Given questions and feedback around one specific aspect of our planned pricing updates, we will now clearly designate a broad set of administrative Events generated by the Notecard and Notehub as “Platform Events”, and will begin providing those Events free of charge (even if you Route them) to all customers when our pricing model changes on 01/01/25. These Platform Events, which originate from the _session.qo, _log.qo, _health.qo and _geolocate.qo notefiles, can be useful for diagnostics and support. This blog has been updated to reflect these changes.
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At Blues, our mission has always been to empower our customers with cutting-edge solutions that simplify connecting devices to the cloud. As we continue to grow and innovate, it’s essential that our pricing model evolves to create a pathway and vehicle for customers to scale their solutions.
Today, we’re excited to announce updates to our pricing model as of January 1, 2025. These changes are designed to be transparent, fair, and aligned with our customers’ needs. Whether you’re just getting started or scaling your fleet, our updated pricing structure is designed to offer you flexibility and greater value as you grow.
Click to skip ahead and read how these changes affect:
Simplifying our Pricing Structure
In our current model, Essentials customers use Consumption Credits (CCs) for a variety of actions, including routing data from Notehub, making API requests, real-time device messaging, and Notecard web requests.
The new model simplifies this: customers use CCs for Event ingresses into Notehub, excluding Platform Events. Each Event costs 1 CC, priced at a flat rate of $0.000750 each.
What are Platform Events
Things that happen on the Notecard and Notehub generate Events that you can see in the Notehub UI. This includes _session.qo, _log.qo, _health.qo and _geolocate.qo notefiles. These events provide administrative functionality and many of them can be useful for debugging and support. There will be no charge for Platform Events, under the new pricing model you will only be charged for Events you ingress.
Your Monthly Usage
Essentials Customers: As before, all customers receive a top-up of consumption credits for free every month, giving them a bank of 5,000 CCs to use each month. That’s the equivalent of 5,000 Event ingresses to Notehub, completely on us. After your free monthly allocation is used, you’ll need to pre-purchase CCs as needed under a pay-as-you-go model.
Enterprise Customers: Your usage and payment plan will be tailored to your specific needs as part of an enterprise service agreement.
This change puts the power in your hands while ensuring you have the flexibility to maximize the value of your projects. For more details, feel free to reach out to our team with any questions.
What’s New for Essentials Customers
We’ve enhanced our Essentials plan to give you even more tools for managing your devices and growing your business. Whether you’re maintaining a small fleet or developing your next big idea, these updates are designed to provide maximum value with minimal hassle.
Simplified Use of Consumption Credits
We’ve made it easier to plan your usage and manage costs. Now, Consumption Credits (CCs) are only used for Event ingresses into Notehub, excluding Platform Events, instead of routing Events from Notehub. This harmonized approach gives you better control and the ability to project your costs more easily.
Access to More Features
Essentials customers now enjoy features previously reserved for higher-tier accounts. Here’s what’s included:
- Device Location Tracking: Use the Notehub device location map
- Heartbeat Monitor Alerts: Stay informed if your device doesn’t connect as expected
- S3 Archive Integration: Gain full access to seamlessly archiving your data
Free API Usage
You can now make up to 10,080 free API requests per day, measured at 7 requests per minute; additional API requests are throttled. If you regularly hit the daily limit, upgrading to an Enterprise plan might better fit your growing needs.
These updates are all about giving you more power, flexibility, and control without adding complexity. If you have any questions or want to learn more about how these changes can benefit you, feel free to contact our team.
Changes to the Development and Analyze & Scale Plans
To simplify and improve our offerings, we folded all the features from our subscription plans into Essentials. We will no longer offer Development and Analyze & Scale plans to new customers.
If you’re currently on one of these plans, don’t worry—you can continue with your existing subscription or choose to transition to either the Essentials or Enterprise tier, depending on your needs.
Our goal is to offer you more flexibility and the tools to scale your business at your own pace. If you’re unsure which plan is best for you or have any questions, just give us a shout – our door is always open!
Maximizing Value with the Enterprise Plan
Our Enterprise plan is designed to support your business as it scales, offering 10 years of support for the LTS versions of Notecard firmware and cost savings over hardware, cloud, and support. By signing a multi-year Enterprise Service Agreement, you’ll benefit from exclusive volume discounts, payment flexibility, and price protection throughout the agreement.
Here’s how the new pricing model enhances the value for Enterprise customers:
Volume Discounts and Simple Forecasting
We’ve made usage modeling simple and accessible. With Notehub’s tools, you can easily monitor your device’s behavior and estimate your expected service usage. Using your projections, talk to our sales team to get volume-based discounts (starting from 50%) designed to fit your business. If you’d like assistance refining your projections or crafting a pricing plan, our business team is here to help ensure you get the best rates and maximize the benefits of volume discounts.
Flexible API Usage
Under the new model, all customers receive a limit of 10,080 free API requests, measured at 7 per minute. Enterprise customers are charged for additional requests, giving you the flexibility to scale API usage as needed.
Premium Support
Enterprise customers are required to enroll in Premium Support as part of the Enterprise Service Agreement. This includes a guaranteed response within four hours, an assigned technical account manager, and an on-site proof-of-concept workshop to jumpstart your Blues journey. With Premium Support, your business benefits from consistent, personalized, and priority-level assistance, ensuring your needs are met with expertise and care every step of the way.
Improved Connectivity Assurance
The current model adds 500MB of data to the Notecard’s initial data plan as needed. Moving forward, Enterprise agreements include projected cellular data volumes tailored to your business needs. If usage exceeds your projection, you can opt into Enterprise connectivity assurance to ensure your devices stay connected, any overages are settled at a pre-negotiated rate on an annual basis.
Volume hardware Discount
Our Enterprise plan includes volume hardware discounts to support customers scaling their solutions. These discounts provide a cost-effective way to manufacture and deploy larger fleets of devices, helping businesses reduce expenses as they expand.
With the Enterprise plan, you get the tools, support, and pricing flexibility to scale confidently. If you’d like to learn more about how the Enterprise plan can work for your business, reach out to our team.
Get in Touch
We’re dedicated to simplifying connectivity and supporting your growth. Our new pricing model is designed to provide flexibility, transparency, and value at every stage, whether you’re starting out with Essentials or scaling with Enterprise.
As always, our team is here to help if you have questions or want to talk through which plan is best for you – send us a message, our team is here to help!