Pricing Strategies: #3 Services never Stop with just Plans

"Hey, while you're here, could you also take a look at the vegetable patch?"

Aaron hears that line almost every week.

He runs a small gardening service, the kind where customers subscribe to a simple monthly plan that includes basic maintenance, mowing, watering, trimming and fertilising the greenery around the house. It was a clean plan, easy to quote and deliver. But every visit came with just one more request, which Aaron can hardly deny.

"Can you add some new soil to the corner beds?"

"Do you have time to prune the roses today?"

"Can you install a drip line this month?"

"On, and do you think we could add two more bags of compost next time?"

Aaron would laugh and say, "Sure, but that's not a part of the routine."

Then he'd rather do the work for free, feeling it's a small thing to charge or charge manually, which customers sometimes hesitate to pay or write a note to invoice later, which he misses most of the time.

By the end of the month, his plan-based business no longer looked like a plan. It seems like a collection of unpredictable, scattered requests that his billing system wasn't built to handle.

One day, a customer said, "I wish I could just add these extra things like a topping on a pizza. My plan stays the same, but I choose the extras I want."

That made Aaron realise something: People don't want complicated plans, but they do want flexibility in purchase. They want a solid base plan and the freedom to add the extras that fit their needs.

This is precisely why Zoho Billing offers Add-ons, to keep plans clean while allowing customers to personalise their subscription effortlessly.

Add-ons in Zoho Billing 

Add-ons extend a subscription beyond the base offering. They allow customers to purchase additional value without changing their main plan, while letting businesses scale offerings cleanly. Zoho Billing offers a comprehensive, structured add-on framework that covers different types of add-ons to address real-world subscription challenges.

Standalone Add-ons 

Standalone addons are independent enhancements that customers can attach to their existing plan whenever they prefer. They are meant to offer extra service or features that are not included in the base plan but are commonly requested.

Suitable Businesses: Gardening services, home cleaning services, fitness studios, consulting firms, repair/maintenance services.

Strategic Advantage: Standalone addons let businesses say "yes" to customer requests immediately without redesigning plans. They boost revenue, reduce complexity, and make offerings more modular.  

Addon Groups 

Addon Groups categorise addons into structured sections. This ensures customers see relevant options, not a long list of unrelated extras. This allows businesses to organise add-ons into meaningful groups, such as garden enhancement, soil services, and irrigation upgrades.

Suitable Businesses: Software platforms with feature bundles, wellness centres offering different service categories, and agencies with add-on service families.

Strategic Advantage: 

 Grouped addons improve customer experience and help businesses present upsells cleanly, increase adoption without overwhelming the subscribers.  

Recurring Addons 

Recurring addons behave like mini-subscriptions attached to the main plan. They repeat every billing cycle unless removed. These are long-term additions, such as premium service layers, extra recurring hours, monthly replenishments, or ongoing feature unlocks.

Suitable Business: IT service providers, digital content platforms, property maintenance companies, and management services businesses.

Strategic Advantage: Recurring addons provide predictable recurring revenue and increase customer retention by integrating deeper value into each billing cycle.  

One-time Addons 

These are single-use enhancements that do not renew. They are mostly occasional or emergency requests such as festival cleanup, a one-time plan installation, a deep garden care session or a special consultation.

Suitable Business: Event-based service providers, emergency repair teams, creative agencies, and landscaping services offering seasonal cleanup. 

Strategic Advantage: One-time add-ons let you capture revenue for specific needs while keeping plans simple. Customers appreciate paying just for what they use.

Quantity-based Addon 

Quantity-based addons allow customers to buy multiple units of a service enhancement. It depends on scaling by volume, such as purchasing more working hours, extra visits, additional fertiliser bags or extra user seats.

Suitable Business: Co-working space selling extra desks, SaaS apps offering additional seats, consulting firms selling extra billable hours, and gardening service selling extra material units.

Strategic Advantage: This model supports incremental growth, reduces customer friction and increases recurring revenue without modifying the customer's main subscription.  

Usage Addons 

Usage-based addons charge based on the quantity consumed, with tracking after the fact. This addon is measured purely on usage, such as irrigation water consumption, number of tasks completed, hours logged or API calls made.

Suitable Business: Utilities, IoT device monitoring service, API driven SaaS platform, retail services, telecom and metered resource providers.

Strategic Advantage: Usage based addon build trust and attract customers who prefer flexible at the same time fair way of billing. They also unlock revenue that grows organically with usage.  

 What Addon Do for the Business 

Add-ons transform how a business delivers value. Instead of forcing every customer into a rigid plan structure, they allow flexible, optional and scalable extensions that match real-world needs. This means your plan remains clean and predictable, while your revenue model becomes dynamic and adaptive.

Addons in Zoho Billing not only offer different types, but also provide flexible rules for when and how addons should be attached to a subscription. You can configure,

Association Type: 

Association type controls whether the addon is optional, recommended or mandatory.

1. Optional: The addon can be added or removed at any time when creating or editing a subscription.

2. Recommended: The addons appear as a suggested enhancement on the hosted page.

3. Mandatory: Addon is automatically included with the plan and cannot be removed.

Applicable Event: 

The applicable event defines the time range during which the addon should be considered.

