Billing

How Pointnode billing works

A plain-English overview of how cycles run and what happens when you add or retire an asset. For what it costs, use the pricing calculator.

Pointnode is the working record for industrial assets. It brings inspections, documents, defects, work orders, condition data and pre-use checks into one controlled history, whether the estate contains lifting equipment, mobile plant, process equipment or bespoke machinery.

This page covers the mechanics: how the cycle runs, and what happens when your estate changes. For what it costs, the pricing calculator prices your own estate in about a minute.

The short version

Everything is priced in Asset Units — one currency for the whole estate. Your platform line covers every asset’s register, records and pre-use checks; optional licences (Monitoring, Guard, Remote Access, Asset Intelligence) sit on top and are priced on the Asset Units they’re switched on for. Everything is billed annually in advance by invoice (Net-30), on one anchor date, ex-VAT. Cellular SIMs are a cost pass-through and are quoted separately.

Price your estate →

How billing cycles work

Annual prepay. One invoice covers the next 12 months of service. No monthly billing — keeps your AP team’s life simple and the platform pricing predictable.
Invoice by email. Stripe sends a PDF + payment link to your billing email. Pay by card, bank transfer, or BACS within 30 days (Net-30 terms).
One invoice per asset-change. Add an asset mid-cycle? You get a separate prorated invoice for the partial year remaining on that asset — not bundled into your next renewal. Keeps the audit trail clean.
Renewal at the same anchor date. All assets on a customer renew on the date the customer’s subscription started, even if individual assets were added months later. Means you never have a dozen different renewal dates per year.
Customer Portal access. Once signed in, the “Manage in Stripe” link on your billing page lets you update payment method, view receipts, and download past invoices yourself.

When you add an asset

The asset’s Asset Units join your platform line, and any licences you switch on for it join theirs.
A prorated invoice fires immediately covering the remaining months until your next renewal — add an asset four months into a twelve-month cycle and you pay eight twelfths of the year, not the full one.
The next annual renewal picks the asset up at the full rate alongside everything else, on the same anchor date. Because the rate per Asset Unit falls as your estate grows, adding assets rarely costs what the first ones did.
Your assets list and the customer’s invoice both show the asset’s hardware identifiers (router serial, SIM serial) so audit-trail and reconciliation are straightforward.

When you decommission an asset

“Decommission” is the polite term for retiring an asset — you click “Decommission asset” on the asset’s page. The platform does the following:

The asset’s digital certificate is revoked immediately. We publish an updated revocation list that the message broker refreshes at least every 5 minutes, after which it stops accepting publishes from the asset’s on-board router.
The asset’s row stays in the database (visible to Pointnode staff for audit) but is hidden from your fleet view. You won’t see it in your assets list, monitoring, alarms, or reports.
The asset’s billing line items are removed from your subscription. Future invoices will not include this asset.
No refund: you’ve prepaid the year for that asset, and that’s the trade we made for keeping the platform pricing annual-only and predictable. If decommissioning mid-year is going to be a regular thing, talk to us about a different commercial setup.
If the decommissioned asset was the last asset on your subscription, the subscription itself is scheduled to end at the next renewal (you keep service through the prepaid period). Adding a new asset before then automatically re-activates the subscription — no need to involve us.

Common questions

Why is everything annual? Can I pay monthly?: Annual prepay is the only cadence at launch — predictable pricing, one invoice per asset-change instead of twelve. For larger fleets, talk to us.
What if we switch a licence on or off mid-year?: Turn Monitoring, Guard or Remote Access on for an asset at any time and a prorated charge fires immediately for the remainder of the term. Turn one off and it stops at your next renewal — you keep the service you’ve already paid for.
Can I bring my own SIM card?: Yes, and it comes off the bill. Leave the connectivity tier blank on the asset and you’re responsible for your own data plan with your carrier. The Monitoring licence still applies — it covers the platform side, not the cellular link.
What's the difference between Monitoring and Connectivity?: Monitoring is the software licence — it’s what lets an asset stream condition data into Pointnode, and it’s priced in Asset Units like everything else. Connectivity is the cellular data plan we resell when Pointnode supplies the SIM; it’s a genuine cost we pass through, so it sits outside the Asset Unit model and is quoted per SIM. An asset can have either, both, or neither.
What happens if I don't pay on time?: Stripe retries the invoice automatically. After the second failed retry your subscription drops into past_due — the dashboard shows a banner but stays functional. If we don’t hear from you for ~7 days after that, the subscription is suspended — read-only access until the invoice clears. We’ll always reach out before suspension. Talk to us if cash-flow is tight; we’d rather adjust terms than lose a customer to a missed wire.
Where do I see my invoices?: Once signed in, on your billing page. Recent invoices are listed there with PDFs, and “Manage in Stripe” opens the Customer Portal where you can see the full history and update payment details.
Can I get a single invoice covering all my sites?: Yes — all assets under one Pointnode organisation roll up to one subscription and one renewal cycle. If you have multiple legal entities that need to be invoiced separately, we set them up as separate organisations.
What does Pointnode actually deliver on my prepaid year?: Continuous live data from your assets; dashboards your team can read; named alarm + threshold monitoring with email notifications; daily backups; security incident response if something goes wrong; product updates as we ship them. The Monitoring tier additionally caps how often each asset can send data and how many separate readings it can report — Plus assets can stream more readings, more often, than Lite ones.

One-line summaries

Billing cadence	Annual prepay only. One invoice per asset-change.
Payment terms	Net-30 by invoice (card, BACS, or bank transfer).
Currency	GBP. VAT-exclusive; UK VAT added at 20% where applicable.
Renewal anchor	All assets on a customer renew on the customer's original subscription anchor date.
Prorated charges	Adding an asset or switching a licence on fires a prorated invoice immediately.
Refund policy	No refund on decommission (annual prepaid). Talk to us about exceptions.
Monitoring vs Connectivity	Monitoring = the software licence, priced in Asset Units. Connectivity = the cellular SIM data plan, a pass-through quoted per SIM.
Customer Portal	Stripe-hosted; lets you view + pay invoices and update payment method once signed in.
Failure mode	past_due → banner, dashboard still works. ~7 days later → suspended (read-only).

Last reviewed: 2026-06-29. Questions? billing@pointnode.io. Already a customer? Sign in.