Well, it should have been under 5 minutes to set it up LOL, but for some reason it wasn't sending pics at first, so I kept trying different things like re-keying in the key code, rebooting machine, etc. I am guessing there must have just been a delay from registering until it would accept.
But the actual process for plate recognizer is easy - set up an account (just email and password) and it sends you an email, you open that and then get the code that you then copy/past into BI.
I am on BI 5.2.9.6.
It is on same machine as BI.
From what I can tell, you can only do cloud for the free version. Need to buy a separate license for SDK on-site.
From their website, you can log in on any computer and pull up the last 7 days of plates and images.
I think if those of us using and liking Plate Recognizer send them emails about their pricing, maybe they will adjust? Probably not, but it may be worth a try.
They already have the infrastructure, so getting $5 or $10/month from the hobbyist type instead of nothing has to help.
At that price point, every 5-10 new paying customers would equal 1 new customer at $50/month and word of mouth, etc. would probably make it worth it?
But again, maybe we are not their target client, and they feel like under 2,500 plates/month free is a good tag to hook people in. I mean that sounds like a lot of plates, but I am in a 35 home no outlet subdivision and am flying through that LOL.
If you haven't tried it, I would say go for it. Set-it up and then walk away for an hour. Should take you less than 5 minutes. If you don't like or don't want to use, you simply remove the code from BI.