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.

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 

"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.

• Items for physical goods.

• One-time charges for standalone services.

• Subscription plans for recurring services.

• Project/Time logs for services tracked by hours or expenses.

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

Using Recurring Invoice Instead of Proper Plans 

"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 

"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 

"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 

"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 

"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 

"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. 

• 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

• Timeline Tracker

  Hi Team, I am currently using Zoho Creator – Blueprint Workflows, and I would like to know if there is a way to track a timeline of the approval process within a Blueprint. Specifically, I am looking for details such as: Who submitted the record Who clicked

• [Free Webinar] Zoho Creator webinars - Learning Table and Creator Tech Connect Series in 2026

  Hello everyone, Wishing you all a wonderful new year! May 2026 and the years ahead bring more opportunities, growth, and learning your way 🙂 We’re excited to kick off the 2026 edition of the Learning Table Series and Creator Tech Connect Series ! Learning

• Reply and react to comments

  Hi everyone! We're excited to bring to you a couple of new features that'll make your sprint process simpler. A cloud application brings with it an array of social media features that can be efficiently used in your organizational setup. As an agile scrum

• Restrict Users access to login into CRM?

  I’m wanting my employees to be able to utilize the Zoho CRM Lookup field within Zoho Forms. For them to use lookup field in Zoho Forms it is my understanding that they need to be licensed for Forms and the CRM. However, I don’t want them to be able to

• How to set page defaults in zoho writer?

  hi, everytime i open the zoho writer i have to change the default page settings to - A4 from letter, margins to narrow and header and footer to 0. I cannot set this as default as that option is grayed out! so I am unable to click it. I saved the document

• Where is the settings option in zoho writer?

  hi, my zoho writer on windows has menu fonts too large. where do i find the settings to change this option? my screen resolution is correct and other apps/softwares in windows have no issues. regards

• Module Customisation - Lookup function not available

  Good evening, Within my business, I can have multiple customers, who have multiple mobile assets. When I set these assets up, I enter information such as vehicle registration, Vehicle identification number (VIN), Unit number, YOM, in addition to others.

• zoho click, and nord VPN

  Unfortunately, we've been having problems with Zoho Click, where essentially the line cuts off after about a minute's worth of conversation every time we are on VPN. Is there a way we can change this within the settings so it does not cut the line off

• Zoho Calender

  a) does the clanender in zoho project allow you to see the name of the event in the celnder view, it currently says either "Task (1) or "Milestoen (1)" b) Alternatively does the calender in Zoho project integrate with zoho calender?

• I Need Help Verifying Ownership of My Zoho Help Desk on Google Search Console

  I added my Zoho desk portal to Google Search Console, but since i do not have access to the html code of my theme, i could not verify ownership of my portal on Google search console. I want you to help me place the html code given to me from Google search

• Matching ZOHO Payments in Banking

  Our company has recently integrated ZOHO Payments into our system. This seemed really convenient at first because our customers could pay their account balance by clicking on a link imbedded in the emailed invoice. Unfortunately, we can't figure out how

• Team Gamification

  Would love to motivate, engage and encourage our team with our social media posts. Would like to include Gamification features of Social Media in Zoho Social or Marketing Automation. And also bring in Social Advocacy tools/tracking/management to these,

• Power up your Kiosk Studio with Real-Time Data Capture, Client Scripts & More!

  Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to announce a powerful set of enhancements to Kiosk Studio in Zoho CRM. These new updates give you more flexibility, faster record handling, and real-time data capture, making your Kiosk flows smarter and more efficient

• New Enhancements to Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator Integration

  Hello Everyone, We’ve rolled out enhancements to the Zoho Creator and Zoho CRM integration to align with recent updates made to the Zoho Creator platform. With enhancements to both the UI and functionality, This update also tightens access control by

• Work Type - Limitation

  Hello, I'm setting up work types and have noticed, a limitation on the parts area to 10 lines. Can this be increased to 20 or greater? In addition to this, when I attempt to add the work type to a work order, the correct labour hours doesn't flow through.

• Emails 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 or

• Adding Default Module Image into mail merge field

  As with most people finding their way to these forums i have a specific requirement that doesn't seem to be supported by Zoho I have created 2 custom modules to suit my purpose 1 is an inventory type module that lists aluminium extrusions, and all relevant

• Turning the page for Zoho SalesIQ: 2025 to 2026

  As we wrap up 2025, we would like to take a moment to reflect on what we set out to achieve this year, what we’ve delivered, and where we’re headed next. What we focused on in 2025 This year was all about strengthening the core of engagement and AI, making

• Stage-probability mapping feature in custom module

  Hi, I'm building a custom module for manage projects. I would like to implement the stage-probability feature that Potentials has. Is this possible?

