When you subscribe to any premium Netilion service (for example Analytics Premium), there is a cost associated with it. How do you pay? When will you be charged? What do the upgrades, e.g. "Connected Asset" mean? If you can relate to any of these questions, please keep on reading.
A) Payment Options
At the time of writing, there are two payment options:
- Credit Card
- Invoice
If you pay by credit card, the full amount for one entire year is charged, and you will receive access to the digital part of our premium services instantaneously. Any hardware (for example a FieldEdge SGC200) will be shipped out as soon as possible.
If you pay by Invoice, it may take up to a few business days for an invoice to be created and to be sent out to you by email. You will receive access to the digital part of our premium services instantaneously, however we will withhold any hardware shipments until a payment with the due amount is registered by our accounting department. If we don't register any payments by the end of 30 days, you will receive a friendly reminder. If we still don't register any payments by the end of the 60th day after you first subscribed, we will revoke the access to the digital part of the premium service in question.
For those of you who expect to receive any hardware fitting your Netilion subscription as soon as possible, we definitely recommend payment by Credit Card.
B) When will I be charged?
You will be charged at the beginning of your subscription. As of today, billing cannot be done on a monthly basis, only on a yearly basis. So if you, for example, subscribe to a premium service on the 28th of February of one year, you can expect to be charged again one year later on the 28th of February.
C) What happens when I want to cancel my subscription?
You need to cancel your subscription minimum 30 days before expiry. This can be done self-service in the user-interface.
If there are any problems or questions regarding this, you may contact your local Endress+Hauser representative (in the case you have purchased directly connected field assets), or use the Netilion contact form.
D) What happens if I add an upgrade (e.g. Connected Asset) to a subscription?
Because subscriptions are billed annually, the added costs of an option are then calculated from the time of addition until the end of the billed year (pro rata / prorated).
Example:
- You initially subscribed to Netilion Value Plus on the 31st of January 2020 without any options
- You will initially get billed for (12 x EUR 49) EUR 588
- You add a "Connected Asset" option on the 31st of May 2020
- You will get billed an additional (8 x EUR 5) EUR 40 for the remaining 8 months of the billed year
- When the paid year ends on the 31st of January 2021, you will be charged for the next 12 months
- You will get billed a total of EUR 648 (12 x EUR 49 for Value Plus = EUR 588 + 12 x EUR 5 for the Connected Asset = EUR 60)
E) Subscription Upgrades explained
There are two types of Upgrades:
- Connectivity
- These upgrades enable you to connect your process plant to Netilion (i.e. enabling periodic data transfer from your process to the cloud)
- Add-ons (will get phased-out end of 2020)
- These upgrades enable you to upgrade specific capabilities of a subscription (e.g. if the "Premium" subscription is too big and the "Plus" subscription is too small for your needs, you may find your sweet spot by subscribing to "Plus" with some add-ons)
More information about the Connectivity Upgrades:
At the time of writing, there are generally three Connectivity Upgrade options:
- FieldEdge SGC200 (Connects up to 15 Bluetooth assets to Netilion via LTE)
- FieldEdge SGC500 (Connects all assets in an entire fieldbus to Netilion via cable-bound WAN)
- Connected Asset (Covers the mobile data usage of a directly connected field asset, e.g. Micropilot FWR30)
Important Note: The FieldEdge edge devices are directly and centrally shipped from Endress+Hauser Process Solutions AG to you and are subscribed to (i.e. you pay a monthly/yearly fee for your right to use the hardware, but the hardware is not owned by you), whereas the Connected Assets are purchased from your local Endress+Hauser sales centre (i.e. you pay a one-off price and you are then the owner of the hardware). Because of the one-off nature of a connected asset purchase, you are still required to add the monthly "connected asset" subscription to cover the data traffic costs. This means that in order to use a directly connected asset in Netilion, a minimum of 3 things must be in place:
- Purchase of the connected asset (e.g. Micropilot FWR30)
- Subscription of a fitting Netilion Service (e.g. Netilion Value) - this can be the "Basic" (free) option
- Upgrade for that subscription with minimum one connected asset
In comparison, WAN connected FieldEdges (e.g. SGC500), use your plants existing WAN network, therefore it is not required for you to upgrade your subscription with connected assets.
F) Do I need multiple simultaneous FieldEdge upgrades in order to be able to use multiple services (Analytics, Health, Value, ...) simultaneously?
No.
Let's explain this in an example:
- You subscribe to Netilion Health, upgraded with a FieldEdge SGC500 which you install into your plant
- at this point, the FieldEdge only periodically writes Health-related data to Netilion
- Later on, you also subscribe to Netilion Value and would like to receive the Value-related data from your process
- at this point, the FieldEdge notices that your user now also has the Value subscription and starts sending value-related data to Netilion
G) Discount Codes explained
There is a number of sources from where you may receive a discount code (for example from promotional campaigns).
The discount codes grant your Netilion user a reduction on the subscription fee and/or upgrade option(s) in a specific amount, which can either be a percentage (e.g. 50%) or an absolute amount in a specified currency (e.g. EUR 10). Only one voucher can be applied at a time.