The present invention includes an automatic commodity or services billing and metering system that when installed does not damage any existing meters or gauges, will fit virtually all known meters and gauges, and has incorporated into the system programmable reading ability to allow reading and accumulation of data by unit, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or any other form of counting required by the customer. The meters are read by various means, one method is by counting and or sensing radiation increases and decreases of radiation emitting from a meter hand or gauge passing a sensor to generate a count. The read data is then sent via the Internet through the telephone line, by satellite, or by cellular phone connection to an offsite central billing and payment processing center where the rate payer and the utility or customer will have various forms of programmable access to its consumption data.