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Addons are a great way of selling additional products/services to your customers and boost your sales revenue. Chargebee helps you do just that.
Addons can be included in a Subscription while
To create an addon, navigate to Product Catalog › Addons › + Create Addon and fill out the form.
Here we look at some essential attributes of an addon:
The Name field must be defined for an addon. It is the name used to refer to the addon on the Chargebee user interface. It's good to have a name here that is descriptive of the attributes of the addon such as its pricing and period so you can easily distinguish it from other addons in your site.
So, instead of naming addons Addon A, Addon B etc., it makes more sense to name them "SMS Credits monthly USD", "Custom Reports quarterly AUD" etc.
The Chargebee API uses the unique addon id and not the Addon name to identify the addons that are on your website. An addon Id is the unique identifier of the addon and when a subscription is created or updated via the API from your app/website, the "Id" should be used to refer to the addon.
The invoice name field is used to define the name of the addon as it would appear to customers. This name is used for the addon in invoices, hosted checkout pages and the customer portal and quotes.
So, the invoice name for an addon should be that which you intend the customer to associate with the addon.
Note
If you don't set the invoice name, the addon name is used for it.
A short description to the addon for the customer.
The addon description is displayed in the In-app Checkout and Portal when the Show description for all items setting is enabled.
Enable the Show Addon Description in Invoices and Show Addon Description in Quotes options to display the addon description for the respective line items in your invoices and quotes PDFs. After the setting is enabled, the PDF format of the invoices and quotes that are generated for the subscriptions of this addon displays the description.
Note
Description is displayed only on the change subscription screen of Single Page Portal.
An addon can be recurring or non-recurring.
Such an addon renews each time the subscription renews.
Period
For recurring addons, you need to define a period. This is the period covered for the price of the addon. A recurring addon is only allowed to be attached to a subscription whose billing period is a multiple of the addon's period.
So, for example, the following statements hold:
The billing price of the addon would be the price of the addon multiplied by the number of addon periods that go into a single subscription period.
Example
Consider the following:
Plan billing period: 1 year
Plan price: $500
Addon period: 4 months
Addon price: $30
When the addon is signed-up for with the plan, we have the invoice as:
Plan cost: $500/year
Addon cost: $120/year ($30x4)
Total: $620
As described above, the addon period does not determine when it is billed. In fact, addons get billed along with the subscription. The addon period is only used to calculate the billing price of the addon when attached to a subscription.
A non-recurring addon or one-time addon does not get renewed. So it can be used for a one-off purchase such as extra data with an internet subscription.
Classic UI users
Here's how the Add Addon option displayed in Classic UI:
Learn more about non-recurring addons here.
Choose the currency that the addon will be billed in. If you do not see the desired currency listed, you may need to enable the currency in Chargebee. An addon cannot be attached to a plan with a different currency.
Note: You can only have one currency defined for an addon in Chargebee. If you wish to support multiple currencies for an addon, you must create separate addons for each currency.
The following options are available for addon pricing:
1. Flat Fee
Flat Fee addons can be used for products/services that do not have a quantity associated with them. So it has a fixed price for the addon period.
Example
Along with a subscription for online storage if you sell "Premium Support", this would be a "Flat Fee" addon. There is no quantity associated with it.
2. Per Unit
Per unit priced addons can be used when products are charged per unit of quantity.
Example
You can sell anti-virus software (priced per device) as an addon.
The configuration would be:
Addon pricing: Per unit
Unit of measure: device
Price: $10
Charge type: Recurring
Period: 1 month
This addon would then be charged $10/device/month
3. Volume
Here too, the price is quantity-based. However, the per unit price is dependent on the range within which the total quantity falls. So under this model, you would define the quantity ranges and the per unit price for each. For example:
| Tier | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units in tier | 1-10 | 11-60 | 61-210 | 211 and above |
| Price | $10/unit | $7/unit | $4/unit | $1/unit |
If a customer signs up for 100 units, they would be charged $4 per unit based on the third tier (61-210 units), for a total of 100 x $4 = $400.
4. Tiered
In tiered pricing also, the per unit prices are assigned to quantity-based ranges (tiers). When calculating the total price, quantities are purchased from successive tiers, starting from the lowest. Let's consider the same tiers as the example before:
| Tier | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units in tier | 1-10 | 11-60 | 61-210 | 211 and above |
| Price | $10/unit | $7/unit | $4/unit | $1/unit |
If a customer buys 8 units, they would be charged $10/unit, which is $10 x 8 = $80.
If a customer buys 100 units then they would be charged:
For a total of: $10 x 10 + $7 x 50 + $4 x 40 = $100 + $350 + $160 = $610.
On the web interface, the above examples for tiered and volume pricing are configured as shown:
See also:
How tiered pricing looks on Chargebee's Checkout and Self-serve Portal screens.
5. Stair-step
Stair-step pricing also defines quantity tiers against which prices are defined, but for each tier, a flat price is assigned instead of a per unit price.
So we have the following tiers or "steps" as before, with the prices against each as shown:
| Steps | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units in step | 1-10 | 11-60 | 61-210 | 211 and above |
| Price | $75 | $275 | $500 | $800 |
If a customer buys 100 units, they are charged as per step 3: a flat $500.
If the customer buys 5 units, they are charged as per step 1: a flat $75.
If they buy 400 units, they are charged $800 (step 4).
The configuration on the web interface is shown below:
Examples on how proration is done for quantity-based pricing models when the quantity purchased is changed in the middle of a billing period.
If you want to price your addons in fractional amounts with more than two decimal places, or if you want to charge for fractional quantities, you can enable multi-decimal support in your Chargebee site. You can specify the addon price and units value in multiple decimals, based on the number of decimal places that you have configured.
