Subscription Pricing FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Why aren't you hiding your prices like most other platforms?
Can I switch plans at any time?
When do I need to register a credit card?
What is Data I/O?
What is File storage?
How is Data I/O calculated?
How am I billed?
What is an Organization?
What is Content Access Security?
What is Advanced Modeling?
What happens when I exceed the Beginner plan's Data I/O amount?
Your pricing model doesn't work for our use case. What are our options?
Can you give me some billing examples?
Answers
Why aren't you hiding your prices like most other platforms?
Our prices are very competitive and we have nothing to hide.
Can I switch plans at any time?
Yes, but you must wait three days from a prior change.
When do I need to register a credit card?
Never, if your plan is the Beginner (free) plan.
For other plans, you will need to register a
credit card before the end of your first month. This allows you to test-drive GroveStreams for one month
without registering a credit card.
What is Data I/O?
Data I/O is the amount of data that goes in and out of the GroveStreams cloud platform within a one month period through our
public API.
Static html pages and java script files do not pass through our API so they do not add to data I/O amounts.
Billable API calls include calls from devices to GroveStreams and calls made from the GroveStreams user interface since it uses our
public API. Most data I/O is usually from devices uploading data into GroveStreams unless you are a very small user with only one or two
devices, then the use of the GroveStreams user interface may make up a comparable portion of your billable data I/O.
Derived streams are processed within the GroveStreams cloud so they do not add to your data I/O billable amount when they are calculated. But, if
you view a derived stream within your browser, your data I/O amount will slightly increase as the derived stream's data is retrieved via our API by the browser.
What is File storage?
GroveStreams supports the uploading and downloading of files into streams. We call these file streams. Customers are billed monthly for the storage size of files stored in GroveStreams.
File stream storage size is calculated by finding the daily average over the billing period.
Non-file storage is the storage of other stream data such as numbers, text, dates, and booleans. GroveStreams currently does not charge for the storage of non-file storage data.
How is Data I/O calculated?
Our Data I/O calculations are very simple. We only charge for the size of a request's URL parameters and the size of the request/response body.
We will use the size of the compressed body if your request or response body is compressed.
We do not charge for viral requests that hit our web server caches.
How am I billed?
Your credit card will be charged after each month of use.
What is an Organization?
An organization is a Workspace,
typically representing a home, business, or organization. Each
organization has its own set of components, streams, dashboards,
maps, and other items. An organization allows you to control user
and device access to the organization. You are automatically the
"owner" and given full access rights when you create an
organization. Other users may invite you to their organizations with
rights they give you. All of the organizations, you "own" or are a
member of, will appear in your GroveStreams start page (the first
page that appears when you sign in)..
Some billing plans will restrict you to the number of organizations that
you can be a "Payer" for. You can still be a member of an unlimited number of
organizations.
What is Content Access Security?
Content Access Security is the capability to secure content within GroveStreams. It allows access rights
to be assigned to folders,
components, streams, maps, and dashboards so that only designated users (or groups) have certain rights
assigned to them such as read, write, traverse, set rights, and execute.
What is Advanced Modeling?
Advanced Modeling includes:
- Applying Component Template changes to many components in a live environment. This is useful for large organizations with many components.
- The ability to apply an organization's changes to many other organizations whether they are new or live. For example, a template definition can be modified and then applied to many other organizations.
What happens when I exceed the Beginner plan's Data I/O amount?
GroveStreams will prevent stream data from entering or leaving your organization until the next billing cycle starts or
until a new billing plan is chosen.
You will receive an email notification when your account is blocking stream feeds and a pop-up window will alert you
whenever you try and access stream data within any of your organizations.
Your pricing model doesn't work for our use case. What are our options?
Send us an email or call us and explain to us your use case and we'll see what we can do.
Can you give me some billing examples?
Our pricing model is simple to understand with the exception of Data I/O. Here are some examples that demonstrate
how competitive our prices are.
Example 1 - Typical: One device, two samples every minute ($0.34 to $1.42 per month)
Example 2 - Extreme Sampling: One SmartPlug, three samples every second ($22.65 per month)
