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Products

Create a New Product​

If you’re going to invoice or charge customers on a subscription or recurring basis (e.g. invoice them and/or charge a credit card each month), the first thing we have to do is set up the Products that we charge our customers for.

A Product stores information about what you’re selling, and how much you charge your customers for it.

  1. Click Products on the left menu and select Products again from the dropdown
  1. Once you’re there, click the blue New Product button

Creating a plan is relatively painless. You will choose a name for your product, a short description, and a pricing plan.

The example below shows a simple, flat-rate plan – $25.00 per month.

Once you create your Plans/Products, you can re-use them over and over again for each customer and even customize the pricing on a per-customer basis too!

Pricing ChargeOver Supports​

ChargeOver supports several different, flexible pricing schemes. In this section we will explore the differences between flat, unit, tiered, and volume pricing.

Flat Pricing​

Flat pricing is the most simple way of pricing your services and products. Flat pricing is just what it sounds like – a flat rate that is charged for a product or service each billing cycle. Nice and simple — $10 per month.

Unit Pricing​

Unit pricing is used when you need to charge a per-unit rate for a service or product.

Some typical examples are

  • $0.19 per minute
  • $10 per gigabyte
  • $50.00 per user license/account

The unit pricing model also supports multiple pricing levels. For example, you may wish to offer discounted pricing to customers who are purchasing a large volume of user licenses, or consuming a large number of minutes or gigabytes of data. You can set up pricing levels like this:

  • If you use between 1 and 10 gigabytes, the cost is $10 per gigabyte
  • But if you use between 11 and 20 gigabytes, the cost is only $9 per gigabyte
  • If you use more than 20 gigabytes, the cost goes down to only $8 per gigabyte

Using those price levels as an example, if your customer used 15 gigabytes, then the price is calculated from the middle price level, as

  • 15 gigabytes x $9 per gigabyte = $135 total

Volume Pricing​

Volume pricing is used when you need to charge a flat rate, but the flat rate charged depends on the quantity.

Some typical examples are

  • $10 for up to 200 minutes, $20 for up to 1000 minutes, or $30 for unlimited minutes
  • $20 for up to 10 gigabytes of cloud storage, $40 for up to 50 gigabytes of cloud storage, etc.
  • $20 for 10 up to users, $30 for 20 up to users, $40 for up to 50 users, etc.

The key here is to remember that the price isn’t multiplied by the quantity — instead, the quantity determines the price level you’re at. Using those price levels as an example, if your customer used 15 gigabytes, then the price used is the middle tier

  • The middle tier is $40 for up to 50 gigabytes of cloud storage, so the total is $40

Tiered Pricing​

Tiered pricing is used when you’re charging per unit (just like unit pricing above), BUT the rate for the first X units you buy is different from the rate for the next Y units you buy.

Example 1​

John Doe’s Telephones offers pricing like this

  • For the first 100 minutes used, you’re charged $0.19 per minute
  • For the next 100 minutes used, you’re charged $0.12 per minute (this is *on top of* the amount you’ve been charged for the first 100 minutes)
  • For every minute after that, you’re charged $0.06 per minute (again, *on top of* the amount you’ve been charged for the first 100 minutes, and the next 100 minutes)

That is, if you’ve used only 50 minutes, you’re going to get charged

  • 50 x $0.19 per minute = $9.50 total

If you’ve used 150 minutes, you’re going to get charged

  • 100 x $0.19 per minute = $19.50 (this is for the first 100 minutes you used)
  • 50 x $0.12 per minute = $6.00 (this is for the next 50 minutes you used)

In the end, your grand total for 150 minutes is $19.50 + $6.00 = $25.50

Example 2​

The in-laws are in town and they are big talkers. They used 350 minutes.

  • 100 x $0.19 per minute = $19.50 (this is for the first 100 minutes you used)
  • 100 x $0.12 per minute = $12.50 (this is for the next 100 minutes)
  • 150 x $0.06 per minute = $9.00 (this is for the 150 minutes after those first two price levels)

The grand total for 350 minutes is $19.50 + $12.50 + $9.00 = $41.00

With tiered pricing, the price levels/tiers compound, in contrast to unit pricing where only a single price level is used in the calculations.

Setup Fees​

Setup fees are charges that can be used to charge your customers an initial one-time setup fee. A setup fee will only ever be charged/invoiced once, and only on the first invoice.

If you charge a one-time up-front setup fee, you can use the setup fee field to have this automatically added on to the customers first invoice.

Base Fees​

Base fees are fees that are always charged, in addition to any unit, volume, or tiered pricing costs. This is useful in situations where you charge a fee regardless of how much of something the customer uses.

