Ray Ozzie's latest venture is a cheap IoT board with flat rate connectivity
The first one is always free. Here's the actual pricing.[1]There's a free tier limited to 5,000 events/month. The "Deploy" tier is 
$5,389.20 per project/year, plus event charges, plus a "connectivity assurance" charge.Still, you could get a lot done with the free tier if you didn't overdo the traffic. Every half hour, "Soda machine #5621, no alarms, outside temp 82F, inside temp 36F, cash $75.25, stock level for Diet Pepsi 4, stock level for Sprite 50..."[1] https://blues.io/services/