Stop paying to build software that already exists

Two ways it pays for itself

The first is what you stop spending. The second is what you start billing. Most installers arrive for the second and stay for the first.

Run it with your own numbers

Put in the meters you already have connected and what you would charge for each per month. The €2 starting point is an example to get you moving the figure, not a recommended price.

What not having it actually costs

It is not the price of a platform. It is the conversation that repeats on every installation and was never in the quote.

1. 1

   The meters are already in

   You have swapped or adapted the meters in the building, the irrigation community or the hotel. The field work is done and paid for.

2. 2

   The data flows and then stops

   Every meter sends its readings over radio. The frames reach your network server and sit in a console you cannot show anyone.

3. 3

   The customer asks where to look

   And the LNS does not answer that: its interface is built for a network engineer, not for the head of a residents’ association.

4. 4

   You improvise with spreadsheets

   You export a CSV each month, tidy it up and email it. That works with two customers. With ten it eats your evenings.

5. 5

   You consider building it

   And that is where the margin goes: months of development, open-ended maintenance and the responsibility of keeping it standing every night.

6. 6

   Meanwhile you are not selling the service

   No portal means no monthly fee to charge. Every month that passes is recurring revenue you are not billing on meters that are already installed.

Datakubo hooks in at the end of that chain, by webhook, and handles the one thing your LNS does not: showing it to your customer.

The vendor trap: software that only reads their meters

It is the most common pattern in the sector. You buy meters from a manufacturer and they offer you their platform "free", or nearly. The small print is that the platform only understands their meters.

The day you want to change brand — on price, on lead time, or because the customer already has something else fitted — you find that changing meter means changing software, and changing software means moving every one of your customers to a new portal.

• Your hardware supplier stops being a technical decision and becomes one you cannot walk away from
• You negotiate meter prices from a far weaker position
• A mixed fleet — normal once you have a few years behind you — ends up spread across two or three platforms
• If the manufacturer raises prices or discontinues a model, the problem is yours

Datakubo does not sell meters. Any water meter that reports on its own works, and payloads are normalised on the way in, so meters from different manufacturers appear in the same view with the same charts and the same alert rules. If you have a payload we do not support, we write the decoder free within 24 hours.

Your customer never sees the name Datakubo

Switch brand in the selector and look at what your customer sees when they log in. Same product: the only thing that changes is whose it is.

You upload your logo, pick your colour and your customers log in at your subdomain. We bill you; what you charge your customer is your decision and your invoice.

How it connects to what you already have

The integration is an HTTP forward. Your network server already receives the decoded uplink; you just tell it to send it to Datakubo as well, with your API key in the header.

We do not replace your LNS. ChirpStack, The Things Network or whichever server your gateway ships with keep managing the network, the keys and device provisioning.

With NB-IoT you do not even need a gateway

NB-IoT meters carry their own SIM and send straight to Datakubo’s HTTP endpoint over the cellular network. No gateway and no network server in between.

It is the sensible option when the points are scattered — plots, wells, isolated homes — and a LoRaWAN gateway would cover two or three meters.

Real catches

What the platform flagged on its own, before the bill did.

What it costs

A fixed monthly fee with meters included, plus a price per additional meter. No setup fee and no lock-in: if it does not fit, you cancel.

• Starter plan from €49/month, with meters included
• White label, alarms and the customer portal included from the first plan
• What you charge your customer is your decision, and your invoice
• No per-user cost: add as many residents as you need

We carry the risk

Two written guarantees, so setting it up does not cost you an evening

We are not asking you to spend your evenings fighting a payload. If something does not work, we fix it and it costs you nothing.

Both guarantees apply from day one and on any plan. No small print.

Installer questions