Pelcro: Billing 101 Pt.1

One of the most important aspects of running a business, regardless of size, private or public, is billing. Without it, the cash flow will dry up, and business will flounder.

That’s why we’re breaking down our billing process; in this blog, we’re going to walk you through how to set up new products and plans for your users on Pelcro’s platform.

What is Pelcro?

Pelcro is a subscription and membership management software that provides all of the tools and insight necessary to drive subscriptions, memberships, donations, and much more. In other words, Pelcro is a one-stop-shop and source of truth to help companies drive their recurring revenue.

Pelcro’s streamlined billing system makes it easy for businesses to structure products and plans to bill customers, subscribers, and other recurring payments worldwide.

To start billing your customers with Pelcro, your first step will be to create your products and plans. This will allow you to create subscriptions based on your plan configuration.

Billing 101: Products

You can create a variety of products and plans for your users.

Products refer to an item to which your clients can subscribe to, whereas the plan allows you to set different pricing options, intervals, or currencies to sell your Product.

Create a New Product

From the toolbar, go to “Products” to be redirected to the main page, allowing you to view all existing products.

To create a new product, click on the “New” button on the top right-hand side. This will redirect you to a new page that will prompt you to enter all your product information.

***Note: The first Product you create will be on the top of the product list in the user interface on your site.

To create a new product, you’ll need to enter the following information:

1. Product Name: This is the name that will appear on the receipts and invoices.

2. Product Description: The description of your Product that will appear on your paywall.

3. Statement Descriptor: This will be the name that will appear on the customer’s bank statement.

4. Image: This button will allow you to upload a picture to illustrate the Product.

5. Address Required: A checkbox that requires customers to enter their address when choosing the Product. This is ideal for physical products that need to be shipped to the customers.

6. Site Selling this Product: If you have multiple websites connected to your Pelcro platform, you can decide which websites you’d like to sell the Product on.

7. Product only available in these countries: This allows you to restrict the countries your Product will be listed in. If a customer attempts to subscribe to a product and his address is not included in the list of countries you assigned to the Product, the subscription will not be created.

Finally, once you’ve entered all of your product details, you can create it by clicking on the “Create Product” button. Once your product has been created, it will appear on the “Products” page in a list view.

View Existing Products

On the Products page, you can find a list view, listing all of the existing products you created. In the list view, you can see the following Product associated details:

1. Product ID

2. Product Name

3. Product Pricing

On each line level, you have a view button that allows you to view all the product details.

Clicking on the view button will redirect you to another page that displays the section’s product details and the plans linked to that Product in the second section.

Edit Existing Products

From the “View” mode of a product, you can edit the Product by clicking on the “Edit” button on the top right corner. That will take you to the product edit page. From there, you can update any of the Product related fields.

When you’re done updating the product information, click on “Update Product” to save your changes.

Configuring your Products

After creating your Product, you’ll be able to set up your Product for display on your website/paywall. For that, click the ‘Create’ button below ‘Configure’ on the line level, next to the Product you wish to configure. If a product has already been configured, you can edit the configuration of that Product by clicking on the “Edit” button below ‘Configure’.

Your next step will be to determine the different parameters linked to your product configuration.

Step 1: Target

You’ll have to select:

1. Type

2. Target

Within your product type, you’ll have to select one of the following options:

1. Paywall Product: a product that triggers the metered paywall on your webpage

2. Regular Product: a regular product that is displayed on your paywall once configured.

Within your Target Audience, you’ll have to select one of the following options:

1. Target Everyone: which applies to anyone visiting your website

2. Target Segments below: will narrow down the audience that will see that Product, based on specific criteria. (ie. Countries, platforms, adblockers & MetaTags)

Step 2: Meter (Skip if you’ve previously selected “Regular Product”)

You’ll have to set:

1. Number of Free Articles: Decide on the number of free articles users can access before hitting the paywall.

2. Paywall renewal interval (in days): This will determine when the free article count resets.

3. Meter title: Choose the title that will be displayed on the metered paywall.

4. Meter subtitle: Additional text that you want to show on the metered paywall on your webpage.

Step 3: Select

You’ll have to set:

1. Select Title: Allows you to set the title that appears on the product selection modal

2. Select Subtitle: Allows you to set the subtitle that appears on the product selection modal

Step 4: Newsletter (Skip if you’ve previously selected “Regular Product”)

You’ll have to set:

1. Allow users to get free articles by entering their Email

2. Number of extra free articles

3. Newsletter title

4. Newsletter subtitle

Step 5: Registration

You’ll have to set:

1. Registration title

2. Registration subtitle

Step 6: Payment

You’ll have to set:

1. Subscribe title

2. Subscribe subtitle

Step 7: Success

You’ll have to set:

1. Success title

2. Success subtitle

Step 8: Confirmation

This is where you save your product configuration, and that your Product will be displayed on your paywall.

