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: |
|
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.
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.
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,
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.
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
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.
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.
As we move from usage billing to logistics, our next service will be Usage Billing in IoTs. Stay tuned!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
Recent Topics
Duplicate Accounts
Hi There, I am looking for a solution, script, workflow or anything to solve an issue we have - in our customers section we have a rule that doesn't allow duplicates, however Zoho will allow customers with xxxxx and xxxxx PLC or LTD so effectivley weInvoice Ref. Field
Hello Team, Currently, the Invoice Ref. field is set to a Number type with a maximum limit of 9 digits. However, we often receive customer invoices that contain up to 12 digits. In some cases, the invoice reference includes not only numbers but also lettersWebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing
I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpfulEmails sent through Bigin are not posting in IMAP Sent folder
I have set up my email to work from within Bigin using IMAP. I am using IMAP so I can sync my email across multiple devices - phone / laptop / desktop / iPad / etc. I want all my emails to populate my email client (outlook & iphone email) whether orPossible for first Signer of Sign Form to specify the next signer in the sequence
We have many use cases where multiple signers need sign the same document. We'd love to be able to use sign forms, where the a signer who uses the Sign Form link can specify the name and email address for the next person in the sequence.BUG: Can't copy-paste data outside Sheet
Currently I can't paste data copied from inside any of my Zoho Sheet files to any other app. Copy-paste works inside the sheet It does NOT work between two different sheets These sheets are built from automation templates Everything works fine if I createZoho CRM Community Digest November 2025 | Part 1
Hello Everyone! Here’s what came through in the first half of November: new updates and a few helpful community discussions with real, notable solutions. Product Updates: Android App Update: Inctroducing Swipe Actions You can now swipe left or right onUpload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9
Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. WhereThe Social Wall: November 2025
We’re nearing the end of the year, and the holiday season is officially kicking in! It’s that time when sales peak and your social media game needs to be stronger than ever. We’re back with exciting new updates across AI, analytics, and the mobile appAuto-Invite Users to Portals in Zoho CRM based on Conditions
Hello Everyone, You can now automate portal invitations in Zoho CRM with the new Auto-Invite users feature in Portal management. No more manually enabling portal access one by one. With this enhancement, you can automatically send invites for users toTruesync for Linux
Is Truesync available on linux ?Rich Text For Notes in Zoho CRM
Hello everyone, As you know, notes are essential for recording information and ensuring smooth communication across your records. With our latest update, you can now use Rich Text formatting to organize and structure your notes more efficiently. By usingHidding/excluding specific picklist options from filter
Hi. Is it possible to hide/exclude specific picklist options from this filter? I don't want them to be shown when someone tries to filter in the leads moduleZoho DataPrep switching Date Format
When using a pipeline that is importing Zoho Analytics data into Zoho DataPrep, the month and day of date fields are switched for some columns. For example, a Zoho Analytics record of "Nov. 8, 2025" will appear in Zoho DataPrep as "2025/08/11" in "yyyy/MM/dd"Subforms to Capture Multi-Row Data in Job Sheets
Subforms transform your job sheets from simple checklists to powerful, data-rich forms. In field service work — whether maintenance, inspection, installation, or repair — a single job can involve multiple repeatable entries: readings, parts used, activities年内最後のユーザー向けイベント：5名限定！ 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (12/18)
ANNOUNCEMENT 1 REPLY INSIGHTS ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの中野です。 12月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 参加登録はこちら（無料） https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/QHn6kJAcRs-znJ1l5jk0ww ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「ZohoAdd "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory
I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.Adress Labels for sending of the oder und barcode
We want to print with my address labels to stick on the order of the ware can. there are these options?printing individual labels - Dymo LabelWriter
I am trying to print individual labels to my Dymo LabelWriter - has anyone done this? Latest Update (December 2025): The Canvas Print View is now available! We encourage you all to try it out and share your feedback with us. Learn more here: Zoho CRMZoho Creator for Agriculture
Greetings, I am starting to work on Zoho Creator specifically for the agricultural field, any recommendations, tips or ideas that might be helpful ? Also, if you are interested by any means in working on such project, kindly contact me. The project isCustom Print Layout
I would like to create a custom print layout of a Lead or Contact. Is there a way to do that? What I mean is that if I'm viewing a specific lead or contact I'd like to be able to print or export that lead/contact and only print and/or export certain information.Print View
Nothing happens when I'm in a module , ie; Contacts, and I hit the Print View Button. Even when it does come up and say "loading", nothing loadsGet Holiday ready with Zoho Mail's Offline mode
With the holiday season right around the corner, this is the perfect time to get ready to unplug, relax, and enjoy a well-deserved break. In addition to preparing yourself, you can also make sure your organization members are set for their time away fromZoho Flow Credits
Hi , I would like to ask the reason why every time I added plus credit but few days later I will return back to default? (as below I add credit to 3000 but today It change back to 1000) Most important is, when the credit fully used, not any reminder toZoho CRM Kiosk issues
Firstly this is for a system on the AU servers if that makes a difference. Issues are as follows (For Kiosk): 1. Re-ordering fields in the screen builder is broken. The fields seem to be re-ordering themselves, unless you order everything by moving theZoho Books emails suddenly going to Spam since 11 Nov 2025 (Gmail + now Outlook) — anyone else?
