond to the user saying "this ticket has already been resolved and closed, please submit a new ticket". What's the best way to achieve this? Thanks, Ed

        • How to Push Zoho Desk time logged to Zoho Projects?

          I am on the last leg of my journey of finally automating time tracking, payments, and invoicing for my minutes based contact center company - I just have one final step to solve - I need time logged in zoho desk to add time a project which is associated

        • Cannot access KB within Help Center

          Im working with my boss to customize our knowledge base, but for some reason I can see the KB tab, and see the KB categories, but I cannot access the articles within the KB. We have been troubleshooting for weeks, and we have all permissions set up, customers

        • Export to excel stored amounts as text instead of numbers or accounting

          Good Afternoon, We have a quarterly billing report that we generate from our Requests. It exports to excel. However if we need to add a formula (something as simple as a sum of the column), it doesn't read the dollar amounts because the export stores

        • why my account is private?

          when i post on zohodesk see only agent only

        • Getting ZOHO Invoice certified in Portugal?

          Hello, We are ZOHO partners in Portugal and here, all the invoice software has to be certified by the government and ZOHO Invoice still isn´t certified. Any plans? Btw, we can help on this process, since we have a client that knows how to get the software certified. Thank you.

        • 500 Internal Server Error

          I have been trying to create my first app in Creator, but have been getting the 500: Internal Server Error. When I used the Create New Application link, it gave me the error after naming the application. After logging out, and back in, the application that I created was in the list, but when I try to open it to start creating my app, it gives me the 500: Internal Server Error. Please help! Also, I tried making my named app public, but I even get the error when trying to do that.

        • Client Script | Update - Client Script Support For Portals

          Dear All! We are excited to announce the highly anticipated feature: Client Script support for Portals. We understand that many of you have been eagerly awaiting this enhancement, and we are pleased to inform you that this support is now live for all

        • Professional Plan not activated after payment

          I purchased the Professional Plan for 11 users (Subscription ID: RPEU2000980748325) on 12 September 2025, and the payment has been successfully processed. However, even after more than 24 hours, my CRM account still shows “Upgrade” and behaves like a

        • how to edit the converted lead records?

          so I can fetch the converted leads records using API (COQL), using this endpoint https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v5/coql and using COQL filter Converted__s=true for some reasons I need to change the value from a field in a converted lead record. When I try

        • Auto Update Event Field Value on Create/Edit

          Hi there, I know this question has been posted multiple times and I've been trying many of the proposed similar scripts for a while now but nothing seems to work... what might I do wrong? The error I receive is this: Value given for the variable 'meetingId'

        • Pre-orders at Zoho Commerce

          We plan to have regular producs that are avaliable for purchase now and we plan to have products that will be avaliable in 2-4 weeks. How we can take the pre-orders for these products? We need to take the money for the product now, but the delivery will

        • 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

        • Zoho Pagesense really this slow??? 5s delay...

          I put the pagesense on my website (hosted by webflow and fast) and it caused a 5s delay to load. do other people face similar delays?

        • Payroll and BAS ( Australian tax report format )

          Hello , I am evaluating Zoho Books and I find the interface very intuitive and straight forward. My company is currently using Quickbooks Premier the Australian version. Before we can consider moving the service we would need to have the following addressed : 1.Payroll 2.BAS ( business activity statement ) for tax purposes 3.Some form of local backup and possible export of data to a widely accepted format. Regards Codrin Mitin

        • Problem with Email an invoice with multiple attachments using API

          I have an invoice with 3 attachments. When I send an email manually using the UI, everything works correctly. I receive an email with three attachments. The problem occurs when I try to initiate sending an email using the API. The email comes with only

        • Page Layouts for Standard Modules like CRM

          For standard modules like quotes, invoices, purchase orders, etc, it would be a great feature to be able to create custom page layouts with custom fields in Zoho Books similar to how you can in Zoho CRM. For example, and my current use case, I have a

        • Non-depreciating fixed asset

          Hi! There are non-depreciable fixed assets (e.g. land). It would be very useful to be able to create a new type of fixed asset (within the fixed assets module) with a ‘No depreciation’ depreciation method. There is always the option of recording land

        • Fixed asset management

          I want to know if there is any individual module for fixed assets management

        • One time sale item in billing automatically detects as service

          if i have some items which i don't want to add in my "item" list because its sold only for one time. but when i type item name in invoice, it (system) automatically takes it as a service and despite of HSN , it shows SAC code to be entered. if its selectable i.e. either item or service , it would be very helpful and a must have feature.

        • Next Page