Billing Management: #9 Usage Billing in IoTs

Billing Management: #9 Usage Billing in IoTs

We live in a world where connectivity has become a lifestyle rather than a luxury. From smart thermostats that adjust your home's temperature to GPS trackers monitoring end-to-end fleets and sensors that optimize energy grids, the Internet of Things has woven digital intelligence into everyday life.


Billions of devices are constantly talking to us, to each other and to the cloud, providing an avalanche of data every second. This data fuels smart decisions, greater efficiency and an entirely new business model.

But for IoT providers, it also introduces a complex financial question: "How do you turn constant, variable device activities into clear, fair, and scalable revenue?"

Many providers start with flat-rate or subscription-based billing. It's simple to launch, but it quickly becomes misaligned with reality. A simple example is a household sensor that transmits a few readings per day shouldn't be billed the same as an industrial gateway streaming live data 24/7. Static pricing models cause imbalance and make heavy users overconsume, and light users overpay.

As the IoT ecosystem expands, the real challenge becomes monetizing data usage accurately without manual intervention or considering different data sources.

With Zoho Billing, businesses capture real-time device activity and transform it into transparent automated invoices. Let's explore how it works across three popular IoT services.

Scenario 1:  

A utility provider offering smart water and gas meters to homes and offices. Each meter transmits consumption data hourly to the cloud. Residential customers expect fair pricing that reflects their consumption patterns. It's simple, user who uses less pays less and heavy users pay more. Instead of a flat per litre rate, the provider uses volume-based pricing:

  • Up to 25,00 litres: $0.002 per litre

  • 25,001 to 75,000 litres: $0.0015 per litre

  • Above 75,000 litres: $0.001 per litre

 This model rewards conservation and scales naturally across different customer types.

  • If a household uses 30,000 litres, it pays: 30,000 x $0.0015= $45

  • A small business uses 90,000 litres, pays: 90,000 x $0.001= $90

 The IoT platform transmits usage data via Zoho Billing API, and Zoho Billing automatically applies the right price to each customer based on total consumption. The combination of automated data capture, volume-based billing, and clear invoices builds trust with consumers while scaling effortlessly for utility.


Scenario 2:  

A fleet management company offering GST tracking, route analytics, and driver monitoring for logistics firms. Clients pay a fixed fee per vehicle for access to the tracking system and addon charges if their data usage exceeds the plan limit. The base plan is $20 per vehicle per month, including 1GB of data. For usage over 1 GB, the additional cost per MB is $0.05.


A logistics company with 50 trucks uses 65 GB in total. The average usage is 1.3 GB per truck. So it pays,

Item

Value

Base Fee for 50 trucks (50x20)

$1000

Overage per truck (0.3x 1024 MB x  $0.05)

$15.36

Total Overage ($15.36x50 trucks)

$768

Total Invoice Value ($1000+$768)

$1768

 
The service provider exports usage logs as a monthly CSV file and imports them into Zoho Billing. The billing system applies the base plan inclusions, calculates the overage automatically, and generates a detailed invoice showing per-vehicle consumption.

The model delivers predictable revenue for the business while giving customers full visibility into what they are paying for. This is almost a win-win situation for both clients and the service provider.

Scenario 3:  

A small home security provider offering connected cameras, sensors and cloud video storage to a residential complex. House owners are billed based on multiple metrics, namely, the number of active devices, the number of motion events captured, and the minutes of video stored in the cloud.

The base price for a camera is $5 per month and $0.01 per motion event recorded. For video stored in the cloud, the charges are $0.002 per minute.

If a user has four cameras, 800 motion events, and 15,000 minutes of video pay,

Item

Value

Cameras 4x $5

$20

Motion event 800 x $0.01

$8

Video Storage 15,000 x $0.002

$30

Total Invoice Value

$58

 
The system integrates directly with Zoho Billing's API, transmitting daily usage updates for each customer. Each metric is defined separately, and Zoho Billing aggregates and applies the relevant pricing for each before generating a consolidated invoice.

This ensures billing accuracy and flexibility, even as the business scales to millions of active devices.

Every Connection Counts; Every Count Pays 

In the connected economy, devices never sleep and do not produce data. For IoT providers, success is translating the constant data flow into dependable, transparent revenue.


Zoho Billing makes it effortless. It supports different pricing models and usage-based billing, allowing IoT businesses to bill accurately without the burden of complexity. Whether managing smart meters, connected fleets, or home automation systems, Zoho Billing ensures that every byte, event, and interaction is captured, calculated, and billed accurately.

Usage billing is complex, but not when you use Zoho Billing anymore.

Notes
The next post will summarise what we have covered so far, as we cover usage billing and other billing that Zoho Billing offers. Most importantly, we will see the common mistakes businesses make while billing. Stay tuned! 


