Pricing Strategies: #2 Plan your Service Offerings using Plans

Meet Harvey & Mia, hailing from the same Tech school, carrying the dream of setting up their own IT maintenance firm in their location. They drew up a clear business plan and put their business in motion on New Year's Eve. They had great reception right from the beginning. Harvey was a little concerned about investing in a back-office solution and decided to work with basic tools for customer management, invoicing, and reporting.

Whereas Mia, even though she had a similar start to Harvey, liked to experiment and get into solid back office solutions upfront. Months went by, and the customer base grew to nearly a thousand.

"Another month, another batch of invoices.. "

That's what Harvey sighed every time he sat down to prepare billing for his IT maintenance clients. Every month looked the same: scan last month's invoice, tweak a few numbers, re-check the values, send again. But as his business grew, so did the inconsistencies. Some clients increased their usage, some reduced it, and some added new devices in the mid-month. Yet, his recurring invoices didn't reflect these nuances unless he manually intervened.

Meanwhile, his friend Mia seemed to scale effortlessly. Her billing wasn't tired of recurring invoices at all. She used subscription plans. Instead of repeating invoices, she packaged her offerings into structured plans that made sense to her customers. She presented multiple plans, each with a clear scope, usage allowance, and pricing model. Customers subscribed, upgraded, downgraded or extended without requiring Mia to rebuild or recalculate an invoice. Her billing ran on autopilot most of the time, while Harvey found himself buried in month-end edits.

This contrast highlights the importance of being ready for the shift, especially if you are offering services. Recurring invoices keep generating revenue, but subscription plans build businesses and help you strategise your sales.

Subscription Plans Vs Recurring Invoices 

Recurring invoices repeat a charge. They don't really understand usage, limits, upgrades, downgrades or changes in the billing cycle. In contrast, Plans in Zoho Billing is designed to inherit usage, limits, and amendments, and to provide room for scaling.

Recurring Invoices	Subscription Plans
Every billing cycle needs manual oversight.	Billing is automated based on a predefined frequency.
Pricing adjustments require editing the template.	Pricing is structured by tiers or units.
Usage changes are tracked separately.	Upgrades and downgrades are seamless and prorated.
Customers have little clarity on what's included and what's not.	Customers understand precisely what they're paying for.
Scaling takes lots of admin effort.	Scaling becomes operationally effortless.

 

Tips: If you deliver services regularly, you can experiment by productising your services into plans rather than billing them as recurring invoices. It simplifies billing and strengthens your offerings.

Plans: The Foundation of Subscription-Based Billing 

A subscription plan is more than a price bracket. It's a packaged version of your ongoing services. It defines,

• What does the customer receive?

• How often are they billed?

• Does the usage limit apply?

• How do pricing changes as they scale?

 It transforms your service into a structured offering your customers can choose from, compare and grow with.

Zoho Billing arguably offers the best plan configuration for every service industry, from SaaS to membership, fintech, and consulting.

Different Pricing Models for Plans 

Subscription plans are not always a single plan. You are free to add as many plans for the service as you like, with different inclusions and limitations for each.  Zoho Billing allows multiple pricing models that help your services evolve naturally.

Flat Pricing

Flat pricing suits businesses whose service value remains consistent every month. Customers pay a fixed, recurring amount regardless of usage, providing simplicity for customers and stability for businesses.

Best Fit for:

• Field Services or pre-booked services.

• Legal or Accounting Services.

• Financial services.

• Memberships

Strategic Advantage:

Flat pricing reduces customer decision-making and makes your offering easy to understand and market.

Unit-Based Pricing

This pricing is transparent and straightforward. It allows you to charge your clients per user, per device, per site or per hour.

Best Fit for:

• IT services.

• HR or accounting services.

• Maintenance industries.

Strategic Advantage:

Unit price gives clarity, and customers instantly understand what they're paying for.

Tier-Based Pricing

This pricing model allows you to charge exactly based on the pricing tier. Customers move through predefined tiers based on usage (eg, hours, tickets, devices, etc). Each tier has its own price and benefits.

Best Fit for:

• Growing teams with varying usage.

• Service levels such as Basic, Standard, and Premium.

Strategic Advantage:

Tier creates a natural upgrade path and fair, usage-based billing.

Volume-Based Pricing

This pricing method provides a single rate based on total usage. This provides the convenience of offering lower rates for high-volume purchases.

Best Fit for:

• Device management

• Bulk service consumption.

Strategic Advantage:

Volume pricing encourages customers to consume more to unlock better pricing.

Package-Based Pricing

Packaging typically means combining one or more services into fixed bundles. This is popular as it appears to be more value for money.

