Products vs Plans
1. What is a product?
A product corresponds to what your company sells, whether it is a tangible good or a service.
Examples:
- Standard License
- Analytics Module
- Onboarding service
- Credit pack
The product represents the “what” : the nature of the commercial offer, regardless of how it is billed.
2. What is a plan?
A plan corresponds to a recurring product recurring to which a billing frequency and a price (amount + currency)
Plan = Product + Frequency + Price (amount + currency)
Example with the product Standard License :
Product
Frequency
Plan
Standard License
Monthly
Standard License – Monthly
Standard License
Annual
Standard License – Annual
Here, the product Standard License has 2 plans. We then speak of a product of power 2 : this is the number of different frequencies attached to a single product.
Key takeaway : a plan always belongs to a single product, but a product can have several plans (as many as there are different billing frequencies).
3. Special cases to know
➤ Product = Plan (power 1)
When a product has only one billing frequency, it has onlyone plan. In this case, there are as many products as plans in your catalog.
Example: if your product “Analytics Module” exists only with annual billing, then product and plan are the same.
➤ One-off product (no plan)
If a product is sold on a one-off basis (one-shot, non-recurring), it generally has no associated plan. This is typically the case for:
- Setup or onboarding services
- Hardware sales
- Installation fees
- Non-recurring credit purchases
These revenues are identified in Fincome as non-recurring revenue.
4. Why is this distinction important?
Separating products / plans allows Fincome to:
- Segment your analyses by product (business view) or by plan (billing and frequency view)
- Analyze the performance of each commercial offer and each billing format
- Track conversions between plans (e.g. moving from a monthly plan to an annual plan for the same product)
5. How Fincome detects products and plans according to the source
Each integration uses specific native fields to identify what constitutes a product and what constitutes a plan. Here is the mapping by data source.
🔌 Stripe
Fincome entity
Stripe field
Product
Product (object product)
Plan
Price (object price, formerly plan) attached to the product, with its frequency (recurring.interval)
A single Stripe product can have several prices (one per frequency), which become as many plans in Fincome.
🔌 Pennylane
Fincome entity
Pennylane field
Product
Invoice line (label / name of the billed product or service)
Plan
Product + frequency combination detected via the subscription periodicity
Since Pennylane is mainly accounting-focused, plans are reconstructed from the billing recurrences observed.
🔌 Chargebee
Fincome entity
Chargebee field
Product
Item (Product Catalog 2.0) or Plan family (Product Catalog 1.0)
Plan
Item Price (PC 2.0) or Plan (PC 1.0), including the billing_period
🔌 Hyperline
Fincome entity
Hyperline field
Product
Product
Plan
Plan attached to the product, with its frequency (billing_cycle)
🔌 Sellsy
Fincome entity
Sellsy field
Product
Product catalog (name of the item or service)
Plan
Sellsy subscription: product + periodicity (frequency)
🔌 Excel import (file)
Fincome entity
Excel file column
Product
Column Product (or equivalent in the Fincome model)
Plan
Column Price, which should reflect the product + frequency combination
Best practice for Excel import : name your plans explicitly, for example Standard License – Monthly and Standard License – Annual, in order to keep your analyses easy to read.
6. FAQ
→ Can a plan belong to several products? No. In Fincome, a plan is always attached to a single product. If you sell an offer that bundles several products, it must either be modeled as a separate product or broken down into several lines.
→ What happens if a product has no detected frequency? It is considered one-off and has no associated plan. Its revenue is then classified as non-recurring revenue and is not included in the MRR calculation.
→ Can I rename a product or a plan in Fincome? The names come directly from your data source. To modify them, adjust the label in the source tool (Stripe, Chargebee, etc.) or directly in your Excel file before importing.
→ How can I tell how many plans each of my products has? Go to the Data module in Fincome: you will see all objects that make up an invoice line, as well as the plans and products.
🔗 To go further
Updated on: 01/06/2026
Thank you!