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

    • Recent Topics

    • Recruit paid support?

      Hi all, Could anyone who has paid support package advise if it provides value for money with regards to support response times? Exploring the idea as unfortunately when we have faced issues with Recruit it has been a 7+ day timescale from reporting to

    • Zoho Projects - Attachments added to Task and Bug emails are not saved

      Hi Projects team, I have been experimenting with emails into projects to create tasks and bugs. I have noticed that attachments added to the emails are not saved to the task or bug. Is this normal behaviour? Thanks, Ashley

    • Zoho Projects - Email notification relabelling of modules not present on default templates

      Hi Projects Team, I noticed that in the default email template notification, the word "bug" was not renamed to the lable I am using in my system. As many users may used the Bugs modules for various purposes including Changes, Revisions, Issues, etc...

    • Zoho Projects - Unread Comment Icon

      Hi Projects Team, It would be great if there was a notification I con on the comments icon so it's easy to see which tasks have new comments. Something like a red circle with a number of unread comments would be great. Thanks for considering my feed

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Billing

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. Invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing works

    • Zoho Projects - Email Notifications for Feed Updates

      Hi Projects Team, I'm working with a client who wants a simple way to communicate with their customers on projects. Getting the customer to add comments to Tasks or Bug records is not ideal, as we need a way which is easy with minimal training, and has

    • Zoho Projects - Reply by email to @ mentions posted on the Feed.

      When mentioning someone on the Feed (Status), it would be great if that mentioned person could reply to the email notification to update the Feed thread.

    • Zoho Analytics Export API

      Hi Team, I’m working on some integration tasks and wanted to confirm if it’s possible to retrieve a Zoho Analytics table as JSON data using a Deluge script. I’ve already stored my custom data from multiple sources and combined it into a single source.

    • Unveiling Zoho Sites 2.0 - A new dimension in website building

      Dear Zoho Sites Users, We are thrilled to announce the launch of Zoho Sites 2.0 today! This refresh represents a significant step forward in the capabilities of Zoho Sites and is crucial for creating a lasting and positive impact on our customers' businesses.

    • Weekly Tips : Make collaboration effortless with Whiteboard in Zoho Mail

      Working with your team often means switching between emails, notes, and other applications just to explain an idea. Maybe you are trying to sketch a layout, plan a workflow, or quickly brainstorm ideas—with text alone, things can get confusing. So how

    • Zoho Projects - Update Feed via API

      Hi Projects Team, Please consider adding an API to allow update and retrieval of messages to the Feed. Thank you

    • Rich-text fields in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce an important enhancement that will significantly enhance the readability and formatting capabilities of your information: rich text options for multi-line fields. With this update, you can now enjoy a more versatile

    • Hide fields only for creation

      Hello, I'd like to hide some fields only during the creation of a contact in Zoho CRM. In fact I have some fields that are automatically calculated thanks to an automation, so when my users create a contact I don't want them to fill those fields. I know

    • My go to On Load Client Script - Fast, efficient, and works for ALL profiles; Hides everything except initial fields

      This is my on Load client script that I use for Create pages. I use a modified version for Edit and Display pages which you can create yourself using the same basic structure that I will give you below. First up, the script. Below that will be an explanation

    • 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 Sites "pages" management page

      I have 80 plus pages on zoho sites. When I go to the "pages" link to view and edit pages, They are not in any kind of order, so I spend lots of time searching for pages when I need to edit or create new. How can I change the view order of all my pages

    • Introducing the all-new email parser!

      Greetings, We are pleased to introduce to you, a brand-new, upgraded version of the Zoho CRM Email Parser, which is packed with fresh features and has been completely redesigned to meet latest customers needs and their business requirements. On that note,

    • Exciting Updates to the Kiosk Studio Feature in Zoho CRM!

      Hello Everyone, We are here again with a series of new enhancements to Kiosk Studio, designed to elevate your experience and bring even greater efficiency to your business processes. These updates build upon our ongoing commitment to making Kiosk a powerful

    • Zoho Projects - Refine Access to Collaboration Menu

      Hi Projects Team, I noticed that Calendar, Chat and Meeting menu options in the Collaboration section are visible to client users, even when they don't have access to the features. This could be confusing and frustrating, because if it's there you expect

    • Zoho Projects - Add Feed to Project Tabs

      Hi Projects Team, I'm working on a lightweight communications requirement for one of my customers in relation to communicating with their client users via Zoho Projects. I noticed that the Feed is only available in the Collaboration section, but you can

    • Zoho Books Finance Modules Not Accessible in Zoho CRM Mobile App

      We have integrated Zoho CRM with Zoho Books using the Zoho Finance Suite integration. In the CRM web version, we can see the Finance modules (Estimates/Quotes, Invoices, Sales Orders, Items, Payments) and are able to create invoices and quotes directly

