Search for the best ISP billing system and every vendor on the first page claims the title. We build one of them, Iterative Billing, so this guide sticks to what you can check: each platform's published pricing and positioning, read from its own site, then the four questions and the trial tests that decide which one fits your network.
The short answer: 8 ISP billing systems compared
- •Iterative Billing (us): all-in-one ISP billing and network management, with RADIUS, MikroTik, Huawei OLT, TR-069, NOC monitoring, double-entry accounting and AI agents on one platform, at $0.135 per active customer capped at $45 a month up to 500 customers and $90 up to 1,000.
- •Splynx: an all-in-one ISP management platform with a worldwide customer base, licensed per active subscriber.
- •Sonar: broadband OSS/BSS for providers in the US and Canada, $1.25 per subscriber falling to $0.75, from $500 a month.
- •VISP: ISP billing and automation with managed RADIUS and hotspot, $1.30 per subscriber up to 3,000 and a $250 minimum.
- •Powercode: billing and bandwidth management for regional ISPs since 2002.
- •ISPBox: billing, network and customer portal in one panel, $1.00 per subscriber for the first 50 falling to $0.30, from $25 a month.
- •UISP CRM: Ubiquiti's billing for operators running the UISP network suite.
- •gaiia: AI-driven OSS/BSS for ISPs and telecoms, priced by demo.
The full table, with each platform's price at 1,000 subscribers, is further down.
The four questions that decide it
1. Where do your customers pay? This is the sharpest filter and the one generic reviews skip. A billing system that cannot natively collect the way your market pays, M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN MoMo in Uganda and Ghana, bank transfer and USSD in Nigeria, EVC Plus in Somalia, cards and direct debit in Europe or the US, is a reconciliation burden wearing a dashboard. Native means the payment reconciles to the right subscriber and restores service automatically in seconds, not that a plugin exists.
2. What runs your network edge? If you are MikroTik plus RADIUS, like most independent ISPs and WISPs across Africa and much of the world, you need RouterOS v6 and v7 support, RADIUS with Change of Authorization so billing acts on live sessions, and automated provisioning. If you run FTTH, OLT management matters; if you manage customer WiFi routers, TR-069. Multi-vendor telco networks need the heavier suites.
3. How does the price scale? Three models dominate: per-subscriber fees (often with minimums), a percentage of your revenue (common for hotspot, typically around 3 percent), and flat or capped pricing. Uncapped per-subscriber and percentage pricing feel cheap on day one and tax your growth forever; capped usage pricing starts low and stops rising long before your network does. Run the numbers at the size you plan to be, not the size you are.
4. What happens after the invoice? Billing that stops at the invoice leaves you doing collections, suspensions, reconnections, fault-finding and reporting by hand. The platforms worth paying for automate the whole loop: reminder, expiry, disconnect, payment, reactivation, and increasingly the network troubleshooting itself.
An honest map of the landscape
Global ISP suites. Platforms like Splynx target large, telco-style, multi-vendor operations, tens of thousands of subscribers, CRM and inventory depth, on-premise options, priced in USD with metered add-ons. That is the market they describe for themselves; below that scale they can be more platform than most ISPs need, with African payment rails handled as integrations rather than defaults.
Regional and local platforms. Every market has them, and their strength is genuine local fit. In Kenya alone, Jasiyo, Internetily and Ndovu Connect all automate M-Pesa and MikroTik competently; their shared trade-off is pricing that scales against you, per-customer fees plus around 3 percent of hotspot revenue, and a scope that largely stops at billing.
Africa-first, network-deep platforms. This is where Iterative Billing sits, and the honest version of our pitch is specific: nine native payment gateways spanning M-Pesa (Paybill, Till, STK Push), Co-op Bank, KopoKopo, SasaPay, Pesapal, Flutterwave, Paystack, MTN MoMo and WaafiPay, so the same platform collects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, South Africa and Somalia; MikroTik onboarding that is fully automated in at most 8 minutes; built-in RADIUS with CoA; Huawei GPON OLT automation and TR-069 WiFi management for the move to fibre; agentic AI that troubleshoots at the customer-router and network level and reboots routers remotely; a hotspot advertising engine that adds an income stream; and capped usage pricing from 1 October 2026, KSh 15 per active customer in Kenya or $0.135 elsewhere, never more than KSh 5,000 or $45 a month up to 500 customers (KSh 10,000 or $90 up to 1,000), with hotspot subscribers, routers and sites unlimited.
