With sticky.io's Salesforce Commerce Cloud cartridge, you have the freedom to create one-time purchase models or subscription billing models that will keep your customers coming back for more.
In this article, you and I will take a deep dive into understanding what billing models are and how to create them using the sticky.io cartridge. In Steps 2A-2C, we will discover how to configure standard, prepaid and seasonal offers with our created billing models.
Without further ado, let's begin!
Billing Models and Offers Defined
A billing model is a schedule on which a billing event can be set to occur. For example, a sample subscription billing model (pictured below) might be configured to bill on the date of the initial purchase and rebill every 30 days thereafter.
Billing models are not necessarily subscription models. A valid billing model could be a one-time purchase model with no recurring billing associated with a given purchase.
An offer is a billing model (or several billing models) associated with a discount or custom product set. Discounts can be configured as percent-off discounts (Ex/ 10% off) or flat amount discounts (Ex/ $5 off).
An example offer would be the pairing of our 30-day billing model example from above with a 10% discount. In this example, consumers would be charged 10% off the standard product price on the day of their initial purchase and the same price every 30 days thereafter.
How to Configure Billing Models
To begin, we'll start by logging into our Salesforce Commerce Cloud Business Manager and selecting the site of interest.
Next, we will open up the Merchant Tools dropdown. Within the sticky.io section, we will select Billing Model Configuration.
Here, you'll be able to see all of your created billing models. Billing models can be sorted by name, by type, by the date of the last update and by default status.
Note - Billing models set as default will be the pre-selected purchase option that customers see when they land on a given product display page. Please note - Only one billing model can be set as default.
Next, we will open up the Actions dropdown and select Add to create a new billing model.
From here, you can create a new billing model by creating a name for the model, selecting a type and configuring the billing model according to your preferences.
More information about the various billing model types that are available for creation is available in the following section.
Types of Billing Models
There are five different types of subscription billing models supported by the sticky.io Salesforce Commerce Cloud cartridge.
Bill by Cycle
Bill by Cycle is the most common billing frequency both among sticky.io customers as well as the industry as a whole. Here you can bill your consumers every 'X' number of days. An example 30-day billing model is pictured below.
Bill by Date
Bill by Date allows merchants to bill consumers on a specific day in a given month. This is the perfect billing model for merchants who are in the consumables space and may only have inventory in a specific date range each month. This model is also suitable for merchants who want to consolidate their rebills to fall on a given date.
An example billing model is pictured below with subscriptions billing on the 15th of every month.
Bill by Day
Bill by Day enables merchants to bill consumers on a specified week and day of a given month.
It is important to note that by default, this is a monthly billing model with finer control on specifically when in a given month you'd like to bill your consumers.
However, this does support a higher frequency of billing by leveraging the 'Custom' option which can be found when specifying the 'Week'.
In turn, merchants can still bill consumers on a specific day in a given week but can increase the monthly billing cycles to say twice a month.
An example billing model is pictured below with subscriptions billing on the second Tuesday of each month.
Bill by Relative Date
Bill by Relative Date enables merchants to bill consumers on the same day they had originally signed up for.
As such, if a consumer were to sign up on the 15th, the consumer would subsequently be billed on the 15th of each month thereafter, attaining the 'relative' date.
Similar to Bill by Date, if a consumer were to sign up on the 31st, but the month thereafter only had 30 days, the consumer would be billed on the 30th.
An example billing model is pictured below with consumers being billed every 3 months on the same day they had originally signed up for. Under this billing model, if a consumer made their purchase on the 15th of January, they would be rebilled 3 months later on the 15th of April.
Bill by Schedule
Bill by Schedule enables merchants to bill consumers over wide date ranges. This is commonly used by merchants offering seasonal goods or mystery crates.
An example billing model is pictured below with consumers being rebilled on the 1st of January and the 10th of August.
It is important to note that Buffer Days is a critical element of ensuring a consumer isn't double-billed in quick succession.
If a value for this field is placed, the system will look to see if the transaction date is equal or less than the buffer days, if so, the next upcoming rebill date will be skipped.
Note - Billing models and offers cannot be deleted if they are in-use. Billing models and offers are considered to be in-use when there are active subscription chains associated with them. To delete a billing model or offer, all associated subscription activity must be stopped first.
Congratulations! You're now an expert on creating billing models with the sticky.io cartridge for Salesforce Commerce Cloud.