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!



      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

                                  • 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.
                                  • How to add to Subforms via Zapier with Zoho Writer?

                                    I have the following layout for a Zoho Writer Document. As you can see there is a repeating subform taking in "Items". I am trying to make a Zapier integration with it, and I can see there is 1 field saying: "Items", but it does not specify how I'm supposed
                                  • Contrôles administratifs granulaires : un atout pour la sécurité des e-mails

                                    La moindre erreur dans votre système de messagerie peut coûter très cher à votre entreprise, tant en argent qu’en conformité et en image de marque. Pour beaucoup d’organisations, ce risque est bien réel. Les e-mails véhiculent quotidiennement des informations
                                  • Include the "Added Email ID" to the Filters of a Report

                                    Hi, With a Report and lots of entries, a normal thing is to filter entries by the submitter, but that is not included in the Auto Filter of Reports and you can't add a custom filter to a Report without specifying the actual value. I would like to be able
                                  • Marketer's Space: Why mobile optimization deserves a place in your email strategy

                                    Hello Marketers, Welcome back to Marketer's Space! Today, we'll talk about the importance of creating mobile-friendly email designs. While mobile phones were once used only to make phone calls, today they're used for almost everything, including texting,
                                  • Why is Zoho Meeting quality so poor?

                                    I've just moved from Office 365 to Zoho Workplace and have been generally really positive about the new platform -- nicely integrated, nice GUI, good and easy-to-understand control and customisation, and at a reasonable price. However, what is going on
                                  • Collections Management: #6 Realign Customers who gets back In-Term

                                    Arun stared at the subscription list on his dashboard. Another account had just been moved to Cancelled status after completing the whole dunning process. Nothing unusual, just that payment failures happen, retries fail, and cancellation is the expected
                                  • Enhancement Request for Multi-Asset Work Order Feature

                                    Hello Latha, Thank you for your continued support. The multi-asset Work Order feature is extremely helpful. I did some testing based on our requirements, and during the process, I noticed a few areas where we need your team’s support to improve the feature
                                  • Zoho Mail IP Blacklist

                                    I need problems with send mails: Error: junk mail rejected - sender4-op-o10.zoho.com 136.143.188.10, is in RBL. Spamcop. Please remove FQDN for blacklist. Regards.
                                  • I can receive but not send emails

                                    Hello, I've been not able to send emails for almost a year now. I been using alternate email to do this. I want to know how to fix this so I can use my zoho account normally again.
                                  • Setting checkbox value on template in Sign from Creator

                                    Good day, Please help me understand how do I set a tick from a checkbox in Creator into a checkbox on a Sign template. Below is the only values on the Sign template and the code from Creator, "field_boolean_data": {}, "field_date_data": {}, "field_radio_data":
                                  • The challenge of 24/7 connectivity: Being present and meeting customer expectations

                                    Before television entered our homes, radio was our window to the world. We had to tune carefully to catch voices from distant places. When television arrived, the world began to grow smaller. We can watch rocket launches, see the goal that wins our favorite
                                  • How to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go

                                    Hi All, Appreciate if anyone could help me with steps for below requirement. How to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go. Even mapping to new folder will help me. Thanks in advance.
                                  • Recruit 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 to
                                  • Cannot connect mail accounts to Thunderbird

                                    Hi Support - I'm attempting to add my mail accounts to Thunderbird but I'm getting an unable to login to server error. I tried to use the password associated with my account I received the unable to login error. So I went into Zoho Accounts and generate
                                  • Alias Email Id already exists

                                    Hi, I just verified my domain sesque (dot) com and now I am trying to create the admin account using admin (at) sesque (dot) com, but I am getting an error saying "Alias Email Id already exists". I used to have another Zoho account with this email address,
                                  • Unable to connect to smtp server, connection timed out

                                    Hi Team, I am facing below issue, while sending out emails from thunderbird client. It used to work, facing this issue from morning. Error: Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.zoho.com
                                  • javax.mail.authenticationfailedexception 535 authentication failed

                                    Hi, I am facing 535 authentication failed error when trying to send email from zoho desktop as well as in webmail. Can you suggest to fix this issue,. Regards, Rekha
                                  • Issue with Creator's IF logic

                                    Hi, I found the following code produces unexpected results: if(-1.0 < 0.0000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } if(-1.0 < 0.000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } The output returned is: False True However, the
                                  • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

                                    Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.
                                  • Client Portal ZOHO ONE

                                    Dear Zoho one is fantastic option for companies but it seems to me that it is still an aggregation of aps let me explain I have zoho books with client portal so client access their invoice then I have zoho project with client portal so they can access their project but not their invoice without another URL another LOGIN Are you planning in creating a beautiful UI portal for client so we can control access to client in one location to multiple aps at least unify project and invoice aps that would
                                  • Zoho Creator customer portal users

