How to Manage Complex Entitlements in SaaS

Each subscription plan promises users a different set of services—or entitlements. Managing these entitlements is where things get tricky. Businesses have to carry out multiple tasks to ensure that each user is getting right what they subscribed for.

That includes activating and restricting plan access, matching payment to plan, renewing subscription, and keeping track of limited-time and expired entitlements. Doing all these things together for all the customers becomes a balancing act.

But it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Entitlement management can actually be simplified with intelligent subscription management software. So that each user can instantly access what they paid for—no more, no less.

Why are Modern SaaS Entitlements Complicated?

Entitlements refer to any products, services, features or perks that a customer has paid for, and is entitled to. Giving each customer what rightfully belongs to them seems easy at first glance. But when several billing cycles operate and several plans exist at the same time, pairing customers with the right entitlements soon becomes a complex business.

Picture offering services that renew every month, year, or remain evergreen. It can be complicated to deal with multiple access periods like this, and it may cause either delayed access activation or delayed restriction. Businesses lose customer trust in both cases.

Similarly, multiple user roles, and plan changes can also create confusion around entitlements. User roles are a common requirement of B2B clients where—rather than individuals—whole companies subscribe to a service. They naturally need control over which department can access a service to what extent, hence, creating the need for role-based access.

Plan changes are another factor complicating entitlements. They entail two things: upgrades and downgrades. Existing customers either move up to a higher plan, or switch to a lower. Both scenarios require entitlement update. And that needs to be done instantly, so that customers can readily access the value their new plan offers.

All these factors need to be addressed efficiently. Otherwise, due to mismanagement by reliance on outdated software or manual work, customers may end up using a service for more than its defined duration. Or they may face unintended restrictions when accessing services that they paid for.

Monthly entitlements: flexible but complex

Monthly plans are fast-paced. Businesses have to constantly renew them and deal with cancellations, upgrades and downgrades. While these plans offer more flexible entitlements to the users (due to higher billing frequency), they make access management complex for the business. Every month, there are entitlements that need to be reset or rolled-over (like credits).

On-time renewals demand:

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Fast billing
Immediate entitlement update on payment confirmation
Uninterrupted user experience

Similarly, immediate cancellation also requires instant deactivation of services to prevent misuse. ‘Instant’ here refers to automated. Because manual workflows don’t promise either instant service activation or deactivation. Both of these are important for a frictionless subscriber experience.

Unless businesses don’t have automation in place, they can’t support more complex entitlements like credits, usage-based discounts, or seamless plan changes. All of these require proactive access management. If a customer is entitled to a discount after first three renewals, for example, their fourth invoice must automatically reflect the discounted price.

Annual entitlements: lifecycle changes complicate management

Annual plans are much more stable than the monthly. They support more predictable cash flows, and facilitate long-term customer retention. That’s because annual plan subscribers pay for the whole year in advance.

However, from the point of view of entitlement management, annual plans can become very tricky to handle. Businesses need to ensure that their clients’ access to software licenses, features or data limits stays valid for the entire year, without any disruption in between.

This means that your billing system must be capable of:

Tracking start and end dates of each entitlement cycle
Renew yearly access automatically, or revoke it in the case of cancellation
Handle early cancellations and prorated reversals

Prorated reversals are required when the customer either cancels midway through, or downgrades to a cheaper annual plan. These customers first have to be issued their unused amount, and then granted access to the less advanced tier.

Forever units: lifetime access challenges

Forever units or lifetime entitlements refer to those perks that a user has indefinite access to. In other words, these entitlements never expire. Such perks may be offered to the user with certain subscription plans. For example, there is a SaaS company offering a Pro plan. Early adopters of this plan get to have the advanced analytics feature for free. This forever unit entitlement remains with them throughout their subscription journey.

When they cancel is when the entitlement is finally revoked. In order to manage forever units, businesses need to:

Limit lifetime access to only the eligible customers
Ensure that the forever unit isn’t restricted or renewed like the other features
Prevent upgrades/downgrades from impacting this entitlement
Ensure that their billing system checks for lifetime perks before generating invoices so that they aren’t included in the charges

How SubscriptionFlow Simplifies It All

The AI-powered software brings powerful automation into play, simplifying the management of complex entitlements in SaaS. It helps by:

Auto-activating and revoking services

Whether a customer is on a monthly plan or annual, has access to limited or forever entitlements, SubscriptionFlow enables and disables their services automatically when required. The start and end dates of each plan are constantly tracked, and users are given exactly what their plans promise.

Similarly, upon plan cancellation, all types of service access are disabled automatically. You can leverage this automation to introduce more complex entitlements into your plans without worrying about their management.

Real-time syncing with payment gateways & product catalogs

Payment gateways are in a real-time sync with the software, meaning, they instantly notify the software whenever payments succeed or fail. Payment success triggers the software to renew or upgrade entitlements. Meanwhile, payment failure either triggers immediate access cancellation or a grace period.

Moreover, SubscriptionFlow stays in sync with changes to your product catalog as well. If you introduce any new features in any of your plans, the software ensures that the current subscribers of that plan can access those features. Without you having to update access yourself.

Managing complex access rules for hierarchies

Client hierarchies in B2B usually require several software licenses, tailored access rules, and granular access control across teams. With SubscriptionFlow, you can monitor the consumed and available licenses, open up various sets of features for various roles, include tailored workflows to meet client requirements, and more.

Supporting upgrades/downgrades through proration

Whenever any customer moves to a higher or lower plan, they get their charges prorated, and new invoices generated and assigned. This process takes place instantly, requiring no manual verification. Entitlements of the previous plan are promptly cut off with no room for unintended rollovers.

Handling limited-time entitlements

You can also give out time-sensitive entitlements, like discounts, and lifetime feature offers. These entitlements are proactively managed by the system, and only the eligible customers are granted their access. All entitlements expire right on their end dates, so late subscribers can’t claim them retroactively.

Additionally, you can also sell one-time add-ons that customers can buy with any plan, and enjoy indefinitely.

You don’t have to worry about access errors and missed revenue anymore. SubscriptionFlow has made SaaS entitlement management easier than ever before.