Pricing Strategies: #6 Common Mistakes while Configuring Pricing

Pricing Strategies: #6 Common Mistakes while Configuring Pricing

"Why does this month's billing feel messy again?"


That was the exact line Priya muttered while staring at the spreadsheet full of edited pricing, one-off discounts and mismatched subscription details. 

Her business was growing, but the pricing machine wasn't going anywhere. Instead, it looked like a complex cockpit.
Alert

Customers asked for new currencies.

Some needed recurring services, while others requested one-time work.

A few wanted add-ons.

Many asked for discounts.

All she did was manually adjust everything.

Priya wasn't making mistakes; she was doing what most growing businesses do: making pricing decisions relatively instead of structurally.

In this final post on pricing, let's understand the most common mistakes that businesses make, along with the solution that could give you more control and consistency.


Using One Pricing Method for Every Offering 
Warning"Let's just put everything under one flat price..... for now." 

Priya priced products, one-time work, and recurring services all the same way, which made billing inconsistent and unpredictable. It was easy when offerings were limited, but as offerings diversify, so does the pricing approach.


Zoho Billing lets you price each offering using the correct billing method.

 This ensures pricing reflects how value is delivered, not how convenient it is to invoice.


Using Recurring Invoice Instead of Proper Plans 
Warning"We'll send the same invoice every month. Easy." 

Recurring invoices work well when customers' needs rarely change. But in reality, customers request more hours, fewer hours, temporary pause, mid-cycle upgrades or downgrades, etc. Each request will lead to a manual edit.


Zoho Billing handles recurring value through subscription plans, not repeated or recurring invoices. It is built to handle,
  • Offering a trial.

  • Auto-renewals.

  • Proration for mid-cycle changes.

  • Usage/quantity changes.

  • Plan upgrades & downgrades.

The system updates billing dynamically, eliminating the need for manual adjustments.


Cramming Everything into a Plan Instead of Using Addons 

Warning"Let's just modify the plan for this customer, as we always do." 

Every time a customer needs an extra hour or seasonal enhancement, businesses edit the plan. This quickly led to a bloated catalog full of slightly different plans no one could track.

Zoho Billing offers add-ons that can blend with plans to provide flexibility in providing it as a service
  • Standalone addon for optional extras.

  • Recurring addons for permanent upgrades.

  • One-time addons for temporary boots.

  • Quantity-based addons for "I need more" scenarios.

  • Usage-based addons for metered services.

  • Addon groups for organised selection.

Plans stay simple. Addons handle customisation.


Offering Discount Without Structure 

Warning
"Sure, we can discount this once... and maybe next time too..." 

Manual case-by-case discounts seem harmless at first, but quickly become inconsistent and financially risky. Customers expect them, and margins erode silently.

Zoho Billing turns discounts into controlled, trackable Coupons. You can define coupons with
  • Percentage or fixed amount.

  • Applies to plans, add-ons, or the entire invoice.

  • Expiry dates.

  • Maximum redemption limits

  • Per customer redemption limit.

  • Eligibility based on customer or item.

  • Multiple coupon codes under one rule.

 Discounts become strategic and not spontaneous.


Using the Same Price for Every Market or Customer 

Warning"Let's just convert the price manually for all overseas customers." 

Selling globally means dealing with different currencies, purchasing power, and expectations. Manually converting them causes confusion, errors and loss of trust.

Zoho Billing allows localised and segment-based pricing through Pricelist. It can be configured to,
  • Markup/Markdown for broad adjustments.

  • Individual item pricelist for multi-currency control.

  • Pricelist for subscription plans & addons.

  • Bulk import for an extensive catalog.

  • Customer-specific price list assignment.

  • Pricelist selection during checkout.

 Your pricing remains consistent, competitive and accurate worldwide.


Assuming Pricing Doesn't Need to Evolve 

Warning"Our plans have worked for 3 years. No need to change it." 

As customers grow, their needs change, but most businesses forget to adapt their pricing. This leads to mismatched expectations, reduced revenue, and churn.

With Zoho Billing, pricing evolves effortlessly.
  • Plans can be upgraded or downgraded.

  • Addons allow scalable customisation.

  • Coupons support retention campaigns.

  • Pricelist adapts pricing for new markets.

  • Billing models can be mixed and matched.

 Your pricing system becomes future-ready, even if you are offering changes tomorrow.


Letting Billing Drive Pricing Instead of Strategy Driving Pricing 

Warning"We price based on what's easy to bill; taking customer expectations into account will put us into a lot of complexity." 

Many businesses set pricing based on operational convenience rather than value, market demand, or growth strategy.

Zoho Billing becomes the infrastructure that supports strategic pricing:
  • Flexible pricing models.

  • Structured plans.

  • Scalable add-ons.

  • Rule-based discounts.

  • Localised pricelist.

You no longer price based on what the billing tool can handle; instead, the billing tool adapts to your pricing strategy.


Stop Being Reactive to Pricing Changes, Stay Proactive 

Businesses evolve every day, and it has become hard to manage them with spreadsheets or a tool that is too rigid to adapt to these changes.


