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! 

    • 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

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • How do you generate personalized certificates and save them in dynamic folders using Writer's mail merge?

        Zoho Writer's mail merge feature can help you enhance the certificate management process. It's a great way to save time and effort! Merge certificates and maintain a well-organised repository with personalised certificates stored in separate folders for

      • Zoho Editor

        Zoho PDf Editor is not working I am clicking on EDIT PDf then it again bringing me back to the same page. again and again.

      • The present is a "present"

        The conversation around mental health has been gaining attention in recent years. Even with this awareness, we often feel stuck; the relentless pace of modern life makes us too busy to pause, reflect, and recharge. In the world of customer support, this

      • Export as MP4 or GIF

        Hi, Just wondering if there's a way to export/convert a presentation to an MP4 video file or even a GIF. One use case would be to use the animation functionality to create social media graphics/charts/gifs/videos. Thanks for a great tool... Rgds Jon

      • Zoho Autoplay Issue

        Currently, we run our graphics on a playlist with youtube videos interspersed in our office -- however, when we go to update the playlist (since last Thursday at around 8-9am EST) it no longer saves the autoplay function.  We have tried making a new account, manually saving with cntrl+s, making a new show, etc but nothing seems to work.  Even with our old program, we can't change it off of autoplay for ones that were created in the past. Another issue is that if we change a slide transition to anything

      • Where is the Global Search field?

        I am looking for an alternative to SF.com. Zoho CRM seems to be work fine, and be customizable in terms of the fields and reports. But there's one big thing missing and it's going to prevent us from using it: there's no global search box at the top of

      • Zoho Sheet Autofit Data

        While using Autofit Data function in Zoho Sheets with Devnagri Maratji or Hindi Fonts, a word or a number, it keeps couple of characters outside the right side border.

      • KPI Widget dashboard select periods

        I have a problem with selecting periods as a user filter. In the beste scenario I would like to have to have a period filter like Google Analytics has of Datastudio (see attachment). In the KPI widget I "Group by "inquiry_date" on week&Year". It selects

      • Unattended Access on Android without Play Store

        I'm testing Zoho Assist for remote config and maintenance of our IoT devices. The devices are running Android 8.1 and do NOT have Google Play Store installed, nor can it be installed. I've been able to install Zoho Assist on the devices and load the enrollment

      • Search in Zoho Community Not Working

        I realize this is a bit of a meta topic, but the search for the various Zoho Communities appears to not be working. I'm under the impression that they run on some version of the Zoho Desk platform, so I'm posting this here.

      • Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

        Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

      • Workdrive on Android - Gallery Photo Backups

        Hello, Is there any way of backing up the photos on my android phone directly to a specific folder on Workdrive? Assuming i have the workdrive app installed on the phone in question. Emma

      • The Social Wall: September 2025

        Hello everyone, As we step into the fall season, some major updates are on the horizon. Meanwhile, here are the exciting updates we rolled out this September. Approvals in iOS Managing approvals just got more seamless on mobile. With this update, the

      • Add a Way to Duplicate Cards in the Same Canvas (Retain All Settings)

        Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, We would like to request a new feature in Zoho SalesIQ: the ability to duplicate an existing card within the same canvas while retaining all of its information and settings, including conditions, configurations, and display preferences.

      • Market cap

        Market cap formula?? Kaise nikale

      • Zoho Sheet for Desktop

        Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

      • Google enhanced conversions not working

        Hi guys, I've connected Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface with the goal to setup the enhanced conversion tracking in Google Ads. I have to Zoho related conversion goals which you can see in the images below: For the conversion goal above I've setup

      • Need Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it

        Need Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it. I get leads from our website and we need to make sure those are not junk. So we are using proactive chat bot and we need mobile OTPs to

      • Direct Integration Between Zoho Cliq Meetings and Google Calendar

        Dear Zoho Team, We’d like to submit the following feature request based on our current use case and the challenges we’re facing: 🎯 Feature Request: Enable meetings scheduled in Zoho Cliq to be automatically added to the host's Google Calendar, not just

      • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

        Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

      • Zoho sheet

        Unable to share zoho sheet with anyone on internet with editer option only view option is show