Global ISP billing platforms compared (published pricing, September 2026)
Figures below come from each vendor's own pricing page as read on 24 and 25 September 2026, except where marked as reported. Vendors change prices, so confirm on their pages before you decide.
| Platform | Built for, per its own site | Published pricing model | At 1,000 active subscribers | Network tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iterative Billing | ISPs, WISPs and hotspot operators on MikroTik and Huawei, from a single hotspot to our largest ISP at 9,378 customers | $0.135 per active customer, capped at $45 a month up to 500 customers and $90 up to 1,000; hotspot 2% of collected revenue capped at $27; $9 minimum (KSh 15, KSh 5,000, KSh 10,000 and KSh 3,000 in Kenya) | $90 a month | RADIUS with CoA, MikroTik, Huawei OLT, TR-069, a NOC monitor, double-entry accounting and AI agents on one platform |
| Splynx | ISPs worldwide | Subscription per active subscriber, licensed in intervals of 100 from an entry tier of up to 400, plus a maintenance fee that covers cloud hosting | Set by the calculator on splynx.com | TR-069 ACS at $100 a month per 1,000 devices; each Huawei GPON OLT service counts as two subscribers (capped at $100 a month); accounting add-ons need a 2-hour integration package at $70 an hour |
| Sonar | 385+ broadband providers in the US and Canada | $1.25 per active subscriber to 5,000, $1.00 to 10,000, $0.75 to 50,000; from $500 a month on an annual contract | $1,250 a month | Premium features sold à la carte; sonarPay payments for the US and Canada |
| Powercode | Regional ISPs, since 2002 | Per subscriber; $1.40 per subscriber a month at 100 to 750 customers has been reported in the Ubiquiti community (confirm with Powercode) | Confirm with Powercode | Billing plus a bandwidth management unit |
| UISP CRM (Ubiquiti) | Operators running Ubiquiti's UISP network suite | Online payments through the Ubiquiti Payment Gateway at 1.9% + 30c per transaction | Depends on card volume | Part of UISP network management |
| VISP (Visp.net) | ISP billing and automation, including hotspot deployments at RV parks, campgrounds and marinas | $1.30 per subscriber to 3,000, $1.10 to 8,000, $0.80 beyond; $250 minimum covering the first 192 subscribers; $500 onboarding deposit credited after 30 days | $1,300 a month | Managed-hosted RADIUS, integrated hotspot, Preseem and Saisei integrations |
| ISPBox | ISPs on MikroTik, Cisco, Huawei or any RADIUS-capable router | $1.00 per subscriber for the first 50, $0.40 to 500, $0.30 above; $25 minimum; 7-day trial | $380 a month | Monitoring and alerts, network maps, IP address management, inventory, customer portal with payments |
| gaiia | ISPs and telecoms replacing legacy OSS/BSS | Not published; by demo | Ask gaiia | Network monitoring and incident response, field-service scheduling, multi-dwelling-unit properties, AI workflows |
What the arithmetic says: at 1,000 active subscribers, VISP's published rate comes to $1,300 a month, Sonar's to $1,250 and ISPBox's to $380, against Iterative Billing's $90 cap; and a Splynx operator managing 1,000 customer routers over TR-069 adds $100 a month for ACS before the licence and maintenance fee. The gap narrows only at the very bottom: an operator with 40 customers pays Iterative's $9 minimum against ISPBox's $40, VISP's $250 minimum and Sonar's $500.
Where the global suites are the published fit. Sonar's own pages target US and Canadian broadband providers, with North America-based support and US and Canadian payment processing. Splynx publishes a worldwide customer base and deep CRM, inventory and scheduling modules. Powercode has served regional ISPs since 2002. UISP CRM suits operators already standardised on Ubiquiti. VISP publishes hands-on setup and coaching with a 30-day money-back guarantee, ISPBox publishes low entry pricing and a 7-day trial, and gaiia targets larger operators with field-service and multi-dwelling-unit tooling.
Where Iterative Billing differs. Payment rails outside North America and Europe are native rather than integrations: M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, EVC Plus and ZAAD among them. The network layer (RADIUS with CoA, MikroTik onboarded over VPN with no public IP needed, Huawei OLT provisioning, TR-069) and the business layer (a NOC monitor, double-entry accounting with payroll and stock, AI agents that reboot routers and reset customer WiFi) run on one platform at one capped price, and ISPs that need guaranteed capacity can run on a dedicated server of their own. See enterprise ISP billing and the full Iterative Billing vs Splynx comparison.
The tests that separate marketing from software
Run these in any trial, ours included, before you commit:
- •The payment loop. Pay a test subscriber account the way a real customer pays. Time the gap from confirmation to active session. Seconds is the standard; anything requiring a human is a red flag.
- •The wrong-account payment. Pay with a mistyped reference and watch what happens. You want an unmatched-payments queue with one-click assignment, not a support ticket.
- •The plan change. Upgrade a live subscriber and check whether the new speed applies immediately (CoA) or only after a manual disconnect.
- •The router reset. Reboot a test router and see what survives. Configuration that lives only on the router dies with it.
- •The export. Before you import your subscribers, confirm you can export them. No-lock-in claims are tested at the exit, not the entrance.
So which is the best ISP billing system?