Hi everyone, We migrated to Zoho Books in July 2025 and everything worked fine until 11 Nov 2025. Since then, Zoho Books system emails are landing in customers’ Spam (first Gmail, and now we’re seeing Outlook/Office 365 also starting to spam them). ImpactedZoho Voice lance BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) : intégrez votre opérateur
Pour accompagner sa croissance, une entreprise a besoin d’une infrastructure téléphonique flexible et évolutive. Les solutions de téléphonie s’adaptent aux exigences du centre de contact, tout en intégrant aisément les opérateurs locaux de votre choix.Email Template Edits Not Saving
I can make an edit, click save, and see the blue bar annimation at the top, but the edits don't actually save. Important, because my email templates are now broken and clients are receiving bad emails. Tried on Chrome, Firefox and IE.Default Ticket View - Table?
Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JVDuplicate customers being created in Desk
Hi I've trying to work out why I've getting duplicated customers being created in my desk. I have an external booking system that generates an email when I get a customer booking a job. A booking email gets sent to Desk where I manage the booking andCan I have different users see different pick list values for Potential Stage?
We have some users focusing on new business and others focusing on existing business, and they follow different sales processes/cycles, so we would like them to see different pick list values for Stage (eventually leading up to Closed Won/Lost in both cases). And just to keep it interesting - some of these users will of course do a combination, so would need to see one pick list for their New business potentials and a different pick list for their Existing business ones. Salesforce does thisLinks in Instagram
Hi there, I have been using Later for a while now but keen to come back to Zoho Social as Later doesn't offer tagging of pages on Facebook but they offer something Zoho doesn't. You can add a link to your bio which opens up your profile feed where imagesTracking Snippet not working in Zoho Marketing Automation!
First off, the fact that you have to wait about 12-24 hours for every response is terrible. How are we supposed to conduct business? Second, we have been trying for several days to get the Tracking Code Snippet in marketing automation to work, to no avail.email moderation issue when email is sent in the name of a mail group
Symptom: an email that is sent by a mail group moderator in the name of a moderated mail group is held back for approval. Reproduction: Create a moderated mail group with members and moderators. Allow that mails can be sent in the name of the group (extendedIs there any way to send an Excel received by email to Dataprep?
Every day I receive an email alert with an Excel file that I want to process through a Dataprep pipeline. To do this, I need to: -Save the file to disk -Open the pipeline -Run the pipeline -Update the source -Several clicks to select and open the savedRecruit paid support?
Hi all, Could anyone who has paid support package advise if it provides value for money with regards to support response times? Exploring the idea as unfortunately when we have faced issues with Recruit it has been a 7+ day timescale from reporting toUsing IMAP configuration for shared email inboxes
Our customer service team utilizes shared email boxes to allow multiple people to view and handle incoming customer requests. For example, the customer sends an email to info@xxxx.com and multiple people can view it and handle the request. How can I configureAdd Lookup Field in Tasks Module
Hello, I have a need to add a Lookup field in addition to the ones that are already there in the Tasks module. I've seen this thread and so understand that the reason lookup fields may not be part of it is that there are already links to the tables (Hotmail is blocking the zoho mail IP
Greetings, Since last Tuesday (5 days ago today) I wrote to Zoho support and I still haven't received a single response (Ticket ID: 2056917). Is this how you treat people who pay for your email service? I am making this public so that those who want toRead webpage - MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP
I have the following VBA script, put together from various sources (mainly zoho forum/help/support, so it once worked, I guess): private Sub GetListOfSheets() Dim url As String Dim xmlhttp As Object Dim parameters As String Dim html As String range("B1").valueNext Page