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

            Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's
          • Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

            Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you
          • Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

            Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most
          • Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

            Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • TArgets To Accounts (Modules)

                                    How can i set sale target to Customers (Accounts Module)
                                  • Breaking barriers with multilingual WhatsApp templates in IM

                                    Ever wondered what it feels like to be greeted in your own language by a brand you love? A “Welcome!” feels nice, but a “¡Bienvenido!” or “स्वागत है!” feels personal. In today’s global world, conversations often need to cross both time zones and cross
                                  • Super Admin Logging in as another User

                                    How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working
                                  • How to share private Opportunities with whole org at an account level

                                    Opportunities are currently set to private, so our sales team only sees their own opportunities, along with their manager and upper leadership. The need is the ability for the rest of the Org to see the opportunities at an account level, not within the
                                  • New in Smart Prompt: Record Assistant for contextual assistance, and support for new AI models

                                    Smart Prompt helps teams stay informed and move faster by providing relevant suggestions where work happens in CRM. With this update, Smart Prompt becomes more adaptable to your organization’s AI preferences. You can now choose which Large Language Model
                                  • Problema Verificacion con proveedor NIC.AR

                                    No puedo realizar la verificación del correo, he seguido los pasos indicados y configurado los MX. Y no puedo verificar el correo. He leido en el foro que otros han tenido el mismo problema. Alguno pudo solucionarlo?
                                  • How to remove some users in zoho accounts

                                    How to remove some users in Zoho accounts.
                                  • Unified Inbox for all, including fetched mails

                                    I fetch mails from different third-parties mailboxes. But I need to switch mailbox too see fetched mails. It's strange. All mailboxes have one shared disk space for own mail and fetched mail, but why do we need to switch mailbox (on the left bottom) to
                                  • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

                                    Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based
                                  • Users Not Automatically Being Added To WorkDrive Team

                                    I have already created a ticket for this issue, but the support team doesn't seem to understand what's happening. Our organization started with a trial of Zoho Workplace around November 10, 2025. I created 10 users, including myself. I sent out the invites,
                                  • Synchronization between Gmail and Zoho Mail

                                    Hello! I am using Zoho Mail within the Zoho One platform. I have completed the basic setup and added all the required DNS records with our domain provider. Our goal is to set up two-way synchronization between our current Gmail inbox and Zoho Mail, but
                                  • IMAP login problem

                                    I have my domain hosted with zoho @wilson.ie I have added a new user and have enabled IMAP access to this user account The user can login to zoho mail on the web. When we enter the server settings into Outlook as per below, Outlook cannot login to the
                                  • Contact data removes Account data when creating a quote

                                    Hi, Our customer has address fields in their quote layout which should be the address of the Account. They prefill the information, adding the account name - the address data is populated as per what is in the account - great. However when they then add
                                  • Changes to subform in Zoho CRM Portal Timeline History Unavailable

                                    Hi Support Team, We have noticed a feature limitation in the Zoho CRM portal. We created a portal for our vendors to edit records directly, but when vendors make updates, the Modified Time and Date fields are not being updated. Additionally, these updates
                                  • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

                                    Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?
                                  • Function #11: Apply unused credits automatically to invoices

                                    Today, we bring you a custom function that automatically applies unused credits from excess payments, credit notes, and retainer payments to an invoice when it is created. Prerequisites: Create a Connection named "zbooks" to successfully execute the function.
                                  • Duplicating report but custom layout does not

                                    Dear Zoho Creator, I need to duplicate a report into 10 copies, but unfortunately the custom layout (detail view) doesn’t copy along with it. I tried exporting and importing the custom layout, but the field mappings are incorrect. I believe everyone are
                                  • Credit Card Readers?

                                    We would like to use our commerce website at conferences (and eventually in store) to swipe credit cards to pay for orders. How would we accomplish this? Does Zoho have anything available for a developer write code to integrate something like Stripe Terminal
                                  • Stock count by bin location

                                    Is there a configuration to make a stock count by bin or area and not by product. these is useful to manage count by area Regards
                                  • Add Prebuilt "Partner Finder" Template with Native Zoho CRM Integration in Zoho Sites To: Zoho Sites Product Team

                                    Hi Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request a prebuilt "Partner Finder" template for Zoho Sites, modeled after your excellent implementation here: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/partners/find-partner-results.html ✅ Use Case: Our organization
                                  • How Do I Refund a Customer Directly to Their Credit Card?

