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Every gateway has a backup SIM, which ModbusCloud activates before shipping. 4G data is the traffic that goes over that SIM. 4G and the backup SIM explains when the gateway sends over the SIM. All amounts are per gateway and excl. VAT.
Costs per licence
The cost of 4G data depends on the licence and on your choice when you order. The table shows what you pay per gateway.
| Choice in the webshop | Up to 30 MB per month | Each MB above 30 MB per month |
|---|---|---|
| Per year | Included | €0.10 |
| One-off with Prepay | €95 when you order, for ten years | €0.10 |
| One-off with Per month | €1 per month in which the SIM uses data | €0.10 |
With a one-off licence, you choose between Prepay and Per month in the webshop under 4G data. That choice applies to all gateways in the order. The ten years count from the order. After that, the rate of Per month applies.
The 30 MB applies per gateway and per calendar month. What a gateway does not use in a month does not carry over to the next month or to another gateway. What the licences themselves cost is described in The portal licence.
If you have made your own agreement with ModbusCloud about 4G data, that agreement applies.
Billing per quarter
You pay the €95 of Prepay when you order. You pay the €1 per month and every MB above 30 MB afterwards, per quarter.
After each quarter, the owner of the organisation receives one invoice for all gateways in that organisation. It shows what you pay per gateway and per month. If the 4G data costs nothing in a quarter, no invoice is sent.
ModbusCloud counts MB as 1 000 000 bytes. It rounds the usage above 30 MB up to whole MB per month. If a gateway uses 32.4 MB in a month, you pay for 3 MB at €0.10, which is €0.30 in total.
The 4G invoice does not belong to an order, so it is not under Settings > Orders in the portal. How orders and the other invoices work is described in Ordering, account and invoices.
The table shows which VAT appears on the 4G invoice, depending on the country and the VAT number on the invoice.
| Country and VAT number | VAT |
|---|---|
| The Netherlands | 21% |
| Other EU country, with VAT number | Reverse charged |
| Other EU country, without VAT number | 21% |
| Outside the EU | No Dutch VAT |
How much data a gateway uses
Each reading of a register costs about 150 bytes. How many readings the gateway sends over the SIM depends on the SIM interval and the number of registers. The SIM interval is 300 seconds (5 minutes) by default.
The table shows how much 4G data one register costs per month if the gateway sends over the SIM for 30 days.
| SIM interval | 4G data per register per month |
|---|---|
| 60 s (minimum) | 6.5 MB |
| 300 s (default) | 1.3 MB |
| 900 s | 0.4 MB |
| 3600 s | 0.1 MB |
The connection to the portal comes on top of this and also costs data when there is nothing to read. In a field measurement, a gateway with 15 registers at 300 seconds used about 33 MB per month, entirely over the SIM.
A longer SIM interval or fewer registers lowers the usage. How to set the SIM interval is described in Change the SIM interval. You remove a register that you do not use with Delete a register.
Request your usage
The portal does not show the 4G usage. In Gateway settings, under Uitlezen via de SIM (reading via the SIM), you do see at Verstuurt nu via (sending now via) whether the gateway now sends over Kabel (cable) or SIM.
ModbusCloud records the usage per gateway per day. If you want to know how much a gateway uses, ask through the support page and give the serial number. With One-off and Per month, the usage per month is also on the quarterly invoice.
Updated on 7 October 2026
Still stuck?
Email or call us. Include the serial number of the gateway, so we can take a look straight away.
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