Short answer: an IoT SIM card costs between a few cents and a few euros per month per device. The price depends almost entirely on how much data the device uses: a sensor or alarm panel stays under €1/month, a GPS tracker runs €1-3/month, and a 4G camera can reach €10-20/month or more. What makes an IoT SIM expensive is usually not the tariff but the terms: lock-in, expiry through inactivity, and roaming surcharges.
The four pricing models on the market
Almost every IoT connectivity provider sells using one of these four structures. The figures below are iot.cards public rates as of July 2026; treat them as a market reference, but compare the model before the unit price.
1. Pay as you go
You pay only for the megabytes consumed, with no fixed per-SIM fee. It is the most efficient model when usage is low or irregular, and the best fit for deployments that ramp up gradually.
- Low usage: from €0.005/MB. For sensors, metering, alarms and devices under 10 MB a month.
- High usage: from €1.50/GB. For video surveillance, EV charging points and POS terminals sending images.
- Enterprise: custom volume rates with an SLA.
2. Monthly subscription with a data bundle
A fixed monthly fee with an allowance included. It gives billing predictability — usually what finance departments want — at the cost of paying something even when the device is silent.
- Starter: €1/month with 5 MB.
- Pro: €2.50/month with 50 MB.
- Business: €4/month with 500 MB.
- Enterprise: €6/month with 2 GB.
3. One-off prepaid
You buy the data once and it lasts for years. The natural model for devices that report occasionally and that you do not want to attach a recurring fee to.
- 100 MB for €4.50 per SIM, valid for 2 years from activation.
- 500 MB for €6.00 per SIM, valid for 3 years.
4. Pooled data
A shared allowance across the fleet: light devices offset heavy ones, and you stop paying for unused bundles SIM by SIM. Per-MB rates step down by volume, from €0.02/MB to €0.01/MB. Once you are past a few dozen devices with uneven usage, this is almost always the right structure.
Monthly cost by device type
Usage drives price, so the useful question is not what a megabyte costs but how many your device uses. These ranges are indicative, based on common usage profiles; real consumption varies with reporting frequency and signal quality.
- Alarm panel: a few MB a month across keep-alives and events. Fits the lowest tier or a Starter bundle, around €1/month or less.
- GPS tracker: reporting position every few minutes, roughly 5-20 MB a month. Between €1 and €3/month depending on frequency.
- Smart meter (NB-IoT): daily or weekly reads of a few kilobytes. This is the case where 100 MB of prepaid at €4.50 can last the full two years.
- POS and payment terminals: tens of MB a month. A Pro bundle at €2.50/month is usually enough.
- 4G surveillance camera: the heavy consumer. Recording on motion detection only, it can sit at a few GB a month; on continuous streaming, far more. At €1.50/GB that is several euros to tens of euros a month. This is the one worth sizing properly up front.
Hidden costs worth checking
In IoT connectivity, the difference between two quotes is rarely the price per megabyte. It is in these clauses:
- Lock-in and volume commitments. A very low per-MB price is usually tied to a monthly minimum or a 24-month contract. If the rollout slips, you pay anyway.
- Expiry through inactivity. The classic problem with using consumer SIMs for IoT: if the device uses almost nothing, the carrier eventually deactivates the line. Always check what happens to a SIM that sends 2 MB a month.
- Roaming and fair use. Many "European" tariffs apply permanent-roaming limits at 90 days. If the asset moves or lives outside the country of issue, that clause decides your real cost.
- Activation and platform fees. Some providers charge per-SIM activation or a monthly platform fee that never appears in the headline rate.
- Network add-ons. Static IP and private APN are almost always billed separately. If your architecture needs them, include them in the comparison from the start.
How to estimate your cost in five minutes
- Work out the size of one typical transmission from your device, in kilobytes.
- Multiply by transmissions per day, then by 30.
- Add 20-30% headroom for retries, synchronisation and firmware updates.
- Compare that number against the tiers above and pick the model, not the unit price.
- Validate with real SIMs before committing volume — it is the only figure that is not an estimate.
- For the full sizing method, see the guide on how to size your data plan.
If you would rather skip the arithmetic, tell us the device and its reporting frequency via contact and we will send an estimate for your specific profile.