How to configure Limio Offers with Zuora Rate Plans and Products in Limio

In this user guide, you will learn how to setup a Rate Plan in Zuora that is compatible with a Limio Offer.

A Zuora rate plan is the item customers subscribe to, which includes the different charges incurred by the customer. With Limio, the rate plan set in Zuora is the price used when the customers renew. In practice, this means that you will define an introductory price (or prices using Deal Ramp) in Limio, then the renewal prices in Zuora. 

If you are not sure which charge models Limio supports, please read What Zuora charge models can Limio support?.

1. Configure the Zuora Rate Plan

From a Limio perspective, there are 4 important fields to configure:

• Rate Plan name: This will be used to make the link to the Limio Offer.
• List Price: This will be used as the Initial price and/or Renewal Price depending on your Limio setup.
• Billing Period: This will match the Term in Limio.
• The Price Change on Subscription Renewal settings must be set to 'Use Latest Product Catalog Pricing'. This will allow to revert to the List Price set in Zuora after the initial pricing set in Limio. If you don't see this field on your Zuora Rate Plan, please read Automated Price Change (Uplift) for Renewed Subscriptions.

See an example of a Zuora rate plan configured to work with a Limio Offer:

2. Surface in Limio the Zuora Products and Rate Plans

Please refer to Catalog sync between Limio and Zuora

3. Configure a Limio Offer to work with a Zuora rate plan

Now, let's walkthrough how to set up a Limio offer and the corresponding Zuora price fields.

There are two ways you can configure a Limio offer with Zuora:

1. Define Initial Price in Limio: Limio will define the Initial Price for the Initial Term. This is the price charged to the customer for the Initial Term.  The Initial Price in Limio will override the pricing in Zuora but only for the Initial Term. For renewal terms, the subscription will renew on the Zuora pricing.
   • Why use this method? This is particularly useful if you'd like to have promotional pricing managed in Limio. This allows to reduce product proliferation in the Zuora catalog, by only storing list prices or standard prices in Zuora and holding promotional pricing in Limio. Note that the promotional pricing will still make its way on each Zuora Subscription, so reporting isn't impacted.
   • When to avoid this method? You are using a complex pricing in Zuora (for example usage-based) or you need tax to be dynamically calculated (for example in the US)
2. Define External Price in Zuora: Limio will let Zuora fully drive the prices, for both the Initial and Renewal Terms. In this case, Limio will fully differ to what is in the Zuora product catalog. This is called External Pricing.
   • Why use this method? This is particularly useful for complex pricing (e.g. tiered pricing) and when you need Limio to dynamically calculate the tax based on location (e.g. US Sales Tax).
   • When to avoid this method? When your pricing is simple (e.g. 10€ per month) and your customers are very sensitive on performance (as external pricing requires API calls that are slower).

Either way, you should get familiar with the various fields on the Limio Offer. Every offer in Limio includes:

• Initial Price (the initial price(s) of the subscription)
• Zuora Product and Rate Plans (the product and rate plan in Zuora)
• Term (the rate at which a subscription is renewed) 
• Auto Renew (whether a subscription will automatically renew until cancelled)
• (Optional) Allow Multibuy (whether a subscription allows multiple purchases)

3.1. Define Initial Price in Limio

Let's go through how to define the initial price in Limio and the renewal price in Zuora.

Initial Price 

Within the Limio Initial Price field, you can set the initial charges for an initial period before any Zuora renewal. The Initial Price is usually the very first charge that happens at the time of order.

There are options compatible with Zuora:

• One charge, for example $189 for the first year or $189 per user for the first month. The number of charge must always be 1 - for example every 1 year for 1 charge. If you need the initial price to have multiple prices or charges, use a deal ramp.

• Two charges, for example £29 one-off joining fee and £9 recurring fee.

• Multiple charges, for example $19 for the first 12 weeks, then $45 for the following 16 x 12 weeks. This will trigger a Deal Ramp in Zuora. To trigger it, you must use two charges as below:

Known limitation:

• Deal Ramp Offers will only work for New Subscription. It cannot be used for a Switch Offer (Downgrade or Upgrade). If you want to offer a Deal Ramp, you will need to Cancel the old subscription and process a New Subscription.

Zuora Product and Rate Plan

In Zuora, a rate plan describes the charges for a given product. If you have not created a Rate Plan in Zuora, please check this Zuora guide on how to do that.

In Limio for Zuora, the Zuora Rate Plan can either reference (1) the renewal price from Zuora if you use the Limio Initial Price or (2) the initial and renewal price from Zuora if you use External Pricing (see Using External Price in Limio ).

New experience: On the Limio Offer, go to Products. Select the Limio Product you have setup in How to configure Zuora Product Code (SKU) in Limio. Add a rate plan to it.

If you use Initial Price, set the split to 100%. If you are creating a bundle, then the split will differ. See How To Add A Product Bundle.

If you use External Pricing, you don't need to specify the split. Limio will automatically use the pricing set in Zuora.

⚠️ Legacy experience: Before the Winter 2021 release, the Zuora Rate Plan was specified on the Offers attribute tab, through the attribute rate_plan__zuora (lease be aware this could have been labelled differently in your environment by your Limio Admin, for example renewal price). This legacy attribute is still backward compatible in current Limio version and users can still specify the Zuora rate plan on that attribute. However, we encourage to use the new experience as it allows additional flexibility such as defining bundles.

Term

With Initial Price set it Limio, Zuora must still receive the term for the renewal price, for example 1 month or 1 year. This is true regardless of the pricing you use. The initial and renewal terms need to match.

Auto Renew

If the Auto Renew field is turned on, then the subscription will be set to auto-renew on the Zuora Rate Plan. If not, it will not auto-renew in Zuora.

3.2. External Price in Zuora

Initial Price 

Within the Limio Initial Price field, if you want to rely fully on the Zuora rate plan, use:

• External Pricing. Limio will not override the pricing in Zuora and the subscription will be set to whatever pricing is in Zuora. You must still define the currency.

• Zuora Product and Rate Plan: Define the Product and Rate Plan as above
• Term: The term defined here will be used for both the initial and renewal term.
• Auto Renew: Same as in step 2.1.

3.3 (Optional) Enable Quantity purchase

(Optional) Allow Multibuy

If Allow Multibuy is on, the customer can purchase multiple subscriptions and the Zuora order will set a quantity on the subscription. This is often used for usage-based pricing models (e.g. per month, per user).