Six ways to charge
Flexibility in pricing will differentiate your offering
Connectivity is the recurring line every device carries. These are the models you layer on top of it — each shown as the line your customer reads on their bill. Most providers run two or three at once, and the mix is what sets your revenue per subscriber.
Subscription
Fixed fee, bundled
One monthly price with data and features included. Bundle resolution, speed, storage capacity, hardware and apps into a single number your customer can budget for.
Best when usage is predictable and you want revenue you can forecast.
Pay-per-use
Charge on consumption
Bill only for what's actually consumed — data, or the outcome that data produced. No bundle to guess at, no shelf-ware for the customer to resent.
Best when usage swings hard between customers, or the product sits idle for months.
Metered
Base plus overage
A fixed allowance at a base price, then charges beyond it. Pool the allowance across a customer's whole fleet so one heavy device doesn't trigger a support call.
Best when customers hold many devices and want one shared bucket.
Tiered
Good, better, best
Pre-set packages that climb in price as data and features climb. The simplest way to let customers upgrade themselves — and the fastest lever on average revenue per subscriber.
Best when you want customers to move up without talking to sales.
Freemium
Free to start, paid to grow
Basic service costs nothing; data, features and enhancements carry a charge. Every device in the field becomes a standing offer instead of a sunk cost.
Best when the hardware is already sold and you need a second revenue line from it.
License-based
Priced by quantity
Charge by users, seats, installations or devices. Entitle software and AI models the same way you entitle connectivity — with trials, feature flags and usage credits behind it.
Best when the software on top of the device is the thing customers value.
Flexibility built in.
Any model bundles with any other, in any variation. All on one invoice, one payment, one account. Tier the base service, meter the data, charge per outcome, licence the app and lease the hardware, all to the same subscriber. Your customer gets a single detailed invoice.