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

• Google Photos

  I am hoping that my question already has a fix. I current have Google synced accounts that I want to get away from. One in particular on is Google photos. Is there any software, or 3rd parties that I can join to back my photos up straight to specifically designated file in the ZOHO cloud that's tied to Docs? Please advise... Mike 

• 1stDibs Integration to Zoho Inventory

  Hello is it possible to integrate my Zoho inventory and 1stDibs?

• Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

  Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

• Zoho Books Items Categorisation/Grouping/Folder

  Is there a way to do items categorisation? a folder structure? Product Type A - Option 1/2/3 Product Type B - Option 1/2/3 Current problem : I have more than 50 items on the list, its hard for team to navigate.

• Cash payments before invoice date

  We have been using zoho books for our hospitality business for some time and have been very happy with the system. However in 2025 an update was pushed through and we are now not able to record payments for invoices before the invoice date. the case scenario

• Copy / Duplicate Workflow

  I have workflows setup that are very similar to each other. We have a monitoring system watching servers, and all notifications - no matter what client it is about - will come from a  noreply@ address which is not very helpful in having it auto assigned to the right account. I have setup a workflow that will change the contact name of the ticket (currently it would say noreply@) to the correct customer which is based on the subject line, as that mentions which server the alert it is about. I need

• Transfer between two customers (Peters Rental account to Peters Private account)

  we are a Property Management company. Our customers have to accounts (registered as two customers - Peter Rental and Peter Private On the rental account all income and costs fron rental activities are noted. On the private account all private are noted

• Automation#18: Automatically Fetch Values from Contacts to the Tickets Module

  Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's edition, where you can seamlessly sync fields from the Contacts to the Tickets module. For efficient business operations, it's crucial to have details mapped across different modules. Zylker Secure offers antivirus

• Charge multiple invoices

  We use auto-charge/recurring invoicing for 100's of clients. If we create a single manual invoice we can charge it to the credit card for these clients with the CC added to their recurring invoices. If a client has multiple outstanding invoices, is there a way to make one charge for all of the invoices instead of a separate charge to the cc for each invoice?

• Handling/tracking escalation management in Zoho

  Hi all, I am working on finding a tool to register and track our escalation management process. Specifically, this is about client escalations, typically related to project delivery issues. The idea is that we could have some sort of form with core questions

• CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

  Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

• Global Choice List share ownership

  I have created several forms that use one or more Global Choice Lists. These lists have been published to Org. I would like to allow one or more admins to edit the choices in these lists. Any help appreciated. Geoff

• Setting up property management in Zoho Books

  Hi, I run a property management business that manages property complexes. There are multiple owners, some owning more than one property on the same complex. My role is to manage the fees they pay for maintenance of common areas, such as the swimming pool

• How to prevent users from switching price lists in an order?

  Hi, I have Zoho Finance integrated with Zoho CRM. My team will be placing orders through the CRM using the Finance module. When creating a new customer I will assign it a price list, I don't want the sales rep to switch to a different Price List, other

• Zoho Learn and Zoho CRM integration

  I would like to see an integration between Zoho Learn and Zoho CRM. 1. To be able to add articles in a related list in all modules 2. Zia to suggest related articles in a Deal or Case or Lead 3. Ability to read / search articles during a call / follow

• Mollie Connect in Zoho Books

  Have noticed that Zoho Books is missing the most popular payment provider in Europe: Mollie. Knowing that Mollie has a solid Java SDK, why is this not yet implemented in Zoho Books for European customers?  More info: https://docs.mollie.com/oauth/ov

• Unable to change Lookup field from Multi Select to Single Select

  I am trying to change a Lookup field in my Zoho Creator form from Multi Select to Single Select, but I am unable to find any option to do this.

• Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

• Zoho Learn Zapier Integration

  Hello all, Is there any plan to integrate Zoho Learn with Zapier? It seems almost all Zoho products are in Zapier, with the exception of Learn and Marketing Automation.

• Simple Callback Notifications Needed

  My team are terrible at remembering their CRM callbacks, often due to how long in the future they are set for. Is there a way i can set an e-mail notification for when a callback is due? For example we set it for 9am one day and five minutes before they

• Is it possible to transfer data from one related list to another within the same module ?

