Sell a subscription with packages

A subscription can be used for clients who pay every billing cycle and keep sending you work. You build it from packages. Each package sets a price per cycle and limits how much work the client can have with you at once. To create one, select Create service in Settings › Sales › Services.

Create the subscription and its packages

1. Open Settings › Sales › Services, select Create service and choose the subscription type.
2. Enter the Name and choose the Default billing cycle. To show the saving on longer cycles, tick Show percentage discount.
3. For each tier, select Add package and give the package a Name and a Description.
4. Under Billing cycles, tick Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly. Enter a price for each cycle you tick, such as Price per month. To offer a lower price for a while, tick Enable sale prices and fill in the sale price for each cycle, such as Sale price per month.
5. If a package needs them, turn on Free trial, Package highlight or Enable pausing subscription. To let clients pause the subscription themselves, tick Enable pausing for clients.
6. Turn on Requests limits and set the limits for each package. Leave a field empty for no limit.
7. Under Finance settings, choose the Currency, tick the Payment method checkboxes and set Issue an invoice.
8. Select Save, then open the service's own link and go through the page as a client.

Set request limits

Each package can have three limits, and each counts something different:

• Max number of completed requests, together with Per…, limits how many requests can be completed in one period. It counts requests whose status is in the Completed state.
• Max number of concurrent active requests limits how many requests can be in progress at the same time. It counts requests whose status is in the Active state.
• Total (pending + active) concurrent requests limits how many open requests the client can have in total, including the ones waiting. It counts requests whose status is in the Pending or Active state.

If you limit only completed requests, a client can, for example, send you twenty requests at once. If you limit only concurrent active requests, a client can still have twenty requests waiting.

The limits count requests by state: pending, active and completed. Every status has one of these three states, so the limits work whatever you call your statuses. See Understand statuses and the three states.

Prices are fixed at purchase, limits are not

A client keeps paying the price that applied when they subscribed. A new price or a sale price applies only to new subscriptions. Request limits work the other way round: a change to a package's limits applies at once to everyone who has that package.

A running subscription cannot be moved to another package. To change packages, the client cancels the subscription and buys the other package.

Pause and resume a subscription

When Enable pausing subscription is on for a package, you can pause a client's subscription and resume it later:

1. Open the subscription's order in Orders.
2. Open the ⋯ menu and select Pause subscription.
3. To start it again, open the same menu and resume it.

With Enable pausing for clients, clients can also pause their subscription themselves from the order in their portal.

While a subscription is paused, the order shows Paused, and the request types that the subscription unlocks disappear from the client's list until it resumes. Requests the client already sent stay open, and you can keep working on them. A subscription that was resumed recently cannot be paused again straight away.

How the client pays each period

Only Stripe charges the client automatically. With a manual method, the client pays each period by following your payment instructions, and someone on your team confirms each payment, every period. With Automatically after payment, Zendo issues an invoice each period. See Connect Stripe and Add a manual payment method.

Give subscribers their own request types

You can let subscribers submit request types that other clients cannot. Add the request types the subscription covers to Client can submit under Unlock Request types. Then, on each of these types, set Who can submit to Clients who match a rule, with the subscription under Clients who bought a service, so that no other client sees them. See Decide who can submit a request type.

On a subscription you usually choose No request, just the order under Automatic Request creation, because the client sends requests throughout the subscription.

Each subscription is one order

The order's payment status follows the subscription: Trialing during a trial, Active while it runs, and Paused if it is paused. You find these orders on the Subscription tab of the Orders list. See Follow orders: fulfillment and payment.

Related

• Choose a service type
• Understand statuses and the three states
• Connect Stripe
• Decide who can submit a request type
• Follow orders: fulfillment and payment

Updated on: 09/11/2026