Many ISPs start by building their own billing system, or paying a developer to build one. It feels cheaper and more flexible. Over time, many find it becomes a second business they never wanted to run.
What you have to build
- Plans, customers, expiry dates and balances.
- M-Pesa integration, payment matching and handling mistakes.
- PPPoE and RADIUS, connected to every router.
- Expired customers paying with no data.
- SMS reminders, receipts and outage messages.
- Staff accounts, permissions and an audit log.
- Backups, security and updates.
What it costs after launch
The build is only the start. Payment APIs change, routers get upgraded, security issues appear and staff want new features. When the developer who built it leaves, the knowledge often leaves too. Time spent maintaining billing is time not spent growing the network.
When building can make sense
If billing is your product, or you have a permanent in-house engineering team, building can work. For most ISPs, it is not where they win.
Using a platform
Purple Router was built so ISPs do not have to maintain their own billing. Every feature that is live today is included on Standard, new features are added at no extra cost, and if you need your data on your own servers, self-hosting is available on Enterprise.
Want to see a billing system built for Kenyan ISPs? See how Purple Router works.