Pricing Strategies: #4 Counting on Discounts

"Is there any chance I can get a little discount on this month's service?"

Maya hears this almost every time at her fitness studio. She offers monthly subscription plans for various services, including yoga, strength training, wellness sessions, and personal training. Customers loved the classes, but they also loved looking for small savings whenever they could.

Some were first-timers hoping for a welcome deal.

Some were long-time clients asking for a loyalty benefit.

Others were referred by friends and were hoping for a referral discount.

 

At first, Maya tried to handle discounts manually by editing the invoice, creating a custom price and applying ad-hoc reductions. But as her studio grew, with multiple centres and more clients requesting discounts, she clearly understood that discounts weren't just giveaways; they were a strategic way to drive signups, retain customers, reward loyalty, and promote sales.

Unlike Maya, there are several thousand businesses and service providers who have considered offering discounts, but they end up creating a mess or stop midway due to an inappropriate configuration.

In this article, we are going to cover how Coupons in Zoho Billing offer convenience for giving discounts, setting up logic, and being transparent in their offerings.

Coupons in Zoho Billing 

Coupons allow you to apply controlled, rule-based discounts to subscriptions, invoices and addons. They help businesses attract customers, increase conversions and maintain long-term loyalty without losing control over revenue.

Zoho Billing's coupon system includes a wide range of powerful capabilities. Let's explore each of them in detail.

Discount Type 

Zoho Billing lets you design coupons with the discount calculation you want. It is done in two ways,

• Percentage-based discount. (Example 10% off)

• Flat rate discount. (Example $10 off)

Strategic Advantage:

Percentage discounts attract attention. It can be used for promotional sales and new customer incentives. At the same time, flat rate discounts maintain margin clarity, which can be used for targeted reductions or compensation credits. Align your discount type with your revenue model.

How are Discounts Deducted? 

The discount application affects how the subscriber actually experiences savings. Zoho Billing supports,

• Plan-level discount: Applied only for subscription plan pricing.

• Addon level discount: Applied only to selected addons.

• Invoice level discount: Applied to the total invoice amount.

• Recurring or one-time discounts: Apply either repeatedly or once, depending on how they are defined.

Strategic Advantage:

Control precisely where the discount applies so that promotions don't unintentionally reduce assured revenue.

Setting Up Expiry 

Coupons can be time-bound, ensuring urgency and promotional control. You can choose between,

• No expiry

• Specific calendar date for a limited promotional period.

Strategic Advantage:

Use expiries to create urgency ("Offer ends this Sunday!"), regulate campaign periods and avoid long-tern unintentional discounts.

Maximum Redemption 

Not all discounts are meant to be universal. Zoho Billing lets you limit how many times a coupon can be redeemed across all customers. You can set the redemption times as the number of times the discount gets applied to a subscription.

This is done to

• Prevent discount misuse.

• Keep promotions budget-friendly

• Make time-based campaigns more straightforward to manage.

Strategic Advantage:

Scarcity increases desire. Limited redemption coupons can rapidly boost signups.   

 Advanced Coupon  Management

Advanced Coupon Management addresses key challenges, including coupon duplication, eligibility control, and improved discount management. By enabling advanced coupons, the following configurations can be set up:

Customer Eligibility:

Advanced Coupon lets you define who can redeem the coupon. This is ideal for targeting specific groups, such as elite customers, new sign-ups, or high-value subscribers.

Example: Providing a 20% first-time discount for New signups.

Product Eligibility:

By creating separate coupons for different products, Advance coupons let you specify which product, plan, or addon is eligible for a discount. This way, you can configure coupons globally for all products.

Example: A coupon can be valid for "Plan A" and "Addon A" from "Product A", but restricted from use on "Product B".

Maximum Redemption Per Customer:

Businesses can now limit a coupon for a customer for a specific number of times, preventing excessive redemptions.

Example: A customer can redeem a 10% discount coupon for only two cycles, after which it becomes invalid.  

Strategic Advantage:

Advanced coupons help design lifecycle-based discounts (onboarding, reactivation, upsell nudges, etc) that increase retention.

Additional Coupon Codes 

Zoho Billing lets businesses generate multiple coupon codes linked to the same discount rule. You can create this in bulk or import it into the system, and it can be used.

A primary coupon is created by defining the discount structure (percentage or fixed amount), the maximum number of redemptions, and the expiry date. You can generate multiple coupons that link back to the Default Coupon in the following ways:

​
Manually Entering Codes: If you want to assign specific codes for tracking or personalisation. This will be helpful for small promotional campaigns.