One can grow by stopping reacting to pricing problems and building a pricing system with ample room to customise.

Zoho Billing provides that system. It helps you deliver value cleanly, price confidently, sell globally, retain customers intelligently and scale without breaking your billing process.

Now and in the years to come, Pricing isn't just about maths. It's more strategic, and Zoho Billing helps you execute it flawlessly. 

      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • 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

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Custom validation in CRM schema

                                    Validation rules in CRM layouts work nicely, good docs by @Kiran Karthik P https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/validation-rules/articles/create-validation-rules I'd prefer validating data input 'closer to the schema'
                                  • Meet Canvas' Grid component: Your easiest way to build responsive record templates

                                    Visual design can be exciting—until you're knee-deep in the details. Whether it's aligning text boxes to prevent overlaps, fixing negative space, or simply making sure the right data stands out, just ironing out inconsistencies takes a lot of moving parts.
                                  • Text snippet

                                    There is a nice feature in Zoho Desk called Text Snippet. It allows you to insert a bit of text anywhere in a reply that you are typing. That would be nice to have that option in Zoho CRM as well when we compose an email. Moderation Update: We agree that
                                  • issue with deluge script

                                    i used chat gpt to build this script and I am getting 2 errors which I cannot figure out how to fix: void monthly_sales_order_generation() { try { // ---------------- CONFIG ------------------- analytics_url_1 = "https://analytics.zoho.com/api/<workspaceID>/report/<reportID1>/data";
                                  • Zoho Books "Update" Trigger for Zapier?

                                    Hi Zoho Team, I've been in talks with Zapier about using their services to connect my Zoho Books account to various apps, but I require an additional trigger beyond the "New" trigger. I require an "Update" trigger, which will allow me to filter and create Zaps only when certain conditions are fulfilled on the Zoho Books end before I automate a separate app. Specifically this will help me create invoices in QuickBooks Online only when payments are recorded in Zoho Books, rather than when a new invoice
                                  • Service One. Bill Another. Zero Hassle.

                                    In field service operations, one challenge often comes up: the person who needs the service isn’t always the one who pays for it. Think about tenants vs. property managers, corporate offices vs. their finance departments, or school buildings vs. central
                                  • Time Tracking on Iphone doesn't stop

                                    When I start a time tracking session the timer starts as expected. However when I hit stop, the timer remains on that project. The only buttons available are discard and start. Start runs the timer more and discard says it will throw away the data from
                                  • Presenting ABM for Zoho CRM: Expand and retain your customers with precision

                                    Picture this scenario: You're a growing SaaS company ready to launch a powerful business suite, and are looking to gain traction and momentum. But as a business with a tight budget, you know acquiring new customers is slow, expensive, and often delivers
                                  • Can we do Image swatches for color variants?

                                    We want to do something like the attached screenshot on our new zoho store. We need image swatches instead of normal text selection. We want to user to select an image as color option. Is this doable? I don't see any option on zoho backend. Please h
                                  • Can Zoho Flows repeat Actions more than once?

                                    I'm attempting to make an intentional Zoho Flow loop using the below layout. However, when "WithinLimit" condition is met, the program fails to execute the action "Get & Add Request Co..." again. Is this by design? Is Zoho Flows unable to repeat actions
                                  • Video interviews not compatible on mobile

                                    Hi Zoho,  The 2-way video interview feature you have added to Recruit would be great if the candidate was able to use the link to the video on a mobile phone, it doesn't work on Samsung browser, it doesn't work on chrome/firefox mobile version of browser,
                                  • What is the difference between Zoho Campaigns and marketing hub?

                                    Zoho Campaigns is a permission-based email marketing tool for sending marketing emails and mass emails. Marketing Automation is a multichannel marketing automation tool that caters to organizations looking for tools to engage their users across multiple
                                  • Zoho Desk View Open Tickets and Open Shared Tickets

                                    Hi, I would like to create a custom view so that an agent can view all the open tickets he has access to, including the shared tickets created by a different department. Currently my team has to swich between two views (Open Tickets and Shared Open Tickets).
                                  • Enviro Recycling EHF Fee's

                                    ​​I'm in Canada and each province has it's own recycling program with it's own fee's. There are numerous categories that electronics fall into and each category has a taxable rate applied to it. I need a way to be able to apply the correct rate depending
                                  • Unable to sort as Descending order

                                    Trying to change the sort order for a lookup field (checkboxes) from Ascending to Descending and keep getting an error in Deluge that the order must be Ascending Did anyone ran into this? Thanks Eyal
                                  • Change of Blog Author

                                    Hi, I am creating the blog post on behalf of my colleague. When I publish the post, it is showing my name as author of the post which is not intended and needs to be changed to my colleague's name. How can I change the name of the author in the blogs?? Thanks, Ramanan
                                  • Consultant-Only Booking Page

                                    Zoho Bookings does not allow for Meeting Type OR Workspace-Wide booking pages to be turned off. This is detrimental to organizations that have territory-based or assigned accounts, because if prospects can go to these booking pages and either select the
                                  • Zoho Desk API - Influence which layout is used

                                    Hello, how can the ticket layout be changed using the API? I would like to choose the layout directly when creating the ticket. If this is not possible, my question would be how can I change it afterwards? Best regards, Sven
                                  • Has CSS Changed for Common Elements?