                                    Hi, I'm in a Zoho One subscription with our company. I'm running a project now that involves creating a Zoho Creater application and using the Zoho Creator Customer Portal.  At most we need 25 customer portal users. In our Zoho One plan we only get 3
                                  • DKIM Verification Failed (Namecheap)

                                    Hi! I have already set up the TXT records in Namecheap but I keep getting the "Verification Failed" pop up. Was wondering if I'm the only one who has this problem and can anyone help me with this? Thanks!
                                  • Emails stuck in Queue

                                    Hi there, Since yesterday I have a few out going emails stuck in a queue. It say it will auto retry sending however nothing is happening. It seems to be affecting roughly 50% of my outgoing emails. Please help Thanks
                                  • Soft Bounce from transational emails from BREVO (Sendinblue)

                                    I manage the website of a client who uses your EMAIL service for the domain floranativadobrasil.com. And I use the BREVO email service, previously called SendinBlue, to send transactional emails about events specific to the website. All emails sent to
                                  • Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

                                    Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the
                                  • Introducing Multi-Asset Support in Work Orders, Estimates, and Service Appointments

                                    We’re excited to announce a highly requested enhancement in Zoho FSM — you can now associate multiple assets with Work Orders, Estimates, and Service Appointments. This update brings more clarity, flexibility, and control to your field service operations,
                                  • Getting an error Address not found Your message wasn't delivered

                                    Hey, I'm trying to configure zoho mail for my website https://businessentity.org/ The email is meredith.karter@businessentity.org I'm able to successfully send the mails but when someone sends an email to above mail, this error shoots up: Address not
                                  • Support Uploading YouTube Videos Longer Than 60 Minutes

                                    Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request support for uploading YouTube videos longer than 60 minutes directly through Zoho Social. Your support team informed us that Zoho Social currently cannot upload videos over 60 minutes due to “API
                                  • Need Faster Help? Try Live Chat Support

                                    Hello there, We understand that sometimes, whether you’re facing an issue, exploring a feature, or need quick clarification, sending an email and waiting for a response just doesn’t cut it. You need answers, and you need them now. That’s exactly why we
                                  • Can't deactivate Spell Check

                                    Hi Community, right now I'm using the Zoho Mail Desktop-Software. So far, so good.. many possibilities. Overall very nice. What is extremely annoying right now, is that we are not able to deactivate the Spell Check feature. And we are barely able to focus
                                  • Zoho Toolkit Email Signature Generator

                                    I'm having real issues with the email signature generator with no matter where I host the photo, Zoho doesn't seem to show the photo on the link provided?
                                  • Company Policy Upload - Request All EE to review and sign

                                    How can I upload policies into Zoho People and have the employees review them and sign off saying they agree, etc.? Also, if I make a revision to a policy, I would like that changed or updated policy to be distributed or have the employees notified that
                                  • Zoho Sign Global Settings vs. Template and Document

                                    Hello, We are running into an issue on a current use case. We already use Zoho Sign. Now that KBA is available, we want to begin using it in our tax delivery process, by allowing clients to sign electronically, but also download a copy of their return
                                  • Zoho Mail Desktop Crashes on Linux - Ubuntu 24 LTS

                                    Hi, I have been trying to run the desktop app on Ubuntu for the past few day with no luck. I have tried both the .deb package and the appImage. When I attempt to open the app. It just crashes immediately. The crash error dialog appeared once and I cant
                                  • Can't login to Zoho mail

                                    I'm logged into Zoho but when I try to go in zoho mail I get: Invalid request! The input passed is invalid or the URL is invoked without valid parameters. Please check your input and try again. I just set up my mx records and stuff with namecheap a few
                                  • Zoho IP blocked by SpamCop

                                    Hi, Many of my emails are blocked and I receive this:  INVALID_ADDRESS, ERROR_CODE :550, ERROR_CODE :spamcop.mimecast.org Blocked - see https://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?136.143.188.51. - https://community.mimecast.com/docs/DOC-1369#550 [DGwIYPPSOfWI
                                  • Can I execute two 'functions' when completing a mail merge from CRM?

                                    Hi, I have set up a mail merge from CRM Deals to a template. I want a copy of this to be saved in Workdrive, and then a copy also saved back into the deal record from which the merge occurred. I can do both independent of each other, and managed to get
                                  • Differences between Zoho Books and Zoho Billing

                                    Without a long drawn out process to compare these. If you were looking at these Books and Billing, what made you opt for one and not the other. Thanks
                                  • Auto-sync field of lookup value

                                    This feature has been requested many times in the discussion Field of Lookup Announcement and this post aims to track it separately. At the moment the value of a 'field of lookup' is a snapshot but once the parent lookup field is updated the values diverge.
                                  • Next Page