A typical pricing example is something like

  • $10 per month, plus 5 cents per minute

In a situation like this, the customer is always charged $10 per month, even if they don’t use any minutes. If they do use some minutes, then the charge is $10 per month (the base fee) plus 5 cents multiplied by the number of minutes they’ve used.

Base fees can be used in conjunction with unit, volume, or tiered pricing plans.

Pricing for One-Time Invoices​

Compared to subscriptions or recurring invoicing, one time invoices are different. All of the pricing models above apply to typical recurring subscriptions or recurring invoicing in ChargeOver.

For one-time or one-off invoicing, most of the above information does not apply. One-time invoices just have a rate and a quantity for each line item, and thus unit, volume, and tiered pricing will not apply or automatically calculate anything for you.

Set Default Payment Cycle for Specific Product​

When creating a new product, you can set the default payment cycle (monthly, annual, quarterly, etc.) for that specific product.

After adding that product to the subscription, ChargeOver will then automatically adjust the subscription to the appropriate payment cycle for that plan.

Change Products Default Pay Cycle

  1. Head over to your Products list and select the product you wish to edit from the list
  1. Select the Edit tab at the top of the page and click More Options to reveal the Payment Cycle form.

  1. Select a payment cycle from the drop down and remember to hit Save when you're finished!

Set Up Free Trials​

Who doesn't like free things? You can set up a free trial for a product in ChargeOver.

Trials are a great way for your business to get new customers that are shopping around. If you would like for one of your products or services to always include a free trial period, simply enter the amount of cycles the trial should run for until the first payment is due within the # of cycles to skip or # of free trial cycles field under Product Details.

You are not required to enter a trial period for every product or service. For items with no trial period, simply leave the "# of cycles to skip or # of free trial cycles" field blank.

The number of cycles to be skipped will be populated automatically if you add an item that has a trial period to a recurring billing package.

As expected, the customer will not be billed for the cycles skipped during the trial period.

Delete a Product​

If you've created a product a no longer have a need for it, you can delete the product so that it is no longer listed.

note

Products in ChargeOver can only be deleted if they have never been used in an invoice or subscription. Otherwise, the option to delete the product will not be available and you will only have the option to disable.

Steps​

  1. Go to your list of Products and select the item you want to delete
  2. Select the three vertical dots

  1. Click the red Delete Product button

Keep in Mind​

  • If you're not seeing the option to delete, that means the product has been used at least once on an invoice or a subscription
  • Once the product is deleted, it cannot be retrieved. You can simply recreate the product if needed
  • If you're using Hosted Sign-up Pages, the link to the sign-up page will no longer be active

If you run into any issues or have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! Contact us here!

Disable a Product​

If you have a product you no longer need to use, you can disable the product so that it cannot be used. Disabling the product keeps the product in ChargeOver but cannot be used on new invoices or subscriptions.

  1. Go to your Products list and select the one you want to disable
  1. Select the Edit tab

  1. Select [More options...]
  1. Find the Status field and change the dropdown option from Yes to No

  1. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes

Now that the product has been disabled, you will not be able to create any new subscriptions with that product.

Subscriptions already in use with the product will continue to be charged and will not be affected.

Keep in Mind​

  • You can re-enable a disabled product at any time by following the same steps above
  • Once a product has been re-enabled, you can use it on invoices and subscriptions again
  • Products can only be disabled if they've been used on an invoice or subscription at least once. Click here to learn how to delete a product

If you run into any issues or have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! Contact us here!

Bulk Update Pricing​

ChargeOver's bulk subscription update tool allows you to update the pricing for all subscriptions for a certain product.

For instance, say you have a situation like this.

"I have 328 customers on a plan that is $28 per month. I would like to raise prices to $32 per month and have that take effect with their next billing cycle."

ChargeOver's bulk subscription update tool can make all your dreams (well, this dream at least) come true!

Steps​

  1. Go to Products and click on the product you want to update prices for
  2. On the "Product Details" page, click the Bulk Subscription Update button on the right side of the page

  1. Select the currencies and brands you want to update the subscription pricing for (press shift and click to select multiple)

  1. Edit the description and/or pricing and click Continue

  • A window will come up telling you how many subscriptions will be affected by the mass price change.
  1. Click Apply Changes

You're all done! You should now see that subscription line items for this product will have updated their pricing.

Keep in Mind​

  • This tool ONLY affects the pricing on SUBSCRIPTIONS. The product/plan itself will remain unchanged, but any subscriptions using the product/plan will be affected
  • ALL non-cancelled subscriptions to the plan you are mass updating will have their pricing changed
  • Mass updating the pricing on subscriptions for a certain product can NOT be undone