The sticker price on a POC radio is almost never the real cost of owning one. Data plans, app subscriptions, and dispatch platform fees all stack on top — and they vary more between models than most buyers expect.
Why year one and year two look completely different
Most consumer POC radios bundle a free first year of data with the hardware purchase. That's a real, no-catch benefit — but it means your year-one total is mostly just the radio price, while year two adds a recurring cost that didn't exist before. Budgeting off the year-one number is the most common way people get surprised later.
What actually varies between radios
- Consumer Android radios (Inrico, AnySecu): radio cost plus whatever PTT app tier you choose — free with Zello's consumer app, or a Zello Work subscription if you want dispatch and GPS features.
- TIDRADIO TD-M2 Pro: the most transparent pricing in the category — published $9.99/yr after the free first year, no per-seat business tier to worry about.
- ChoYong WT2: no subscription at all for the PoC side beyond the included data — the multi-mode design (analog UHF, shortwave receiver) is a one-time hardware cost with no recurring app fee.
- Hytera and Motorola enterprise platforms: the real cost driver — a per-seat monthly dispatch fee that scales with team size, on top of hardware. This is where a fleet deployment's total cost lives, not in the radio price.
The number that actually matters: cost per user per month
Comparing sticker prices across radios is misleading once subscriptions are involved — a cheaper radio with a higher monthly fee can cost more over two years than a pricier radio with no recurring cost. The only fair comparison is total cost divided by months of ownership divided by team size.
Run your own numbers with the interactive cost calculator — plug in your radio choice and team size and it breaks down hardware, year one, year two, and per-user-per-month automatically.