• Temporary Outage in Zoho Cliq Affecting US Users – July 23, 2025

  We experienced a service disruption in Zoho Cliq that impacted core functionality for users in the US region. The issue occurred between Jul 23, 2025, 06:54:00 PM IST and 07:13:13 PM IST, lasting approximately 19 minutes. To restore service stability,

• Why Sharing Rules do Not support relative date comparison???

  I am creating a Sharing Rule and simply want to share where "Last Day of Coverage" (Date field) is Greater than TODAY (Starting Tomorrow). However, sharing rules don't have the option to compare a date field to a relative date (like today), only to Static

• Zoho Cliq not working on airplanes

  Hi, My team and I have been having this constant issue of cliq not working when connected to an airplane's wifi. Is there a reason for this? We have tried on different Airlines and it doesn't work on any of them. We need assistance here since we are constantly

• Problem with Workdrive folders

  I'm having a problem a problem accessing files in a Zoho work drive folder when using the Zoho writer app. The problem folder appears grayed out in the Zoho work drive window in both the online and writer application. However I can open the folder in

• Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

  Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

• Multi-currency and Products

  One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support.  However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK.  However, we maintain different price lists for each. 

• Create an Eye-Catching Announcement Widget for Your Help Center

  Hello Everyone! In this week’s edition, let’s explore how to keep your customers updated with exciting news in the Help Center. See how ZylkerMobile wowed their customers by bringing updates right to their portal. ZylkerMobile, the renowned brand for

• Send Whatsapp with API including custom placeholders

  Is is possible to initiate a session on whatsapp IM channel with a template that includes params (placeholders) that are passed on the API call? This is very usefull to send a Utility message for a transactional notification including an order number

• Customer Management: #6 Common Mistakes in Customer Handling

  Managing customers doesn't usually fall apart overnight. More often, slight gaps in the process slowly become bigger problems. Incidents like missed follow-ups, billing confusion, and unhappy customers will lead to revenue loss. Many businesses don't

• Zoho Desk iOS app update: UI enhancement of picklist and multi picklist fields

  Hello everyone! We have enhanced the UI of the picklist and multiselect picklist fields on the Zoho Desk iOS app to provide a more refined, efficient, and user-friendly experience. We have now supported an option to Search within the picklist and multiselect

• Zoho Desk iOS app update: Revamped scribbles with Apple pencil kit

  Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce a revamped Scribble experience, rebuilt from the ground up using Apple PencilKit for smooth strokes, proper scaling, and seamless image uploads. Please update the app to the latest version directly from the App

• Zoho Desk Android app update: Norwegian language support

  Hello everyone! In the most recent Android version of the Zoho Desk app update, we have brought in support to access the app in Norwegian language. We have introduced the Norwegian language on the IM module of the Zoho Desk app as well. Please update

• Field Description is very small

  Hello, The field Description in the activity is very small. Why don't try open a new window, or a bigger popup, or increase the width of the "popup".  Example:

• Is it possible to roll up all Contact emails to the Account view?

  Is there a way to track all emails associated with an Account in one single view? Currently, email history is visible when opening an individual Contact record. However, since multiple Contacts are often associated with a single Account, it would be beneficial

• 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.

• Payment Vouchers

  Is there any Payment Vouchers in Zoho? How can we create payment for non-trade vendors, i.e. professional fees, rent, and payment to commissioner income tax?

• API in E-Invoice/GST portal

  Hi, Do I have to change the api in gst/e-invoice portal as I use zoho e books for my e-invoicing. If yes, please confirm the process.

• When I click on PDF/PRINT it makes the invoice half size

  When I click PDF / Print for my invoice in Zoho Books, the generated PDF appears at half size — everything is scaled down, including the logo, text, and layout. The content does not fill the page as it should. Could someone advise what causes Zoho Books

• Search by contain letter in a column

  Hello, everyone I need a filter function that searches by letter in a cell, and it should be a macro. To clarify further, if I have a column with several names and I chose a search cell and what I want is search by a single letter, for example, "a" then

• Archiving Contacts

  How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

• Enrich your contact and company details automatically using the Data Enrichment topping

  Greetings, I hope you're all doing well. We're happy to announce the latest topping we've added to Bigin: The Data Enrichment topping, powered by WebAmigo. This topping helps you automatically enhance your contact and company records in Bigin. By leveraging

• Next Page