​
Auto-Generate Codes: If you are running a large-scale campaign, you can let the system generate a batch of unique codes in bulk by defining the prefix, suffix, and the number of characters it takes.

This helps in,

• Tracking which marketing channel performs best.

• Personalising codes by customer segment.

• Running simultaneous campaigns using different code names.

• Avoiding manual discount creation to prevent duplication.

Strategic Advantage:

Multi-code campaigns let you measure Return on Investment across social media, email, influencers, events, referral sources and so on, all with the sample discount logic.

 What Coupons Do for Your Business 

Coupons are more than just discounts; they are a customer behaviour tool that drives more than just monetary advantage for a business. Different coupon configurations provide different outcomes.

They help you,

• Increase signups with welcome offers.

• Reactivate old customers with comeback incentives.

• Encourage plan upgrades with timed discounts.

• Drive referral and viral sharing.

• Introduce urgency that pushes customers to act.

 Coupons help businesses attract, retain, and re-engage customers while maintaining complete control over the revenue. Not all discounts are equal, but with the right system, they become a competitive advantage.

Up Next: Stay local & sell global.

 

• 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'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

• No Need To Fix Something That Is Working

  Zoho Books is a great financial tool which helps businesses to become more efficient and productive with day-to-day operations. As such, every change, upgrade, improvement needs to be carefully thought before implemented in the software and I'm sure Zoho

• Creating a task, i can not work out how to get ID for What_Id

  hi From Module A function I map Module B record reference membershipid (ours). I need Module B Zoho ID to create the related to on task. All examples i've seen start with the Zoho ID. void automation.LTM_Assign_Dispute_Task(String membershipid) { try

• Using email "importance" as workflow-criteria

  I'd like to set up a workflow that triggers if an incoming email has been flagged as "high importance" but I'm not seeing any way to do that. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious...?

• This domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is the

• What is Resolution Time in Business Hours

  HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistance

• Check & Unchecked Task Segregation in Export

  It must have a feature to represent checked and unchecked tasks as [ ] and [✅] respectively when exporting it to Arratai or WhatsApp ; as Keep Notes by Google contains…

• WorkDrive Download Issue

  My client has been sending me files via WorkDrive, which generally has worked fine. Recently files won't download at all. If you try and individually select and download a file, a popup will appear in the bottom right saying it's preparing and then it

• Feature Request: Add Tax ID Display on Event Tickets

  Hello Backstage Team, I’ve had several clients bring up an issue regarding tax compliance when creating events. For tax purposes, they are required to show their Tax ID on the event tickets. Currently, this isn’t an option, so they have to manually generate

• Resolution Time Report

  From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports What are time-based reports? Time-based reports are valuable tools that help us understand how well things are going by breaking down key metrics over specific periods. By tracking, measuring,

• Support Custom Background in Zoho Cliq Video Calls and Meetings

  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the video background capabilities in Zoho Cliq, specifically the ability to upload and use custom backgrounds. Current Limitation At present, Zoho Cliq allows

• Add RTL (Right-to-Left) Text Direction Button in Zoho Cliq

  Greetings Zoho Team, We would like to request the addition of an RTL (Right-to-Left) text direction button in Zoho Cliq, similar to what is already available in other Zoho apps like Zoho Desk. Currently, while using Zoho Cliq with the English interface,

• Enable Backgrounds and Video Filters for 1:1 Cliq Calls Across All Zoho Entry

  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement related specifically to 1:1 video calls in Zoho Cliq. Current Behavior Zoho Cliq currently provides background and video filter options in the following scenarios:

• Proposal: Actionable API Error Messages to Reduce Support Ticket Volume

  I've encountered a long-standing frustration with how Zoho Creator's API communicates errors to developers, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This issue has persisted for over 9 years based on community discussions, and

• Zoho Flow: Stripe a Zoho Marketing Automation

  Hola! Quiero hacer un flujo con Zoho Flow, para que cuando se haga un pago en Stripe, añada el lead en Zoho Marketing Automation. Lo he configurado, configurando el disparador como "Payment created" y mapeando el campo de Stripe "Receipt email address".

