Billing Management: #5 Usage Billing

Billing Management: #5 Usage Billing

After understanding the nuances of Advance Billing and Retainers, we will explore one of the booming billing models.

​Long ago, villagers drew water from a shared well in a small village. The well was a lifeline for the entire community. Ravi, the well keeper, spent his days making sure the water stayed clean, the walls stayed strong, and the rope was firm.

At first, he allowed everyone to take water freely. But Ravi soon realized that maintaining the well required effort; if no one contributed, the well would eventually fall into disrepair.

​So he gathered the villagers and proposed something simple,
​
 "You don't have to pay me a fixed amount every month. Instead, pay me for the water you take."
​
The rule remained simple and fair. Families that took one or two pots paid less, and large households paid more. No one was overcharged, and Ravi always had enough to keep the well in good condition.
​
Ravi invented the earliest form of usage billing without even knowing it. It is a model built not on flat fees but on fairness: pay for what you consume, nothing more, nothing less.

 What is Usage Billing? 

​Usage billing is a billing model in which customers are charged based on how much of a product or service they actually use. Unlike traditional flat subscriptions, which apply the same fee regardless of consumption, usage billing creates a direct link between value received and price paid. For customers, it ensures fairness, and for businesses, it unlocks scalable revenue growth.
​
As stated above, usage billing is not new. Utilities, telecom providers, SaaS companies, IoT, and several others highly rely on it. In recent times, however, it has become a strategic move by industries that thrive on flexibility.

Why Businesses Adopt Usage Billing? 

​Usage-based pricing nowadays is considered a growth driver. Recent reports highlight,

  • 85% of SaaS companies have adopted some form of usage-based pricing, according to the State of Usage-Based Pricing 2025 Report by Metronome & Greyhound Capital.

  • 63% already practice it,, and 74% expect to expand usage billing further, notes as study by Chargebee in collaboration with OpenView.

  • Hybrid pricing models, where a flat subscription fee is combined with usage-based elements, are booming, with nearly half of the SaaS firms adopting them, according to the 2025 SaaS Pricing Trend Report from Maxio.

  • The same Maxio report adds that companies using usage-based pricing often report faster revenue growth (median 21%+) and stronger net dollar retention compared to peers.

 Simplifying the Complex 

​Conceptually, usage billing is simple. But executing it well requires precision. Two main challenges in usage-based billing are:

  • Tracking consumption with accuracy.

  • Turning usage into an invoice transparently.

Zoho Billing provides both. It enables businesses to combine flat-rate subscriptions with usage-based billing, supporting hybrid pricing models that suit modern industries.

​A subscription in Zoho Billing can be marked as a usage subscription just by a simple checkbox. Renewal invoices will include all the usage that is added and invoiced during the next billing period to ensure accurate billing. Zoho Billing supports multiple ways to record usage. Users can manually record usage individually by accessing the application. It can be uploaded in bulk using import options, and the most popular way is through APIs to push usage data automatically from your system to Zoho Billing.

Wisdom to Strategy 
​Paying only for what you use has made customers feel valued for ages. By charging based on consumption, businesses ensure sustainability and growth. From ancient water pots to today's gigabytes, transactions, and compute cycles, the principle hasn't changed, just that the scale and sophistication have changed. And with solutions like Zoho Billing, companies can turn this age-old wisdom into a modern growth strategy.

Alright, this is just a beginning. In the coming posts, we'll dive deep into how usage billing plays out across industries from SaaS to telecom to IoT, showing how businesses can apply it to stay competitive and loyal. 

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