    • Zoho CRM Kiosk Upload Files

      Hello all, We are trying out Kiosks at the moment to see where it can fit best in our business. We are still a bit off in the application but lets say we will sort this out. My question is the following - when I create a Kiosk I can add "File Upload"

    • Connecting zoho creator to zoho writer to send prefilled documents

      i will paste the worflow below // Get user's submitted data from the form userSalary = input.Current_Salary; userCIBIL = input.CIBIL_Score; userEmail = input.Email; userName = input.Name; // You need to get the Document ID from the URL of your Zoho Writer

    • Extracting Images from a Zoho Creator Report into a Pages

      If you’ve uploaded images in a form and can see them in your report, you might also want to display those same images inside a Page (custom HTML page). This is useful for dashboards, profile pages, or any place where images should be visible dynamically

    • How do I change a form's name? Why isn't this more intuitive?

      Can someone please let me know how to change a form's name?

    • Zoho is blocking emails I subscribe to from one sender

      About 4 months ago I stopped receiving newsletters that I subscribe to from @thedispatch.com. They tell me that zoho's server is blocking them. I've added them to my contacts list, but they're not even reaching my inbox. I don't know how to troubleshoot

    • Introducing Formula Fields for performing dynamic calculations

      Greetings, With the Formula Field, you can generate numerical calculations using provided functions and available fields, enabling you to derive dynamic data. You can utilize mathematical formulas to populate results based on the provided inputs. This

    • Inactive Items - Make Less Prominent by Default

      Currently, when one marks an Item as "Inactive", it really doesn't do much of anything to hide it or get it out of the way. Search and reporting within Finance should, by default, hide inactive Items from standard reports, searches, etc. If one specifically

    • Items should display under specific warehouse

      I have configured the multi warehouse but it show all the items under all warehouse which is not correct according to our business logic, so i want that items should only display under that specific warehouse not under all the warehouses not even with zero quantity. Some items should be common but not all so is there any option for that purpose so i can specific the items to its warehouse. Regards

    • Zoho Analytics Bulk Api Import json Data

      HI, I’m trying to bulk-update rows in Zoho Analytics, and below are the request and response details. I’d like to understand the required parameters for constructing a bulk API request to import or update data in a table using Deluge. Any guidance on

    • Convert HTML to PDF & Send as Email Attachments in Zoho Creator (Deluge)

      This approach is useful for sending welcome letters, instructions, or promotional offers after order creation. // 1. Define the variables using the submitted input customerName = input.Customer_Name1; orderID = input.ID; customerEmail = input.Email_Address; //

    • Auto-fill New Row with Previous Row Values

      rowsize = input.Order_Items.count(); for each row1 in input.Order_Items { rowsize = rowsize - 1; if(rowsize == 1) { row.Door_Model = row1.Door_Model; row.Door_Color = row1.Door_Color; row.Materials = row1.Materials;

    • I am facing a problem with an if-else condition

      If I use if, else if, and else conditions in Deluge with the same variable name, sometimes the variable causes an error because the same variable name is present in every block

    • When I click on PDF/PRINT it makes the invoice half size

      When I click PDF / Print for my invoice in Zoho Books, the generated PDF appears at half size — everything is scaled down, including the logo, text, and layout. The content does not fill the page as it should. Could someone advise what causes Zoho Books

    • Python - code studio

      Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already

    • API question - adding a thread to an existing ticket

      Hi Is there an API function for the customer to add to an existing ticket thread? example, customer puts in new support ticket. support replies and ask for more details. customer replies with more details -what api function is used for this (will add record append to same ticket number?) Thanks

    • search and Smart Bar both missing in Mail

      One of the users on my account does not have the search bar at the top right or the Smart Bar at the bottom left of the desktop Mail app. Any ideas how to get those back?

    • Why is Zoho Meeting quality so poor?

      I've just moved from Office 365 to Zoho Workplace and have been generally really positive about the new platform -- nicely integrated, nice GUI, good and easy-to-understand control and customisation, and at a reasonable price. However, what is going on

    • Items Below Reorder Point Report?

      Is there a way to run a report of Items that are below the Reorder Point? I don't see this as a specific report, nor can I figure out how to customize any of the other stock reports to give me this information. Please tell me I'm missing something s

    • Qwen as the default open source Generative AI model for Zia

      Hello everyone, Zia Generative AI is transitioning from Llama (8B parameters) to Qwen (30B parameters) as the default model. This means that users who were using Llama as a GenAI service will now use Qwen. This upgrade was made with a vision to enhance

    • Next Page