• Not able to delete a QC nor able to revert or create a cycle of manufacturing for QC failed Jobs

  Not able to delete a QC nor able to revert or create a cycle of manufacturing for QC failed Jobs

• Need Customer Item Inward Module along with QC

  Need Customer Item Inward Module along with QC 1. Using Transfer Orders hit the item balance sheet 2. Items without inventory it becomes difficult for tracking purpose. 3. Custom Modules become tedious to capture multiple items, item subforms are not

• LESS_THAN_MIN_OCCURANCE - code 2945

  Hi I'm trying to post a customer record to creator API and getting this error message. So cryptic. Can someone please help? Thanks Varun

• Zoho email

  I need a list of email addresses of all contacts on my zoho

• Shift-Centric View for Assigning and Managing Shifts in Zoho People

  Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. This feature request is related to Zoho People - please don't move it to zoho one! We would like to submit a feature request regarding the shift assignment and management view in Zoho

• Zoho Sheet for Desktop

  Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

• Introducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]

  Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-child

• cant upload images in signature- urgent help needed. ta!

  HI, I have been trying to insert the company logo in the signature. i have tried it several times since yesterday, the longest I waited was 1 hour and 12 minutes for the pop up window to upload a 180 KB .jpg file. what am i doing wrong.. an urgent reply

• Add Ticket button in Home view

  When I go to the My Tickets or the Knowledge Base view in our Help Centre, the Add Ticket button is available, but not in the Home view. I would really like for it to be displayed in the Home view as well. Is this possible? Thanks.

• Problem using Zoho Desk API

  Goodmorning, I am trying to use the Zoho Desk API to create a dashboard in Grafana, but I am having a problem. Following the instructions in the API documentation, I created the API Console application (server-based application). Then I created the string

• Add zoho calendar to google calendar

  Hi I keep seeing instructions on how to sync Zoho CRM calendar with google calendar but no instructions on how to view Zoho calendar in my google calendar.

• How to print a label from zoho creator app?

  Hello, I would like to print a label from zoho creator app record similar to attached one. Size 74mm x 102mm. I tried record template. It leaves plenty of space around the content and also I couldn't set the height of the page. So it is not printing properly. Could someone please direct me to right direction for this requirement?

• City field suggestion in Zoho Books

  Hi team, We are using Customers module in Zoho Books. In the Address section, we want to understand whether the City field can show suggestions while typing using any API or built-in feature. For example, if a user types “Mum”, can the system suggest

• Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

  Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

• How can I check all announce?

  Hiii, May I ask how can I check all the announce based on broadcast date instead of reply date based So that I will not will miss out any new function

• How to apply customized Zoho Crm Home Page to all users?

  I have tried to study manuals and play with Zoho CRM but haven't found a way how to apply customized Zoho CRM Home Page as a (default) home page for other CRM users.. How that can be done, if possible? - kipi Moderation Update: Currently, each user has

• CRM limit reached: only 2 subforms can be created

  we recently stumbled upon a limit of 2 subforms per module. while we found a workaround on this occasion, only 2 subforms can be quite limiting in an enterprise setting. @Anonymous User I've read about imminent increase of other components (e.

• What are the create bill API line item requiered fields

  While the following documentation says that the line items array is requiered it doesn't say what if any files are requiered in the array. Does anyone know? API documentation: https://www.zoho.com/inventory/api/v1/bills/#create-a-bill I'm trying to add

• Let us view and export the full price books data from CRM

  I quote out of CRM, some of my clients have specialised pricing for specific products - therefore we use Price Books to manage these special prices. I can only see the breakdown of the products listed in the price book and the specialised pricing for

• Function #53: Transaction Level Profitability for Invoices

  Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! We have previously provided custom functions for calculating the profitability of a quote and a sales order. There may be instances where the invoice may differ from its corresponding quote or sales order.

• This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

• Cannot connect to imap.zoho.eu on iOS26

  Hey, I recently migrated to another iPhone and since then use iOS26. Every since then, I was not able to connect to "imap.zoho.eu" from Apple Mail. I tried deleting the account and adding it again, did not work. I tried creating an app password, didn't

• Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

  Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

• Marketer's Space: Plan smarter with Zoho Campaigns' Calendar

  Hello Marketers, Welcome to another post! Today, we'll talk about a discreet yet significant feature that's neatly tucked inside Zoho Campaigns: the calendar. It might look like an optional but somewhat unnecessary feature that you can use occasionally,

• User

  If user is already part of manage engine endpoint central , what hapens when i try to add them to another Zoho org / directory? Are these users added as external users?

• Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

  Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

• Next Page