Besides coverage, which the community is continuing to build out (see live map here), we’re providing tools and services that allow companies to rapidly start building IoT applications.

Helium has built the largest, public IoT network in the US, which means there’s no need for companies to purchase and deploy gateways to connect their devices to the Internet.

Since we’ve made it a priority to eliminate costs and complexity tied to IoT, driving usage on the network has made us rethink our business model to help organizations solve real business problems with IoT applications.

Simple, usage-based pricing

Companies only pay for connectivity to use the network. Everything needed to manage devices and transfer data (Helium Console and other network services) is included with the cost of per-packet connectivity.

Companies use Data Credits to transfer data on the network and only pay based on network usage.

Like pre-paid cellphone minutes or airline miles, Data Credits are non-transferrable, and can only be used by their original owner. More Data Credit info can be found here.

Companies can acquire and pool Data Credits for use across as many devices as needed. Owners of Hotspots receive HNT based on the proportion of data their Hotspots have transferred. You can read more about token economics details here.

One Dollar = One year of Connectivity

Since connectivity is charged at a fixed price (US$0.00001) per packet (24 byte payload), companies can easily calculate total costs based on the number of devices and how often they send data.

This usage-based model works out to a fraction of the cost compared to cellular connectivity. Unlike cellular, there are no additional fees for SIM cards, no minimum number of devices required, and never any overage fees or data caps.

For example, if a device sent a packet every 5 minutes every day for 365 days, the total cost for the year would be $1.

Here is a comparison of annual costs for a device sending packets at different intervals.