How Pointnode billing works
Pointnode is an asset-monitoring platform for industrial machinery — cranes today, more equipment types coming. We stream live condition data from your assets into a dashboard your team can use, with named alarms, audit-ready history, and a pre-use safety check workflow.
This page covers what you actually pay for. There are three things to learn: the Monitoring tier that covers each asset on the platform, the optional add-ons (Guard, Pointnode Connectivity, Managed Remote Access), and the billing cycle (annual, prepaid, prorated when you add or change). Everything below is plain English.
The short version
Each asset on Pointnode pays for a Monitoring tier that covers the platform (data ingest, dashboards, notifications, audit, support). Optional add-ons sit on top: Guard for pre-use safety checks, Connectivity when Pointnode supplies the cellular SIM, Managed Remote Access for secure remote diagnostics, and Asset Intelligence for an AI read on each asset’s health. Everything is billed annually in advance by invoice (Net-30). You get a single invoice per asset change, with a clear per-asset breakdown.
What gets billed
| Line item | Charged per | £ / year | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring — Lite | asset | £300 | Platform access for slower-cycle assets. Up to 30 readings per second, 100 separate metrics. |
| Monitoring — Standard | asset | £500 | The default for most assets. Up to 60 readings per second, 250 separate metrics. |
| Monitoring — Plus | asset | £800 | High-rate assets (heavy machinery, multiple subsystems). Up to 120 readings per second, 600 separate metrics. |
| Guard | crane | £216 | Pre-use safety check management, LOTO coordination, iOS operator app. Crane-only add-on. Larger fleets — talk to us about volume pricing. |
| Records | asset | £20 | Per-asset compliance file cabinet — statutory inspections, services, pre-use checks. Flat £20/asset/yr (same for a Monitoring crane or a standalone item), dropping to £10 above 150 assets and £6 above 500, with a £600/yr per-customer minimum. Early pilot customers stay grandfathered free. |
| Connectivity — Lite | SIM | £220 | Pointnode-supplied cellular SIM, 500 MB / month. Use when you want one bill covering platform + data. |
| Connectivity — Standard | SIM | £405 | Pointnode-supplied cellular SIM, 1 GB / month. |
| Connectivity — Plus | SIM | £570 | Pointnode-supplied cellular SIM, 5 GB / month. |
| Managed Remote Access | asset | £180 | Secure remote access so Pointnode engineers can diagnose your equipment and push firmware updates without a site visit. Optional. |
| Asset Intelligence | asset | £250 | AI layer on top of Monitoring: a plain-English briefing of each asset’s health and what needs attention, an on-demand reliability “Engineer” you can ask questions, and a predictive read on the telemetry. Needs Monitoring (it reasons over your live data). Optional add-on. |
All prices ex-VAT. UK VAT added at 20% on the invoice. Pointnode Ltd VAT registration number GB 381 6752 73.
Records — the compliance file cabinet
Records is the per-asset compliance file cabinet: statutory inspections (LOLER, PUWER, wire-rope), services, pre-use checks, and ad-hoc reports — all attached to the asset they belong to, immutable once filed, and indexed so your next audit takes minutes rather than days.
Records is a flat £20/asset/year — the same whether it’s a crane that also has Monitoring or a standalone item with nothing but a reports file (a galvanising bath, an older non-PLC crane, a register of slings). An asset is an asset: a thing with reports attached. Monitoring, Guard, and Asset Intelligence sit on top as separate add-ons and are never discounted.
Large registers get volume pricing — the per-asset rate drops to £10 above 150 assets and £6 above 500 — with a £600/year minimum per customer.
Early pilot customers are grandfathered: assets onboarded before Records billing went live keep it bundled free and stay that way at renewal. Anything added since is billed at the rate above.
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 monitoring tier + any add-ons get added to your subscription as separate line items, each tagged with the asset’s name and hardware serials.
- A prorated invoice fires immediately covering the remaining months until your next renewal. E.g. adding a Standard Monitoring asset 4 months into a 12-month cycle invoices £333 (8/12 × £500), not the full £500.
- The next annual renewal invoice will include the new asset at the full £ rate alongside everything else, all on the same anchor date.
- 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 I want to change my monitoring tier mid-year?
- You can change tier (Lite → Standard → Plus or vice versa) at any time from the asset’s Config tab. A prorated credit/charge fires immediately — the old tier is credited for the remaining time, the new tier is invoiced for the same period. Net invoice = difference.
- Can I bring my own SIM card?
- Yes. If you bring your own SIM, leave the “Connectivity” tier blank on the asset. You don’t pay the Pointnode connectivity charge and you’re responsible for your own data plan with your carrier. The Monitoring tier still applies — it covers the platform side, not the cellular link.
- What's the difference between the Monitoring tier and Connectivity?
- They’re two separate things that both come in Lite/Standard/Plus. The Monitoring tier is what you pay for the platform — it controls how much data the asset can send to Pointnode and how many separate readings it can report. Connectivity is the cellular data plan we resell to you when Pointnode supplies the SIM — it controls the monthly data allowance on the SIM. An asset can have any combination: Monitoring Plus with Connectivity Lite, or Monitoring Lite with no Pointnode SIM at all (bring your own).
- 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 | Add / remove / tier-change fires a prorated invoice or credit immediately. |
| Refund policy | No refund on decommission (annual prepaid). Talk to us about exceptions. |
| Monitoring tier vs Connectivity | Monitoring tier = platform charge (how much data the asset can send + how many metrics it reports). Connectivity = cellular SIM data plan (only if Pointnode supplies the 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.