1. Subscription activation: Triggered when a subscription goes live.

2. Plan Change: Triggered whenever a subscription is created or updated with a selected plan.

3. Trial Activation: Triggered when the trial starts. 

Event Frequency 

Event frequency determines whether the addon applies once or every time the event occurs.

1. Whenever Event Occurs: The addon is applied every time the selected event happens.

2. First-Time Event Occurs: The addon applies only to the first occurrence of the chosen event.

With all these addons, make your subscription model future-ready, flexible, profitable and responsive to how customers actually use your service.

Customers subscribe to your plan for the essentials. But they stay and spend more when they can tailor the service to their evolving needs.

Plans create the foundation, and addons create the experience.

Together, they build a perfect subscription model that scales merrily. 

Up Next: Counting on Discounts

• 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

• Zoho Tracking Image location

  So we've been having an issue with tracking email opens. Specifically in Gmail. Our emails are not that long either, maybe 4 sections of image/250 characters of text/button per section.  But all my test accounts I used via Gmail we're showing opens. But then come to find out the tracking image is at the very bottom of the email. So If the message is clipped (It always just clips our social icons on the bottom) and the user doesn't click the show more button it never tracks the open.  Looking at other

• Creating an invoice to be paid in two installments?

  Hi there, I own a small Photographic Services business and have not been able to find a way to fit my billing system into Zoho, or any other Accounting software. The way my payments work is: 1. Customer pays 50% of total price of service to secure their

• Zoho Tables is now live in Australia & New Zealand!

  Hey everyone! We’ve got some great news to share — Zoho Tables is now officially available in the Australian Data Center serving users across Australia and New Zealand regions! Yes, it took us a bit longer to get here, but this version of Zoho Tables

• Delivery and handling of documents e-stamped using Zoho Sign

  Hello everyone! Zoho Sign makes it easy to pay non judicial stamp duty online and automatically attach the digitally generated e-stamp challan to electronic documents. We also manage the delivery of physical e-stamped papers. We periodically receive these

• Introducing Dedicated Modules for Plans, Addons, and Coupons in Zoho Billing

  We’ve enhanced the way you manage Plans, Addons, and Coupons in Zoho Billing. Previously, all three grouped together under Subscription Items. Now, each one has its own dedicated module, giving you a cleaner and more intuitive experience. This update

• Sortie de Zoho TABLE ??

  Bonjour, Depuis bientôt 2 ans l'application zoho table est sortie en dehors de l'UE ? Depuis un an elle est annoncée en Europe Mais en vrai, c'est pour quand exactement ??

• Drop Down Value

  Hi, May I know why Zoho Flow treat this drop down as number and not as string. If so, how can I fetch the right value for filtering. This field is from Creator, in Creator upon checking by default it is a string since it's not a lookup field.

• Zoho CRM's mobile apps: A 2025 Recap

  2025 marked a year of steady progress for Zoho CRM's mobile apps. We rolled out several updates and features to improve usability and make everyday CRM work a lot easier to manage. Here’s a look back at some of the key releases from 2025. Android releases

• Facebook follower count doesn't match FB Analytics

  Hi all, I am wondering if anyone else has issues with follower counts for Facebook not matching FB's native analytics tool. On the Zoho dashboard, it's showing 1,007, but FB shows 1,060. All the other channels match up. Any insights are much appreciated!

• Meta and Facebook data report discrepancy

  I have been currently gathering manually facebook follower data thru meta. In zoho marketing plus the social media reporting only allows for page likes, and so there is a discrepancy with the data. please the difference in files attached. Is there way

• Unlocking New Levels: Zoho Payroll's Journey in 2025

  Every year brings its own set of challenges and opportunities to rethink how payroll works across regulations and teams. In 2025, Zoho Payroll continued to evolve with one clear focus: giving businesses more flexibility, clarity, and control as they grow.

• Can I export all attachments from Zoho CRM?

  Can I export all attachments from Zoho CRM?

• Community Digest — Noviembre y Diciembre 2025

  ¡Hola, Comunidad de Zoho en Español! Cerramos el año de la mejor forma con nuestro último Community Digest de 2025, donde podrás encontrar las últimas novedades de nuestros productos. ¿Todo listo para empezar 2026 con el mejor pie? ¡Vamos a ello! Zoho

• Zoho Projects Plus’ 2025- the year we launched

  We’ve been building project management tools for the past 19 years, and a question we often hear is: Different teams in our organization prefer different project management methods; while the development team prefers agile, the marketing and sales teams

• Zoho 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). Impacted

• How do you print a refund check to customer?

  Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does anyone print a refund check to a customer? We cant find anywhere to either just print a check and pick a customer, or where to do so from a credit note.