                                    I noticed today that the standard title headings on my Forms and Reports display smaller in size than before. Google Dev Tools (attached), seems to confirm my suspicion. Something appears to be overriding the 1.375rem to 1.125rem. The font size on the
                                  • Text field alignment

                                    Is it possible to align text in the text field? Or even better, is there a possibility to have a field which accepts only numbers?
                                  • 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 (extended
                                  • Pipeline in Custom Modules

                                    I love the way the Sales Pipeline looks and functions with reports. I would like to add the save pipeline features and visualization to a custom module, however, I only see that these pipelines are only available for the Deals module. Is there a way to add pipelines to custom modules?
                                  • Duplicate 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 and
                                  • Tip #53- Remote Billing: Your End-to-End Billing Solution in Zoho Assist- 'Insider Insights'

                                    Manual invoicing, after every remote support session, can be time-consuming and often error-prone. As an MSP, IT admin, or even a freelance support technician, it may become overwhelming to keep track of session time, service rates, and client invoices.
                                  • Record history and ticket interaction tab in contacts and accounts

                                    Hello everyone! We have improved the History tab to help users trace updates in the interaction activity logs of the Contacts and Accounts detail pages in the Customer Module. This enhancement make it easier to get clear details about who made each update,
                                  • sync views to sheet

                                    Im looking to sync my views aka reports in analytics to zoho sheets, when data is updated in analytics it also should be updated in sheets, till now zoho sheets only offer raw data connection and it is not enough as these reports are difficult to re-do
                                  • Is there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk

                                    Hi, Is there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk to zoho projects?
                                  • Keyboard UX for Assemblies

                                    The new Assembly module has a counter-intuitive behavior that ought to be corrected. When an Assembly is ready to be entered, there are two options given, the blue-highlighted "Assemble" and the gray "Save as Draft". This correctly implies that the normal
                                  • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

                                    Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able
                                  • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

                                    Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards
                                  • How to Move Behavior, Acquisition, Polls & Forms Data from Zoho PageSense to Zoho Analytics?

                                    Hi Zoho Community, I'm looking for a way to transfer data from Zoho PageSense to Zoho Analytics, specifically: Behavioral data (clicks, scrolls, heatmaps, etc.) Acquisition data (traffic sources, campaigns, etc.) Polls and forms data As far as I can tell:
                                  • Why can't I see images uploaded by other users in the Library for Campaigns

                                    We are several users of zoho Campaign. I have uploaded visuals of our company, but my team members can't see them.
                                  • zoho sheet stuck

                                    I Need help. ZOHO sheets stuck on the loading screen. I've already deleted the system cache and cookies of my browser (google chrome) but it's still not opening. 
                                  • Tip of the Week #78 – Cut response time with multichannel shared inboxes

                                    If you’ve ever felt your team juggling between multiple email accounts, social pages, and chat apps just to reply to customers, you’re not alone. Managing conversations in multiple channels can quickly turn messy. Important messages across inboxes, replies
                                  • Need a way to run a client script longet than 10 seconds

                                    By The Grace of G-D. Hi, Currently, Client Scripts are Timing out at 10 seconds. We have complex logics that needs more time. Can you add a feature request to increase the timeout?
                                  • Exciting Updates to the Kiosk Studio Feature in Zoho CRM!

                                    Hello Everyone, We are here again with a series of new enhancements to Kiosk Studio, designed to elevate your experience and bring even greater efficiency to your business processes. These updates build upon our ongoing commitment to making Kiosk a powerful
                                  • FSM Improvement Idea - Show an Import button when there is no data

                                    I am setting up FSM for a client and I noticed that there is no option to import data, see screenshot below. Even when you click Create Contact there is only an option to Import from Zoho Invoice. It is only after you add at lease 1 record that the Import
                                  • Unable to Send Different Email Templates for Different Documents in Zoho Sign

                                    Hello Zoho Community, I am facing a limitation with Zoho Sign regarding email notifications sent to customers when a document is sent for signing. Currently, whenever I send any template/document for signing, the email notification that goes to the customer
                                  • Timeline Tracking Support for records updates via module import and bulk write api

                                    Note: This update is currently available in Early Access and will soon be rolled out across all data centers (DCs) and for all editions of Zoho CRM. The update will be available to all users within your organization, regardless of their profiles or roles.
                                  • UI Improvement - Ability to Collapse Flow

                                    The UI for Flow is generally pretty good. However, when multiple decision trees are used, the layout can get pretty convoluted and hard-to-follow (see one of my Flows below): In these cases, even the auto-arrange fails to make this something that a normal
                                  • Next Page