Home → Questions →

Per-customer discounts / customized subscriptions

• Edit

Dan Kamins

25 Feb, 2010 01:32 AM

We need to do either of the following:

1. Apply a discount (e.g. 10% off the cost of the plan they're subscribed to) to a specific customer, so they are billed less than the plan cost each month.

2. Apply a tracked item credit (e.g. +50 extra periodic items), so they get additional items each month.

What are our options?

This is somewhat related to this question about discounts from October:
http://support.cheddargetter.com/discussions/questions/37-discounts

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Marc Guyer on 25 Feb, 2010 05:15 PM

   
   1. The negative overage amount mentioned in the other post would work. That's still on our wishlist.
      
   2. Hmm... It's not possible to override the included quantity of an item for a particular customer.

   I would suggest configuring a second plan for the discounted price or for the increased include item quantity.

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by Dan Kamins on 25 Feb, 2010 07:02 PM

   

   Marc,

   Re "negative overage amount": is that something that is supported now or something you are considering supporting in the future? I don't fully understand how it would work...

   Re making a second discounted plan (that wasn't offered normally to customers): would we be able to change somebody onto this plan (or back) via the CG admin web UI? Via the API?

   If so, what would the resulting subscriptions XML look like? I.e. would the first record be a reference to the new plan, and subsequent records would contain references to previous plans?

   And lastly, can you say if more formal support for anything like this on the roadmap? If we knew it was coming, we might be able to hold off a bit and be less inclined to hack around this issue.

   Thank you.

   • Edit

3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Marc Guyer on 25 Feb, 2010 07:35 PM

   

   Re "negative overage amount": is that something that is supported now or something you are considering supporting in the future? I don't fully understand how it would work...

   We will likely be supporting this in the future. It could be used in many ways (just as many as positive overage amounts). For example, you could set quantity included to zero and overage amount to -10. If you give the customer a quantity of 1 for the item, they would effectively receive a $10 discount on their bill (optionally every bill depending on if the item is periodic). Another example, quantity included could be -0.01. In that case if the customer's quantity was set to 550, it would produce a discount of $5.50.
   

   Re making a second discounted plan (that wasn't offered normally to customers): would we be able to change somebody onto this plan (or back) via the CG admin web UI? Via the API?

   Yes and yes.

   If so, what would the resulting subscriptions XML look like? I.e. would the first record be a reference to the new plan, and subsequent records would contain references to previous plans?

   Exactly correct.

   And lastly, can you say if more formal support for anything like this on the roadmap? If we knew it was coming, we might be able to hold off a bit and be less inclined to hack around this issue.

   We will likely support something like a coupon code or something along those lines. A coupon would generate either a one-time or recurring discount. It would likely use the tracked item system behind the scenes in a transparent way.

   For the record, we don't consider the creative use of tracked items or multiple plans as a "hack". That's what they're for.
   

   • Edit

4. 4 Posted by Paul Singh on 08 Mar, 2010 03:59 PM

   

   Marc,

   I notice that the CG Features page already has a section for pricing promotions -- are those currently enabled by using the "hacked" version above or via actual coupon functionality?

   I'm trying to offer recurring discounts for my affiliate program and some marketing-related giveaways.

   Paul

   • Edit

5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Marc Guyer on 08 Mar, 2010 06:43 PM

   

   Recurring discounts (negative overage amount) is in development. Release date is unknown at this time but the goal is by the end of the month. Do you have a hard timeline?

   • Edit

6. 6 Posted by Paul Singh on 08 Mar, 2010 06:49 PM

   

   Today would be nice, primarily because we're gearing up for some promos we're running around SXSWi. :)

   For now, I'll probably just create a separate discounted plan and deal with this manually. I'll be running other promo campaigns over the next few weeks so I'll be really interested in trying out the "coupon" feature whenever it's ready.

   • Edit

7. Support Staff 7 Posted by Marc Guyer on 08 Mar, 2010 06:58 PM

   

   Cool. We'll let you know when that's done.
   

   Keep an eye out for SproutBox and CheddarGetter at sxsw.

   • Edit

8. Support Staff 8 Posted by Marc Guyer on 09 Mar, 2010 07:13 PM

   

   We'll likely have negative overage amount support released this evening. Tomorrow morning at the latest.

   • Edit

9. Support Staff 9 Posted by Marc Guyer on 09 Mar, 2010 08:14 PM

   

   Actually, it's available now.

   • Edit

10. Marc Guyer closed this discussion on 09 Mar, 2010 08:14 PM.