                                    Hi, I use books to auto-charge my customers credit card. But when I create a credit note there doesn't seem to be a way to directly refund the amount back to their credit card. Is the only way to refund a credit note by doing it "offline" - or manually-
                                  • Zoho Learn Course Completion Notifications/Triggers/API

                                    Zoho Learn works great and will suit our course creation needs, but it appears to be lacking a bit when it comes to integration with other Zoho services (creator etc.) when it comes to course completion. 1) Is there an API or Zoho Flow trigger for when
                                  • Enhanced Recording Permission Controls for Zoho Cliq Meetings (Similar to Zoom)

                                    Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the recording permission functionality in Zoho Cliq Meetings. Current Limitation: in Zoho Cliq Only hosts and co-hosts can record a meeting. Participants cannot
                                  • Phone Connection

                                    When on a call the person on the other end complains that there is static, I am cutting in and out or they can't hear me all. This happens on the cell connection as well.
                                  • Can't add a sender adress from zoho campaigns

                                    hi, I need to change the sender address for a campaign.  When i try to add it i get a message to say 'duplicated email address found while adding your sender address'.  This is the first campaign i'm sending so I don't understand why this message is displayed? Thanks Jane 
                                  • Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

                                    My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these
                                  • Export History timeline

                                    Hi, I have an idea, bout zoho desk history of the ticket it would be great if the agent or admin of the zoho desk can export the timeline of the ticket history for agent report or on other matter.
                                  • Desk fails to create a new ticket on Reply email

                                    When I send a direct email to support@mysite.com, Desk will create a new ticket as expected. When I REPLY to an email sent from support@mysite.com, Desk will NOT generate a new ticket. This is very bad. How can I fix this? Use case: In a separate system
                                  • Ask the Experts 25: Experience the full spectrum of Zoho Desk’s autumn and spring releases for 2025

                                    Hello Everyone, We’re on the 25th episode of our ATE series! It's a true milestone in our live community interactions! It’s been an amazing journey since we started in October 2018. Zoho Desk has come a long way, evolving with the support of a wonderful
                                  • Addin Support in Zoho Sheet

                                    Is there any addin support available in zoho sheet as like google marketplace to enhance productivity by connecting with other apps, providing AI data analysis, streamlining business processes, and more?
                                  • Function #61: Automatically add free item to the invoice based on item quantity

                                    Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Custom Function Friday! During holiday seasons or special promotions, businesses offer deals like BOGO (Buy One, Get One), Buy 3 Get 1 Free, Buy 2 at 50% off, and much more to attract customers. These promotions
                                  • Notes for Items for Future Purchase Order

                                    Next time when I order an item, tau have to make some changes in it, that order has to be placed after 4-5 months, I want to save those changes or points somewhere in the item, how will that be possible..
                                  • Schemes of different tyoe

                                    How can easily apply hourly, day wise or month wise  schemes on Bill, Quantity, and other schemes. Like I want to apply a scheme  Form today to next 7 days .where i can mention in zoho books so scheme will implement automatically to all customers and
                                  • Clients not receiving emails

                                    I've been informed that my emails are not being received. Is there anything that I should look into to rectify this? Many thanks!
                                  • Free Plan mail accounts details

                                    In the zoho mail pricing there's a free plan that includes: FREE PLAN Up to 25 Users 5GB* /User, 25MB Attachment Limit Webmail access only. Single domain hosting. I need to make sure that I'm able to create multiple email accounts in the form of: name@domain.com
                                  • No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

                                    Outraged. Just referred a colleague to use her domain (not posting it publicly here) to Zoho, just as I have other colleagues, clients, friends. Expected the exact same free plan features as I have and as everyone else I ever referred got. I was helping
                                  • Unable to receive email - "5.3.0 - Other mail system problem 554-'5.2.3 MailPolicy violation Error delivering to mailboxes'"

                                    My users are unable to receive emails from one particular domain, apparently. The domain known to be kicked back is whitelisted in the spam control. I sent an email to support earlier this morning but I have not received a reply. The error in the title
                                  • Caixa de saída bloqueada. Como desbloquear?

                                    Olá, meu e-mail isabela.celli@sivirino.com está com a caixa de saída bloqueada. Não consigo enviar e-mails. Acredito que tenha sido porque mandei o mesmo e-mail para várias pessoas, pedindo uma cotação de serviço. Vocês podem desbloquear para mim? Quantos
                                  • Zoho Forms - Improve the CRM integration field to query data from more than one module

                                    Hi Forms team, Something I get stuck on regularly is pre-populating a form with data when that data is spread across 2 or 3 modules. For example Contacts, Accounts and Deals. I don't want to duplicate the information in CRM so I end up writing a function
                                  • desbloquear cuenta

                                    Buenos dias  Cordial saludo Tengo una cuenta libre en zoho mail asociado a un dominio, pero uno de los usuarios se bloquea el correo porque dice que ha excedido el límite de correo, por favor podrian desbloquearla y como hago para que esta persona debe enviar sus correos sin ningun probleama. Gracias de antemano
                                  • Next Page