Allows you to configure whether the product is a physical item that can be shipped. If so, then for recurring addons, you must mention how often an item is shipped in a single addon period.
Shipping preferences must be enabled using the Enable shipping fields checkbox under Settings > Configure Chargebee > Billing LogIQ.
This section shows what plans the addon is associated with. By default, all compatible addons can be attached to a plan. However, you can also fine-tune how addons are associated with a plan.
The Accounting Information section helps Chargebee sync up with any accounting applications that you integrate with, like Xero and QuickBooks. Each of the accounting fields captures information that helps track product-specific sales/revenue from an accounting perspective.
If you are using QuickBooks - you can enter one category (referred to as Classes/sub-classes)
If you are using Xero - you can enter two categories, Accounting Category_1, Accounting Category_2 (referred to as Tracking categories).
For information regarding these fields in API, refer to the addons section in the API documentation.
Note
These fields will not be available by default, you should enable these fields at Settings > Configure Chargebee > Billing LogIQ and select Enable Accounting Fields for integration.
If Taxes have been configured, you can choose to exempt an addon from taxes by unchecking This addon is subject to taxes while creating the addon.
If you are choosing to keep the addon taxable, choose a tax profile for it. This would determine — during invoicing — what taxes are applied to the price of the addon.
The Self-serve Portal can be used by your customers to make changes to their subscription. You can decide whether an addon is available to customers on the portal. This is done using the Display in Customer Portal checkbox while creating/editing the addon.
See also:
This FAQ for a glimpse of what tiered pricing looks like on the Self-serve Portal and Checkout.
When you are on the details page of any addon, you will find the actions pane on the right. The following actions are available:
This allows you to change the addon configuration.
The Addon Id for an addon cannot be changed once the addon has been created.
If there are no subscriptions attached to the addon, then every attribute (except Addon Id) can be changed.
If subscriptions are attached to the addon then everything can be changed except the following:
When an addon has subscriptions attached to it, the price of the addon can be changed (though only when the addon pricing is flat fee or per unit).
Navigate to Product Catalog > [Addon name] > Edit Addon. Enter the new price of the addon under the Pricing section. Click on Update Addon.
The new price is applied to all new subscriptions with the addon. Existing subscriptions are not affected and continue to be renewed with the old addon price.
You don't have to create an addon from scratch always. You can use the Clone Addon action to copy an existing addon and then make changes to it.
On clicking Clone Addon, a form just like Create a New Addon opens with the configuration of the cloned addon pre-filled. You can now edit the form and save to create the new addon.
You can upload a CSV file containing a list of addons into Chargebee. Chargebee allows you to create a maximum of 10,000 addons in a single shot.
To bulk create addons, you can navigate in one of 2 ways:
Go to Product Catalog > Addons and on the top right corner, click on the upload icon (shown below).
Classic UI Users
Instead of the upload icon, you would see the Import Addons button above.
Step 1:
In the Upload CSV page that opens, upload the CSV file that contains the list of addons that are to be imported.
Chargebee follows a naming convention to map the fields in the CSV to that in the application. Please make sure that your column names are specified as mentioned below.
Step 2:
Chargebee will validate the file and show the list of matched and unmatched columns. Unmatched columns are columns that have not followed Chargebee's rules for naming convention in a bulk update.
This step will contain 3 tabs:
Unmatched columns: Columns whose values could not be matched with the values in Chargebee
Columns matched based on the last operation preference: This section will contain the column names and the mapped columns, in case you have previously imported a CSV file. If this is the first time you are performing bulk operation for addons, you can ignore this section.
Matched columns: Columns whose value has been successfully matched with that of Chargebee's.
Match the columns accordingly and click Next.
Step 3: Confirm Errors
This step will display the errors that occurred while validating the file. Resolve the errors (if any) and then click Create Addons.
Deleting and archiving depends on whether the Addon has any Subscriptions associated with it.
Deletion
Archiving
When you try to delete an addon that has subscriptions linked to it, it gets archived instead. This way the addon – though not deleted – is prevented from being used for new subscriptions.
Any existing subscriptions with the addon are not affected post archiving: they continue to renew as usual along with the subscription.
The name or Id of the addon cannot be reused when the addon is archived.
You can delete/archive multiple addons in Chargebee in one-shot. To do this, go to Product Catalog > Addons, select the addons to be deleted and click Delete (shown below).
Classic UI Users
Navigate to Product Catalog > Addons > Click Bulk Action > Select the addons to be deleted and click the Delete button.
Bulk Actions can only be performed by Admins.
1) Can recurring addons be added to a subscription in the middle of its term?
Yes, this can be done by choosing Change Subscription under the list of actions available on the subscription details page. If proration is enabled, the charge for the addon is prorated for the remaining term of the subscription. If disabled, then the addon is charged for from the next renewal.
2) Can I control how many times a recurring addon renews with the subscription?
Yes, for this, enable billing cycle for addons.
If you do have a usage-based or metered billing subscription model, then you can create non recurring quantity based addons to apply metered charges as addons. Learn more about metered billing.
3) Can I have trial periods for addons too?
Yes, enable addon trials for this.
4) How is a one-time charge different from a non-recurring addon?
A non-recurring addon is a product or service that has been modeled into Chargebee that does not renew with the subscription though it is linked to it. A one-time charge is an ad-hoc charge against a customer and is not linked to any particular subscription. More information about these two ways of charging is presented here.
5) I have a usage-based subscription model, how do I handle that in Chargebee?
Use Chargebee's metered billing feature to use non-recurring addons to apply usage charges.
6) Can I see how, say, an addon/plan with tiered pricing looks like on Chargebee Checkout and Self-serve Portal?
Yes, see this FAQ.
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