Online Billing for Subscription Products and Services

Billing subscription services is about managing an ongoing relationship that almost all businesses would love to have with their customers. A strong subscription billing platfrom will improve how you monetize your subscription services and interact with your customers.

Telecom, mobile phones and utilities have used the subscription model to successfully maintain a close and long lasting relationship with their customers. It has now become the preferred model for software and hosting and is now taking over many mainstream segments like media and retail. In the purest form of a subscription business, customers pay as they use a service and cancel when the service no longer meets their needs. Although cancellations may concern some businesses, the reality is if your pricing is based on value and you make it convenient for your customer to pay you, the expected life time value of a subscription customer can far exceed that of a customer you do not have an ongoing relationship with.

Subscription pricing models can take on many forms but generally include a single or bundle of services charged on a recurring basis according to some volume parameter such as number of licenses. More complex models introduce the idea of metered or usage based pricing common in mobile phone pricing where a set amount is included in the base price and the customer pays more for usage over the set amount. For many customers this kind of pricing equates to value and should be considered in most subscription sales strategies. A strong billing solution gives the Marketing team the ability to quickly roll out new pricing plans to address customer demand for value or test new pricing methods to increase sales.

Many subscription strategies utilize a web storefront where customers can select the services they want to purchase and be guided through a checkout process. For enterprise sales models, this process can happen in the CRM system or in the billing system user interface and be driven by an account executive. Once a customer is signed up, providing them with a customer portal to self manage portions of their relationship with you is empowering for them and provides a support cost savings for you. Standard functions in a well rounded customer portal should include the ability to view and edit any portion of their account data including payment information, view invoices and payments, view and upgrade services, view usage if a metered services is involved, make a payment and request help when needed.

Monexa subscription billing also automates the payment process. Payments automation should include the ability to accept many forms of payment (credit card, electronic check, PayPal etc.) in many currencies. When payments are automated, it is important to have automated dunning processes for failed payments as it improves cash flow and significantly reduces the workload for your collections staff.

Subscription billing solutions have traditionally been large, expensive on-premise software packages that only telecom companies could afford to buy and customize. Monexa Billing provides subscription businesses with the same marketing flexibility and operational efficiency of telecom service providers with our SaaS subscription billing platform at a fraction of the price.