We are setting this system up based on a presentation we read from a Mikrotik seminar, but cannot find the abilities to do so. This setup is for a Muni where we need to provide a certain speed and monthly throughput allowance for free for the city and have the option to offer a paid subscription for those who would like to go faster or have more throughput.
I tried the usermanager function but the capabilities for this setup seemed very limited and offered little customization. I cannot find a billing system to support what should be such a simple configuration as well. If the billing systems do allow a zero dollar signup and a paid signup they do not stop the same mac from signing up multiple accounts. Our current billing system is Logisence but we cannot budget for a this system for this project at 30 to 40k.
I have looked at the free trial feature which seems it could do some of this but cannot force a limit on total throughput. Also need to know if I can and how I would be able to limit this on a monthly basis or by time of day. I do like the fact that the trial works per MAC and could limit the need for something special if it could be used on a 30 day trial setting max usage.
This is quite easy to do.
You want to setup/enable the following areas:
- Ensure that in your hotspot the “trial” option is ticked.
- make a user profile called “trial”
- Set your trial uptime, trial reset time AND trial user profile
- modify your trial user profile to set speed (rate-limit) and shared users to 1
That was the part I had. The part I do not have is creating a maximum throughput per month. Then of course it is not based on calendar days either. This is looking to me that free trial part of Mikrotik will not be the answer. It looks entirely like I have to build a billing system on freeradius. Any help or ideas would be great here! Thanks
Ahh, here you come to the same problem we did about 2 years back 
I believe mikrotik were working on something to allow setting download/upload limits per day/month etc but I don’t believe it is complete at this time.
We’ve similarly built our own hotspot based billing system that handles data and time based connections, using freeradius, mysql and a custom hotspot login system that allows different locations with different pricing options etc. We also have some sites where users get a set amount of free data each month but they have to register with an office to do this (otherwise as you say people can just create multiple accounts).
I would highly recommend you make the free accounts time based and speed limited rather than being given a set data amount, as this is easily doable from the mikrotik whereas the other option I’ve mentioned above brings many headaches with it 
lastly, if you’re looking for some tips on building your own system, feel free to contact me via the address listed on my profile.
Regards,
Omega-00