What is a Plan?
Plans are the reusable pricing templates behind every subscription — defining what you charge, how often, and on what terms.
A Plan is the reusable template that defines what you sell on subscription — the price, the billing frequency, any free trial, and the terms that apply. Every subscription you create is based on a plan, so your plans together form the catalogue of recurring services your parlour offers.
Think of a plan as the recipe and a subscription as the meal: you define a plan once (say, a Monthly Grooming package at R450 per month), then enrol as many customers on it as you like. Each customer gets their own subscription, but the pricing and terms all come from the one plan.
One Plan, Many Subscriptions#
Plans sit at the top of your billing structure:
- A plan defines the service, price, and billing terms.
- A subscription enrols one customer's account on a plan and tracks their individual lifecycle.
- An invoice is generated from the subscription each billing period and collects payment.
Because subscriptions reference the plan, keeping your catalogue tidy pays off: a well-structured set of plans makes reporting cleaner, upgrades simpler, and pricing changes far easier to roll out.
What a Plan Defines#
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Name and code | The customer-facing name and the unique code used to identify the plan across the system. |
| Billing interval | How often the subscription renews and invoices — every n days or months (for example, monthly). |
| Free trial | An optional trial period in days or months before the first charge. |
| Subscription term | How many billing cycles a subscription runs for, and whether it renews automatically at the end of a term. |
| Pricing model | Fixed (same price every cycle) or ramp (price steps up or down at defined billing cycles). |
| Setup fee | An optional once-off fee charged on the first invoice. |
| Add-ons | Optional extra charges customers can include with their subscription. |
| Accounting codes | Codes used to map plan and setup-fee revenue to your accounting system. |
You configure all of these when you create a plan.
Pricing Models at a Glance#
Plans support two pricing models:
- Fixed pricing — the subscription charges the same amount every billing cycle. This suits most grooming packages and memberships.
- Ramp pricing — the price changes at set points in the subscription's life. For example, charge R300 per month for the first three cycles, then R450 per month thereafter. Ramps are great for introductory pricing that steps up automatically without manual intervention.
The pricing model is set per plan. The full details of configuring fixed and ramp pricing, including per-cycle amounts, are covered in Create a plan.
Plan Pricing and Currency#
Each plan is priced in your business's billing currency (for example, ZAR). The plan stores a unit amount — the price charged per billing interval — and an optional setup fee. When a subscription is created from the plan, its invoices use these amounts.
Plans, Vouchers, and Invoices#
Plans interact with the rest of your billing toolkit:
- Subscriptions — created from a plan; you can change a subscription to move a customer between plans as they upgrade or downgrade.
- Vouchers — discounts can apply to specific plans or to all plans, reducing the plan price at billing time.
- Invoices — each billing cycle, the subscription generates an invoice line for the plan charge (plus any add-ons and adjustments). See the Invoices dashboard to track them.
Before building out your catalogue, sketch your offering as a ladder — for example Puppy Starter → Standard Groom → Deluxe Spa. Creating one plan per rung, then organising them with plan groups, keeps upgrades and downgrades intuitive for both staff and customers.
Where to Find Plans#
Plans live under Plans in the main navigation. From the Plans dashboard you can browse your catalogue, open a plan's details, create new plans, and manage plan groups.