Abstract: A method for the real-time estimation of the total consumption of a fluid, in particular water or gas, distributed from a unit (A) to users (b1, b2 . . . ) via a network of supply pipes (E) with a branch (d1, d2 . . . ), for each user, fitted with a counter (c1, c2 . . . ) of the fluid consumed by the user, which method involves defining cohorts of users having homogeneous behavior with regard to the consumption of fluid; defining, for at least one of these cohorts, a sample of users from the cohort that is statistically sufficient to represent the cohort; fitting only the branches of the users of each sample with a remote reading device (t1, t2, . . . ) for reading the consumption; also fitting remote reading devices to the branches of the users of the other cohorts that have not been sampled; and processing the information provided by the remote reading devices to obtain a real-time value representative of the total consumption of the network.