Abstract: A method for billing consumers of on-demand commodities consumed at a site remote from the site at which they are produced. It is modeled after certain contemporary telephone-company billing practices, though it is not limited to use with telephone companies. In one embodiment the method uses a telephone service provider to bill and collect for monies owed to the producer of the commodity for the amount of the full commodity units consumed during a billing period. In a simple embodiment of the method, commodity-consumption information is sent to the billing service by an automatically reading meter located at the point where the commodity is delivered for consumption. In particular, this commodity meter—such as an electric power meter—is designed to generate a discrete signal each time that a predetermined commodity-billing-unit has been consumed.