Best Fit for:

• SaaS Businesses

• Streaming Services.

Strategic Advantage:

Package or bundle pricing increases product/service perceived value and simplifies decision-making.

 What Subscription Plans Do for Your Business 

Implementing plans shifts your service from "bill me monthly" to "subscribe to what fits me". It enhances customer experience and streamlines your operations.

With plans, your business gains predictable and stable recurring revenue. It automates changes to the subscription, including upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations. It makes it easy for customers to scale based on their requirements.

For CFOs and CEOs, Zoho Billing provides reports based on plans that envision the possible positioning of their product/service based on pricing, location, region or customer purchase behaviour.

That's the real power of subscription plans. They turn recurring services into recurring growth with more structured, predictable and strategically aligned for scale. 

Up Next: Services Never Stop with just Plans.

• 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

• Issues with Actions By Zoho Flow

  Hi, I have a workflow that fires when a deal reaches a stage. This then sends out a contract for the client to sign. I have connected this up through Actions by Zoho Flow. Unfortunately this fails to send out. I have tracked it down to the date fields.

• CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

  Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

• Windows Desktop App - request to add minimization/startup options

  Support Team, Can you submit the following request to your development team? Here is what would be optimal in my opinion from UX perspective: 1) In the "Application Menu", add a menu item to Exit the app, as well as an alt-key shortcut for these menus

• Ability for admin to access or make changes in zoho form without asking for ownership

  Currently in zoho form only form owner can make the changes in the form and if someone else has to make changes then we have to transfer the ownership to them and even admin also cant access it . So i think admin must have the ability or option to access

• Locked Out of Super Admin Account

  I'm locked out of my Super Admin account and the external e-mail is no longer associated with it. There seems to be a problem during set up, the system ought to ask to assign a new password instead of using Google accounts. Please help me get back access.

• Issue with WhatsApp Template Approval and Marketing Message Limit in Zoho Bigin

  We are facing issues while creating and using WhatsApp message templates through Zoho Bigin, and we request your clarification and support regarding the same. 1. Utility Template Approval Issue Until December, we were able to create WhatsApp templates

• Zoho CRM Calendar View

  Hello Zoho team, We need desperately a calendar view next to list, kandan and other views. I think it should be easy to implement as you already have the logic from Projects and also from Kanban View in CRM. In calendar view when we set it up - we choose

• Camera

  I can sign on to a meeting and see the other participants, but my screen is dark. The instructions for Zoho "Camera Settings" say "click on lock icon in address bar," but I don't see that icon! Suggestions?

• What is Workqueue and how to hide it?

  Hi， My CRM suddenly have this "Workqueue", may I ask how to set the permission of this tab?

• Batch/lot # and Storage bin location

  Hi I want to ask for a feature on Zoho inventory I own a warehouse and I've gone through different management software solutions with no luck until I found Zoho, it has been a game changer for my business with up to the minute information, I'm extremely happy with it. It's almost perfect. And I say Almost because the only thing missing for me (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is the need of being able to identify the lot number of my inventory and where it is located in the warehouse. Due to the nature

• Adding Sender Address with Basic Plan

  According to the knowledge base, I should be able to add Sender addresses with the Basic Plan. But whenever I try to add an email, it takes me to a search window and I cannot find any emails in the list. Even mine, which is the admin. email.

• Conditional Field Visibility in Bigin CRM

  I would like to request support for conditional field visibility within Bigin CRM. This feature should allow administrators to configure show/hide rules for fields based on predefined criteria (e.g., field values, picklist selections, stage changes,

• Bill automation in Zoho Books

  Hi I am looking for 3rd-party options for bill automation in zoho which are economical and preferably have accurate scanning. What options do I have? Zoho's native scanning is a bit pricey

• Reporting Tags

  We've been using reporting tags for years (before itemizing was available) and now we are finding reporting these tags are impossible to track. Reports have changed in the customization and our columns of reporting tags no longer show up. We do not use

• Consumption based inventory

  I am currently using Zoho Books for my hospitality business, which includes lodging and restaurant services. We purchase many items in bulk for storage and consumption as needed. I'd like these items to be recorded as inventory when purchased and categorized

• Smarter Access Control: Role-Based Access vs. Responsibility-Based Profiles

  Every business has roles, responsibilities, and workflows. While roles help define structure, responsibilities within those roles are rarely the same. As your team grows, some members need access to only a specific set of features. Others require visibility

• Partner with HDFC And Sbi Bank.

  Hdfc and sbi both are very popular bank if zoho books become partner with this banks then many of the zoho books users will benefit premium features of partnered banks.