  In the Leads module, there is an existing default Product related list that already contains data. Recently, I added a custom multi-lookup field, which created a new related list in the same Leads module. Now, I need to move the existing data from the

• Personal Data (RODO), Cookies / Trackers - ePrivacy

  I have noticed several issues that should be addressed on the customer support page. Zoho Desk provides the support portal, but it currently lacks the following options: A GDPR and personal data processing consent checkbox before logging in, located in

• email association with CRM

  Why is it 2024 (almost 2025) and Zoho has not figured out how to integrate email with CRM? It is so inconsistent at associating emails within CRM. I am an attorney. I have clients and work with other attorneys. Attorney John Doe is associated with multiple

• How to set a multi-lookup field as mandatory?

• Allow Multiple Scheduled Appointments with Zoho Support

  Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. First, thank you for introducing the option to schedule support calls via the Zoho CRM booking link. This has been a fantastic enhancement, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination when scheduling

• Audit Log for Zoho One Admin Panel

  Dear Zoho One Team, We would like to request the addition of an Audit Log feature in the Zoho One Admin Panel. This log should provide visibility into any changes made within the Zoho One admin panel and directory, including but not limited to: Adding,

• Can I re-send the Customer Satisfaction Survey after a ticket closure?

  Hello, Some customers does not answer the survey right after closure, is it possible to re-send after a few days or weeks? Best Regards!

• Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

  Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

• Bug: OAuth 2.0 State Parameter fails with Pipe Delimiters (RFC 6749 Non-Compliance)

  I've discovered a bug in how Zoho's API Console handles the OAuth 2.0 authorization flow when the state parameter contains pipe characters (|), and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. The Issue Zoho's OAuth 2.0 implementation

• Custom Function to increment a value by one

  Hi, I'm trying to find a solution to set up a counter on CRM records that tracks how many times certain actions have taken place. As a specific example: We have a field on Deals called "Times Close Updated". This starts at 0 on record creation. I'd like

• Zoho Books Extension: What Happens If Custom Fields Already Exist?

  When developing Zoho Books extensions, what happens if the target Zoho Books organization already has a custom field with the same API name as one defined in the extension? I’m asking because we originally created an on-Books version of this functionality,

• Access token generate from the refresh token not working for API

  Dear Sir/Madam, When I use my refresh token to obtain new access_token, that token return INVALID_TOKEN when the same API is called. I made sure that my api site is correct and match the auth web site. However the original access_token work fine.

• To print Multiple delivery notes in batches

  In Zoho Books, we can print a Delivery Note from an Invoice using the Print Delivery Note option, but it is non-editable and always prints all line items from the invoice. Our requirement is to deliver invoiced items in batches and print delivery notes

• Feature Request: Enable Custom PDF Layout Editor for All Modules (Including Package Slips)

  Hello Zoho Community and Product Team, I am writing to share a suggestion that would significantly enhance the customization capabilities within Zoho Books. We all appreciate the power of the Custom PDF Layouts (the "New" template engine) that allows

• HEIC File Type Viewer

  Hi, It would be nice to be able to click on the images in the All Entries/Reports Tables which are HEIC the same as JPG, PNG, etc. so they open in a viewer from Zoho or the Attachment Service, today HEIC requires you to download each image and open it

• why does my campaign move back to draft?

  Every time I try to send my email campaign, it reverts back to Draft status.. this has happened three times in a row..how do i find out what the problem is? Thanks

• Integration with...

  Dear Zoho Commerce team, Please could you consider the integration within Zoho Commerce / Inventory and Qapla'? (https://www.qapla.it/en/) This app is better than Aftership in many ways: - Aftership integration require PRO plan and price start from more

• Adding multiple Attendee email addresses when adding a Zoho Calendar event in Zoho Flow

  I am trying to integrate Notion and Zoho Calendar via Zoho Flow. However, the Attendee email address supported by Zoho Calendar - Create event only supports one email address, so I am having difficulty implementing automation to automatically register

• Peppol: Accept Bill (Belgium)

  Hi, This topic might help you if you're facing the same in Belgium. We are facing an issue while accepting a supplier bill received by Peppol in Zoho Books. There is a popup with an error message: This bill acceptance could not be completed, so it was

• Remove the “One Migration Per User” Limitation in Zoho WorkDrive

  Hi Zoho WorkDrive Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to raise a critical feature request regarding the Google Drive → Zoho WorkDrive migration process. Current Limitation: Zoho WorkDrive currently enforces a hard limitation: A Zoho WorkDrive

• Next Page