Delete Existing Products

Deleting an existing product will completely delete the Product from your Pelcro instance.

As much as we do not recommend the deletion of a product, you can still perform this action as an Admin.

Archive Existing Products

Archiving a product allows you to remove the Product from your list view while still keeping it in your Pelcro database. That way, it can’t be used to create new subscriptions. Existing subscriptions will continue to be billed as usual until canceled.

To Archive a product, you will need to go to the “View” page of the Product. Then click on the three dots “…” on the top right corner and click on “Archive product”.

In the event where you’d like to unarchive a product, click on the “Unarchive” button on the product view page.

Billing Plans

Now that we’ve covered the products side of things, we’ll dive into “plans”.

Plans are usually tied to a product, and as mentioned earlier, a program allows you to set different pricing options, intervals, or currencies to sell your Product.

Creating a new Plan

From the toolbar, go to “Products”. You’ll be redirected to the main page allowing you to view all existing products. From there, you will need to select the Product to which you’d like to add a plan.

Click on “View” on the line level of the Product, then when redirected to the detailed view of the Product, click on the “Add pricing plan” button.

Once you’ve clicked on the button, you’ll be redirected to the Pricing Plan creation page.

To create a new plan, you’ll need to enter the following information:

1. Nickname: Name of the Plan.

2. Product Type: Auto-renew product VS a one time purchase

3. Currency: Currency tied to your pricing plan

4. Unit Price: Price per unit

5. Billing Interval: determines the length of your plan (monthly or yearly)

6. Interval Count: determines the count of your billing interval. (i.e., for the “Billing interval = Monthly”, I’ll have an “Interval Count = 12”.

7. Trial Period in days: As part of this plan, you can offer your customers a set number of trial days

8. Shipments per interval: Based on the billing interval selected above, you will have X amount of shipments shipped to your customers during that interval.

9. Description: A description of your pricing plan.

10. Plan available only in these countries: Limits the access to this pricing plan, only for the selected countries. The user will only see products that are available in their countries.

11. Entitlements: The entitlements that are available to the user upon subscribing to this plan. The entitlements will enable you to control the features that a user has access to.

12. Is this plan available online: Determines whether the product is available online or not

13. Is this plan refundable: Determines whether or not the product is refundable.

14. Revenue recognition type: To configure whether this plan should be recognized on a time basis or shipment basis

Once you’ve entered all of the Pricing Plan’s related information, save it. You should now see your pricing plan listed in the plan list, linked to that Product.

***Note: Free trials only work on paid plans which are set to auto-renew.

View an existing Plan

Once you’ve created your plan, the only way to view it would be by accessing the Product tied to the plan. You would be able to view the summarized view of the plan.

Edit an existing Plan

To edit an existing Plan, go to your Product, and find the plan you wish to edit from the plan list view. Click on “Edit Pricing Plan”. You’ll be redirected to the edit page of the pricing plan. From there, you’ll be able to modify the following fields:

1. Nickname

2. Trial Period in days

3. Shipments per interval

4. Description

5. Apple Product ID

6. Plan available only in these countries

7. Authorization

8. Is the product available online?

9. Is the plan refundable?

Once you’re done updating the plan, click on the “Update Pricing Plan” button, and your changes will be reflected in the pricing plan.

Delete an existing Plan

Deleting an existing pricing plan will completely delete the plan from your Pelcro instance.

As much as we do NOT recommend the deletion of a plan, you can still perform this action as an Admin.

Archive an existing Plan

Archiving a plan allows you to remove the plan from your list view while still keeping it in your Pelcro database.

Food for Thought

At Pelcro, our mission is to provide our clients with all the tools and expertise they need to drive recurring revenue effectively, built with developers in mind for ultimate flexibility.

In part 1 of this guide, we broke down how to set up products and plans on Pelcro’s platform; our next blog will cover setting up subscriptions and Pelcro’s invoicing process.

Want to find out if Pelcro is the right subscription management software for you? Try us for free or set up a demo call with one of our experts.