It depends on where your customers pay and how much of the operation you want on one platform. A large North American broadband operator with field crews and apartment-building contracts should look hard at Sonar and gaiia. An operator standardised on Ubiquiti has a natural fit in UISP CRM. If you want billing, RADIUS, the network layer (MikroTik, Huawei OLT, TR-069 and NOC monitoring) and your books on one platform, at a price that stops rising as you grow and with native mobile-money rails where your customers pay that way, that is what we built Iterative Billing to be. It runs networks from a single hotspot to our largest ISP at 9,378 customers, and ISPs that need guaranteed capacity get a dedicated server. The 3-day trial for approved networks (apply at billing.iterativebilling.com/register) is the fastest way to test every claim in this guide against your own routers.
Country guides to ISP billing: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, DR Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique.
Hotspot billing by country: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Somalia.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best ISP billing system in 2026?
- It depends on your network and where your customers pay. Sonar and gaiia target large North American broadband operators, UISP CRM fits operators on Ubiquiti, and Splynx, VISP, Powercode and ISPBox bill ISPs per subscriber. Iterative Billing combines billing, RADIUS, MikroTik, Huawei OLT, TR-069, NOC monitoring, accounting and AI agents on one platform at $0.135 per active customer, capped at $45 a month up to 500 customers and $90 up to 1,000, with native mobile-money payments.
- Is Iterative Billing an alternative to Splynx and Sonar?
- Yes, for ISPs whose customers pay by mobile money, or who want the network stack and capped pricing on one platform. At 1,000 active subscribers Sonar publishes $1.25 per subscriber ($1,250 a month, with a $500 minimum and an annual contract), and Splynx licenses per active subscriber with TR-069 ACS at $100 a month per 1,000 devices. Iterative Billing's cap is $90 a month up to 1,000 customers, with RADIUS, Huawei OLT, TR-069 and a NOC monitor on the platform.
- How much does ISP billing software cost per subscriber?
- Published 2026 rates range from VISP's $1.30 and Sonar's $1.25 per active subscriber (minimums of $250 and $500 a month), through ISPBox's $1.00 falling to $0.30 (from $25 a month), through East African per-customer platforms at KSh 25 (about $0.19) per PPPoE customer, to Iterative Billing's $0.135 (KSh 15), which stops rising at $45 (KSh 5,000) a month up to 500 customers and $90 (KSh 10,000) up to 1,000.
- What is an ISP billing system?
- An ISP billing system automates the commercial side of running an internet service provider: subscriber accounts, packages, invoicing, payment collection and reconciliation, and, in the platforms worth paying for, the network actions that follow, suspending expired subscribers, restoring service the moment payment confirms, and provisioning routers through RADIUS. The best systems also cover hotspot vouchers, customer self-service portals, SMS and WhatsApp notifications, and financial reporting.
- How much does an ISP billing system cost?
- Three pricing models dominate: per-subscriber fees, a percentage of revenue (common for hotspot, typically around 3 percent), and flat or capped pricing. Per-subscriber pricing typically runs KSh 25 or more per customer monthly in East Africa, so 1,000 subscribers cost KSh 25,000-plus a month. Iterative Billing uses capped usage pricing from 1 October 2026: KSh 15 per active customer in Kenya or $0.135 elsewhere, never more than KSh 5,000 or $45 a month up to 500 customers (KSh 10,000 or $90 up to 1,000), plus 2 percent of hotspot revenue capped at KSh 3,000 or $27, with routers and sites unlimited.
- What is the best ISP billing system for African ISPs?
- The deciding factor is native payment rails: a platform that collects M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, bank transfer, USSD, EVC Plus or ZAAD the way each market actually pays, reconciles automatically and restores service in seconds. Iterative Billing integrates nine gateways covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, South Africa and Somalia, with MikroTik and RADIUS control, OLT and TR-069 for fibre, AI-driven troubleshooting and capped pricing, which is the combination African operators otherwise assemble from several tools.
- Should I choose a cloud or self-hosted ISP billing system?
- Cloud platforms remove server maintenance, apply updates continuously and survive local hardware failures, which suits most independent ISPs; self-hosting appeals to large operators with dedicated infrastructure teams or strict data-residency requirements. Whichever you choose, verify two things in a trial: that billing actions reach the network in real time through RADIUS, and that you can export all your data at any time, so the decision stays reversible.
- What is the best Internet billing software?
- Internet billing software is the same category as ISP billing software: it bills subscribers for connectivity and controls the network so that service follows payment. The best choice depends on where you operate. Global suites such as Splynx, Sonar and Powercode suit large multi-vendor operators paying in US dollars. For African ISPs, WISPs and hotspot operators on MikroTik and mobile money, the deciding factors are native payment rails (M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, EVC Plus and ZAAD), built-in RADIUS with CoA, and predictable pricing. Iterative Billing is built for that second case, with nine gateways across nine countries, MikroTik, OLT and TR-069 management, AI-driven troubleshooting and pricing from KSh 15 or $0.135 per active customer, capped.