Clarification on billing of turned off devices

Hi All, new here and very excited about using the Particle products.

I am working on a project tracking gliders but most do not fly all year long, often they would not fly for periods longer than a month.

The FAQ is a bit unclear about a billable device:

<<What counts as a “billable device”?
A billable device is a device that will receive a non-zero line item for Device Cloud access on your upcoming invoice. A billable device:
Has come online at least once. We won’t bill you for devices that haven’t ever been turned on>>

Does it mean that once a device is turned on it is charged every month or is it only charged if it was used if turned on during the month. (even if it was turned on the previous month)

Thanks

Jax

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That text applies to fleets of product devices.

You can have up to 100 devices in your personal developer account with no additional monthly charge.

Well, if you use the Electron with the Particle SIM card you need to pay the monthly access fee for cellular access and data.

There’s no additional charge for Wi-Fi devices or cellular devices with a 3rd-party SIM cards for up to 100 devices.

In addition to @rickkas7’s comment SIM cards can be paused when not in use and then you won’t pay the monthly access fee either.

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Is Pausing the same as Deactivating? The only options I’m finding are Deactivating and Releasing.

Deactivate and Pause are the same thing. After you select the option it will toggle to Activate.

Releasing ownership of a SIM deactivates it, stops billing, and removes it from your account. That allows the SIM to be activated on a different account as if it were new.

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Thanks for the clarification.
Unfortunately it is not practical to pause/re-activate the SIM cards as the guys may decide to have one winter flight in middle of their 6 month pause and the logistics of it make it unpractical for the customer as well as for me.