      • Mail and OS

        Jai Hind! Zoho is doing good by creating good software (made in india) on par with other tech giants. 🥰 Suggestion: 1. Whenever we sign up on zoho mail its asking for other mail id. It shouldn't be like that. You should ask general details of a user

      • Personal account created under org account

        Hi there, I am Jayesh. We are using ME Central, and we have an account by the email ID soc@kissht.com.. Now I have created a personal account., jayesh.auti@zohomail.in, accidentally. Can you help me to remove this jayesh.auti@zohomail.in from my organization

      • Add another account

        How to add another mail account to my zoho mail.

      • Recover deleted user

        Hi by mistake i have deleted an added user and his email associated. Please help me recover it thank you.

      • No connection to the server

        Hello! I can't add a new email address to my mailbox because your server is rejecting me. Please help. I took and added a screenshot of this problem Marek Olbrys

      • URGENT: Business Email Disruption – SMTP Authentication Failed

        Dear Zoho Support, I am writing to escalate a critical issue with my business email account: 📧 marek@olbrys.de My domain olbrys.de is fully verified in Zoho (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC all valid – green status). I am using the correct configuration: smtp.zoho.eu

      • Emails missing from desktop but visible on phone

        Subject says it all. Windows 11 laptop. Apple phone. all systems up to date.

      • Website Hosting

        Hello, I want to host my domain on Hostinger, and I want my emails to run through Zoho Mail. Please provide me with the SPF record, MX record (Type: TXT), and A record, so that I don’t face any issues with my emails. My website is on Hostinger hosting,

      • Can not search zoho mail after update V.1.7.0

        i can not search mail on to and cc box from attached picture and then search contacts box can't click or use anything. include replay mail too.

      • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

        Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available

      • How to retreive the "To be received" value of an Item displayed in Zoho inventory.

        Hi everyone, We have our own Deluge code to generate a PO according to taget quantity and box quantity, pretty usefull and powerful! However, we want to reduce our quantity to order according to "To be received" variable. Seems like this might not even

      • Payment on a past due balance

        Scenario: Customer is past due on their account for 4 months. We suspend their billing in Zoho books. Customer finally logs into the portal and enters a new credit card. We associate that cardwith their subscription, which will permit the card to be used

      • Instant Sync of Zoho CRM Data?

        With how valuable Zoho Analytics is to actually creating data driven dashboards/reports, we are surprised that there is no instant or near instant sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics. Waiting 3 hours is okay for most of our reports, but there are

      • Kaizen #211 - Answering your Questions | Using Canvas and Widgets to Tailor CRM for Mobile

        Howdy, tech wizards! We are back with the final post in addressing the queries you shared for our 200th milestone. This week, we are focusing on a couple of queries on Zoho CRM mobile configurations and custom payment gateway integration. 1. Mobile SDK

      • Remove "Invalid entries found. Rectify and submit again" modal

        Following up on a post from a few years back, but can the Zoho team consider either removing the 'Invalid entries found. Rectify and submit again' modal that displays for empty mandatory fields OR allow an admin to change it? I've built a custom error

      • Validation function not preventing candidates under 18 or over 30 from submitting the web form

        Hello everyone, I’m trying to create a validation rule for the Candidate Webform in Zoho Recruit. I added a custom field called “Date of Birth”, and I want to make sure that candidates cannot submit the form unless their age is between 18 and 30 years.

      • Cadence reports as front-end reports

        Hello everyone, We have built a cadence which is connected to the Leads module. There are 11 steps in total, 7 are automatic emails and 4 are tasks for the Lead owners. As admins, we have access to this (very nicely made) 'View Reports' tab where we can

      • Zoho Commerce in multiple languages

        When will you be able to offer Zoho Commerce in more languages? We sell in multiple markets and want to be able to offer a local version of our webshop. What does the roadmap look like?

      • Show elapsed time on the thank-you page?

        Is it possible to display the total time a user spent filling out a Zoho Form on the thank-you? I’d like to show the difference between the `form submission timestamp` and the `start time` (currently have a hidden Date-Time field set to autofill the date

      • Next Page