Payment frequency, monthly, annual,etc

[TowerHost.com]

Just wondering how many of you only support monthly billing?
I've noticed many hosts which only provide monthly billing. Would this be because it's easier to keep a steady stream of revenue?

What do you do about customers that want to pre-pay yearly?
Tell us what you use and why!

Cheers

[Living Media]

I allow monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual payments / prepayments. Yes, you can argue that it does make the cashflow spastic; however:

* for folks using a third-party CC provider instead of a merchant gateway, less money taken in per-transaction fees when the client pays yearly

* gives the client more choices as to how they're comfortable paying - what works for their budget

I think that hosts should go with whatever is best for them and their clients.

I started out with monthly, semi-annual, and annual payments; but when a client contacted me and asked if there wasn't a step in between monthly and semi-annually, I crunched some numbers, thought for a while, and added a quarterly payment option. The savings isn't as great as if they had paid semiannually or annually; but for some budgets, that's the most comfortable stretch. (It also lets them prepay for hosting without committing themselves to too long a timeframe until they're sure that yes, they like the services and the prices.)

[allan]

Originally posted by TowerHost.com
Just wondering how many of you only support monthly billing?
I've noticed many hosts which only provide monthly billing. Would this be because it's easier to keep a steady stream of revenue?


If you budget properly, you should be able to keep your revenue constant, even with yearly billing. As to why some hosts only support monthly billing, I think a lot of that has to do with customer demand. With new hosting companies constantly springing up, and then dying...many customers are leery of paying a year in advance.

[VoxKeysGtr]

The great majority of my customers prefer to pay monthly. The few that want to pay annually, pay by check. Basically, it's whatever they feel comfortable with. :cool:

[beley]

Monthly and annually, but I'll go for quarterly if they pay by check (local customers only). We used to do quarterly but it was just too many options.

We get a lot of businesses that pay annually though, they don't want the hassle of having to pay every month...

[vito]

Most of mine pay annually. By check.They are local businesses and just want to write a check once a year and be done. I quite like it. Plus I don't have to pay the discount fee for cc payment, or the per-transaction fee (adds up if it's monthly).

Vito

[fcolor]

Hi,

We prefer annual billing. That suits most clients if they are sure the hosting company is reliable one. It takes too much time to work with monthly payment cycle and to send reminder to everyone who has forgoten to renew an account.

regards
D.

[rusko]

we only do annual billing periods after the client has been with us for a while. i pretty much require that they use us for at least 2-3 months before going annual.

paul

[ljprevo]

I prefer monthly, but I allow Quarterly, Semi-Annually, and Annually as well. More options for the consumer.

I thought about making a "Pay your bill Annually" get a percentage off deal, like some dialup ISP's do so.

But the hassel of refunds, etc blows that out of the water.

[ZummiBear]

We have the options quarterly and annually. I prefer when they pay annually because it seems to create less of a hassle....however after a year we have found that some places change their webmaster/owner and that does cause some problems.

When doing billing, do you send out a notification before charging their card?? Or do you have automatic withdrawl?? Any suggestions on which would be better?

[Living Media]

Most of my clients are not on automatic billing; but for those few that are, they receive an invoice just like my other clients. It includes the line "If you have selected automatic billing, you may disregard this notice." The invoice (synched to whatever their billing period is, quarterly, monthly, what have you) serves as a nice reminder: "Hey, you're about to be billed. Here's for how much, and here's why."

[Chicken]

How the heck do you keep track of those annual billing people? I have one person that pays by check, and for the life of me, I can't find when he paid last, thus I can't rebill him :( Even thogh I only deal with a relatively small number of people, I need to find a more organized way of keeping track of them and billing them.

[allan]

Chicken, what billing program do you use? We used Quickbooks, which would send reminders when it was time to invoice people again.

[Chicken]

I use notepad, if that tells you how badly I need to find something.

[MMiz]

I used to work for company that had people dedicated to billing, accounting, and so on. They started with QuickBooks when they were tiny with only two people, continue to use the software 10 years later. Theyve paid tens of thousands of dollars to be trained in new billing software, but always end up going back to QuickBooks. My neighbor also used it for his growing business, and I know many others that do too.

Im not sure if that helps at all, but I would suggest checking it out. Its pretty easy to use too, and I believe you can have a billing solution built in where it will bill and process credit cards.

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken:

I use notepad, if that tells you how badly I need to find something.

Yes, you might want to get something else ;). What I don't understand is how your 100 employees all update the same notepad document (or is it just used by your billing dept) :D.

[Chicken]

LOL, ohhhh we're a much bigger operation than that! See, I keep all of the names and passwords, and billing information in this text file and just upload it to a publicly viewable web site. That is OK isn't it?

:bs:

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken:

LOL, ohhhh we're a much bigger operation than that! See, I keep all of the names and passwords, and billing information in this text file and just upload it to a publicly viewable web site. That is OK isn't it?

:bs:

Chicken -- it is much more secure if you upload it to an anonymous FTP server and let people download it every time it is updated :D.

[ZummiBear]

Originally posted by Chicken:

How the heck do you keep track of those annual billing people? I have one person that pays by check, and for the life of me, I can't find when he paid last, thus I can't rebill him :( Even thogh I only deal with a relatively small number of people, I need to find a more organized way of keeping track of them and billing them.

We use Quickbooks.....and we print off an invoice and it goes into rotation so we can keep track of who has to be billed when. It does get pretty expensive to send out invoices all the time to have people not pay them.....anyone have a suggestion for an email invoice?

[TowerHost.com]

:baghead: I just wrote up a long reply in the quick reply box but I went to post and it said I wasn't logged in... I logged in then thread wasn't specified... I go back and my reply is gone :mad: :confused:

Anyways.... I said QuickBooks can email out an invoice but not a receipt of the invoice which is a pain. It also has 10000 features I will never use and it's hard to understand the most basic features without any accounting experience.

I'm starting to play with Quicken which isn't to bad. What other accounting programs do you use and why?

QuickBooks just wasn't my peice of pie :)
I have plans to launch my own custom billing/client management/members area/mini accounting script this summer. Whether I plan to sell it is another story :D

[Robert]

We provide Monthly and Yearly plans only.

On reseller plans, only monthly and for custom packages (Below $40) we only allow yearly payments.

Our billing software, ModernBill, does all the invoicing us, but I must add that it has wayy to many features.

[1000rpm]

We now only accept monthly payments, seeing as our billing systems 2checkout and paypal both do recurring payments it is the most logical way to do things.

With yearly payments it is a lot of admin work when it gets to renewal time, not many people have the same CC# year in year out.

[hostzodiac]

I happen to offer both Monthly (for those who are afraid to commit) and annual hosting plan options.

However, I do give a discount to those who pay annually as sort of a 'loyalty discount'.

Personally, I'd rather get my money for the hosting account in one big chunk than in little monthly payments but if they do pay monthly at least I'm not having to give them the slight discount so it works out both ways.

[wefrank]

I am just starting... (and I know I will be asking LOTS of questions soon!)
Just got authorized with PayQuake for accepting credit cards and they would only allow "Monthly" cc billing - their reason was 'if I went out of business, they would have these refunds to deal with'.

So pulled the annual billing for now. They said I could have an annual plan, but charge the credit card monthly. So, might configure initially a 'you can pay yearly by check...' I will charge you for 10 months, because I save the credit card transactions...