• Company Multiple Branch/ Location Accounting

  Hi All, anyone know whether company can maintain their multiple Branch Accounting in Zoho  Books. It will be chart of Accounts & Master Data will be same but different report available as per per Branch. Thanks & regards, Vivek +91 9766906737

• Zoho Books Invoices Templates

  It would be really helpful to have more advanced features to customise the invoice templates in Zoho Books. Especially I´m thinking of the spacing of the different parts of the invoice (Address line etc.). If you have a sender and receiver address in

• Email Administrators! Join our tips & troubleshooting series

  Greetings to all the admins out there! This announcement is exclusively for you. As we step into the New Year, we’re excited to start a dedicated series of admin-specific tips curated to support you. These posts will help you overcome everyday challenges

• Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

  Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector

• Free Webinar : Unlock AI driven business insights with Zoho Inventory + Zoho Analytics

  Are you tired of switching between apps and exporting data to build customized reports? Say hello to smarter & streamlined insights! Join us for this exclusive webinar where we explore the power of the Zoho Inventory–Zoho Analytics integration. Learn

• Import Function: ONLY update empty fields

  When setting up an import from a spreadsheet to CRM, there is a checkbox "Don't update empty values for existing contacts" (see screenshot below). While I see some limited benefit from this functionality, I think there should also be an "ONLY update empty

• Begin the year with best practices in the Zoho Desk mobile app : Part 2

  In focus: Optimizing collaboration and supervision Let's begin 2026 with Part 2 of our tips series on driving your ticketing operations at your fingertips. In Part 1, we explored streamlining operations within tickets. This helped individuals at Omniserve

• How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

  Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

• JWT Token authentication problem that sometimes generates infinite redirect loops

  Description : Nous proposons un bouton sur notre plateforme permettant de rediriger l'utilisateur vers le portail ZohoDesk via un jeton JWT pour une authentification transparente. Cependant, il arrive que certains utilisateurs soient pris dans une boucle

• ZOHO Work Drive Back Up

  I am looking for a ZOHO Work Drive backup solution. Something that is cloud based. There's lots of these kinds of options for Google Drive and other providers, but I have not seen anything for WorkDrive. Any suggestions?

• ZOHO Reports - Filter Logic?

  Hi, I need a way to apply filter logics such as ((1 AND 2) OR 3). All I can see as of now is a way to enter different AND filters in the respective filter column. But how can I add an OR filter? Any advice would be highly appreciated. Mark

• Scanned Doc - selecting Item overwrites Rate

  I have a Vendor Invoice which was uploaded to Documents. I select Add To > New Bill. The OCR is actually quite good, but it is reading an Item Description instead of an Item Number. I remove the description and select the correct Item Number... and it

• Recruit API search

  Hi all, Attempting to call the search api endpoint from Postman using the word element as mentioned in api docs Search Records - APIs | Online Help - Zoho Recruit When making the call to /v2/Candidates/search?word=Saudi receive response of { "code": "MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND",

• Saving reading position + Keep screen on

  While Zoho Notebook is excellent for saving and annotating articles, its utility is severely limited by the lack of reading progress synchronization. On the Android app, if a user exits a long note after reading 50%, the app fails to save the position.

• Multiple Vendor SKUs

  One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for

• Zoho LandingPage is integrated with Zoho One!

  Greetings to the Zoho One users out there! We're delighted to let you know that Zoho LandingPage is available in Zoho One too! With Zoho LandingPage, you can host custom-made landing pages, and persuade the visitors to dive deeper by making further clicks,

• Android app sync problem - multiple devices have same problem

  Hello, I am having a problem with synchronization in the Android app. When I create a drawing, the data does not sync correctly—only a blank note is created without the drawing. I tested this on multiple devices, including phones and tablets, and the

• How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign

  How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign ? Sincererly, Mike

• How to show branch instead of org name on invoice template?

  Not sure why invoices are showing the org name not the branch name? I can insert the branch name using the ${ORGANIZATION.BRANCHNAME} placeholder, but then it isn't bold text anymore. Any other ideas?

• Marketing Automation Requirements Questions

  I would like to set up a multi-email drip campaign- please see the structure below and confirm if I can achieve this set up in Zoho marketing automation. Where applicable, highlight gaps and workarounds. Thanks Drip email campaign- Can I create one drip

• how to change the page signers see after signing a document in zoho sign

  Hello, How can I please change the page a signer sees after signing a document in Zoho Sign? I cannot seem to find it. As it is now, it shows a default landing page "return to Zoho Sign Home". Thanks!

• Question about using custom_fields in Storefront Add-to-Cart API (error 2003 – required details)

  Hi everyone, I’m working with the Zoho Commerce Storefront API, specifically the Add to Cart endpoint: POST /storefront/api/v1/cart According to the documentation, this endpoint supports a custom_fields parameter for adding line-item custom data. I’m

• Can a project be cloned?

  Good afternoon, greetings. I would like to ask if it's possible to clone a project in Microsoft Project. I found a way to do it using templates, but I'm not sure if there's a direct way to clone a project. Thank you in advance for your attention, and

• Timesheet Tasks in Zoho Books: associate to service item

  How do we associate a service item to timesheet tasks in Zoho Books? For example: Joe spent 5 hours on project:task1 which is Service Item#1 (Income:Service1). When the invoice is issued thru the Project Invoice section, this is not available. When the

• Next Page