Difference Between Product & Plan

What is a product?

A product refers to any physical and/or digital goods or services that your business sells to consumers. Each of your products can have multiple different plans associated with them. 

What is a plan?

Plans are different offerings tied to a product. They may differ from each other in one of the following ways:

• Billing Frequencies

Different plans associated with the same product may have different billing frequencies such as weekly, monthly, yearly etc. 

For example, you may sell bottled water subscriptions that renew weekly or monthly.

• Charge Types

Plans may also differ in the type of charge associated with them. This includes one-time, recurring or usage-based charges. 

For example, let's suppose you are selling coffee beans and you want your consumers to have the option of making a one-time purchase or buying a coffee bean subscription. Two plans under this product, with different charge types, can allow you to sell your coffee beans both ways.

• Pricing Model

Finally, your plans may differ in terms of the pricing model used to calculate the charge, which could be a flat fee or per unit pricing. 

For example, for a lifestyle magazine subscription. You may want a plan that charges consumers a flat fee for a single issue delivered every month. Alternatively, you may want to charge per unit if you’re selling multiple copies to a distributor like a bookstore.

Important note:

You can create a product in SubscriptionFlow and keep adding different plans to it. A plan can only be created in association with an existing or a new product. You can create as many plans as you need and assign them to an existing product.