• 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.

• Member role in zoho meeting

  does a user with member role can see other users in the organization

• How to post more than 4 Images on Instagram?

  Hi I read several articles to the topic od how to post more than 4 images on instagram, but i can't figure out how it works. I can't find the content editor and i installesd the z share extension for google chrome. Could someone please help me? Than

• Clone Recurring Expenses

  Our bookkeeping practices make extensive use of the "clone" feature for bills, expenses, invoices, etc. This cuts down significantly on both the amount of typing that needs to be done manually and, more importantly, the mental overhead of choosing the

• Zoho Books - How to Invoke a Custom Function in Schedulers

  We have multiple schedulers that send emails to customers in batches. Currently, we are maintaining the same code across several schedulers. Is it possible to use a custom function inside a scheduler script? If yes, how can we invoke the custom function

• Special characters (like â, â, æ) breaking when input in a field (encoding issue)

  Hey everyone, We are currently dealing with a probably encoding issue when we populate a field (mostly but not exclusively, 'Last Name' for Leads and Contracts). If the user manually inputs special characters (like ä, â, á etc.) from Scandinavian languages,

• Set Custom Icon for Custom Modules in new Zoho CRM UI

• All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

  The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update

• is there any way to change the "chat with us now" to custom message?

  is there any way to change the "chat with us now" to custom message? I want to change this text

• Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

  Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated

• Is Zoho Live Chat compatible with WordPress CMS?

  Hello, I have a website called www.jjrlab.com and I'm interested in using Zoho Chat on it. Does it support WordPress CMS? Thanks.

• Introducing spam detection for webforms: An additional layer of protection to keep your Zoho CRM clean and secure

  Greetings all, One of the most highly anticipated feature launches—Spam Detection in webforms—has finally arrived! Webforms are a vital tool for record generation, but they're also vulnerable to submissions from unauthenticated or malicious sources, which

• Bring your CRM and Desk app inside SalesIQ with widgets

  Have you ever been confused and frustrated with multiple open tabs and switching back and forth from SalesIQ to other apps to perform your business-specific operations? How effective would it be to have all the required tools and data of the apps you

• Speak Your Customers' Language: SalesIQ's chatbots now support 30 languages 🤖

  We're unveiling some major upgrades to our chatbot that are set to revolutionize your experience! Now SalesIQ support 30 languages for both Zobot and Answer bot. By speaking your customers' language, you can enhance engagement, improve customer satisfaction,

• Repeat Column merge in ZOHO writer columns doesn't allow to set max columns per row

  I'm using ZOHO writer to merge data from a ZOHO CRM subform and I want it to make a table. We're using Insert Table for Column Repeat, because this is what we need. (Name of column (Teamname) and underneath that a list of names of teammembers). It works

• Persisting email signals to contact timeline?

  Hello there. Regarding the email signals that are logged when a contact opens an email, am I correct that these signals are not logged to a contact's timeline? Ideally, I would like to have this context available for future follow-ups, if the contact

• Trouble with using Apostrophe in Name of Customers and Vendors

  We have had an ongoing issue with how the system recognizes an apostrophe in the name of customers and vendors. The search will not return any results for a name that includes the mark; ie one of our vendors names is "L'Heritage" and when entering the

• Really want the field "Company" in the activities module!

  Hi team! Something we are really missing is able to see the field Company when working in the activities module. We have a lot of tasks and need to see what company it's related to. It's really annoying to not be able to see it.🙈 Thx!

• Upcoming update to Google Drive integration in Zoho Creator

  Hello everyone, We're writing to inform you about an upcoming update to how Zoho Creator integrates with Google Drive. In Zoho Creator, during actions like importing files to create an app or attaching files to fields, you can choose files directly from

• Changing Account Type in Chart of Accounts

  Does anyone know how to change/edit the account type for an Account name in Chart of Accounts. Zoho will not let me do this for some reason

• Managing Scheduled Replies

  Communication is most effective when the intended message reaches the right person at the right time. However, this can be challenging when communication occurs across different time zones. By scheduling replies, businesses can ensure that responses reach

• Show price book list price

  When using price books, once you add products to the price book in the Products related list you can display the Unit price which is the default list price; however, there is no option to show the price book list price. To see the price book list price

• Allow Attaching Quartz Recordings to Existing Zoho Support Tickets

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request an enhancement to how Zoho Quartz recordings integrate with Zoho Support tickets. Current Behavior: At the moment, each Quartz recording automatically creates a new support ticket. However, in many real-world scenarios:

• Next Page