It’s a common question that crops up but an important one - at what price should I rent my EV charger out?

When renting out your EV charger to other drivers, it’s very important to strike the right balance between offering a fair price, whilst getting a fair return for providing an easy and convenient way to top up charge.

So how much should you expect to receive when renting your EV charger out?

Understandably, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution to this common question and varies from person to person.

In some cases, hosts may be on a variable rate tariff with their energy provider, making accurate calculations troublesome.

Some may be taking advantage of solar, and are thus benefiting from a free source of renewable energy.

However, there are a few key criteria and calculations that can be used to determine a fair price that makes renting your home EV charger mutually beneficial.

Let’s take a deeper dive into this and discover what factors should determine a proportionate and fair rate for renting out your EV charger.

Be Competitive, Not Greedy

When setting a rate to rent out your charger, it’s very easy to pick a figure out of thin air and run with it believing it offers good value.

However, it’s always important to look at the situation from both sides - yourself as the host and the EVO (electric vehicle owner).

Any driver using the Joosup app to find a suitable place to charge their EV will almost always look at the hourly rate you have advertised and decide if it provides good value in comparison to nearby public charging rates per kilowatt hour.

Of course, it’s easy for drivers to forget that you’re also providing the added value of secure off-street parking for several hours which can easily get overlooked.

But essentially, the primary reason for their booking is to top-up charge their electric car, so always keep this in mind.

So when reaching a final figure, make sure you’re asking a reasonable fair rate.

Get too greedy and bookings will dry up.

Your Location Counts

City Centres & High Traffic Areas

If you live close to popular locations such as a city centre, tourist spot, place of interest or somewhere that attracts a lot of visitors who demand parking, then you could be sat on a goldmine!

In locations such as this, public parking fees will be charged at a premium, and finding a place to top-up charge an EV could be even harder.

In circumstances like this, you need to be smart.

If you calculate the combined cost of public (pay and display) parking plus EV charging, and then offer your space at a rate that is comparatively better, you could start to see a lot of bookings come in.

So take advantage of that, provide a great service and you’ll start to receive excellent feedback scores on your Joosup profile.

When this happens, you’ll suddenly find everyone wants to book your charger!

Rural & Remote Locations

If on the other hand you live fairly remote or in a location that is away from the main attractions and arterial routes, the frequency of bookings you’re likely to receive will be far less.

So how do you attract bookings?

EVO’s who are looking to book charging sessions in locations like this are more likely to be visiting friends or family from out of town.

In these circumstances, by offering a really great rate to park and charge on your driveway, you could start to attract repeat bookings.

These types of visitors will see your electrified parking space as a godsend.

And if they get great value from parking and topping up their EV, they’re highly likely to become repeat users.

So again, don't get too greedy - be smart!

Put yourself in their shoes.

Think about how much you would feel is a reasonable amount to pay for your space to top up using your charger’s kW output rate.

Community Charging

And finally, think about nearby neighbours who do not have a driveway to install home charger.

These types of EVO’s could be regular weekly or even twice-weekly community charging customers who will be super-reliant on you.

Ofcourse, if you have cheaper overnight electricity with suppliers like Octopus, then you can offer them a highly competitive fixed-rate overnight charge.

This helps drivers to accurately calculate the running costs of their EV and keep a check on spending.

Again, ensure you set a fair rate, especially if your overnight electricity is much cheaper than day rates.

But also ensure you make a fair and reasonable profit for providing an invaluable service to a neighbour in need.

Remember, over 70% of UK councils have no on-street EV charging plans in place, so take advantage!

How to Calculate Your EV Charger Rate

Calculating the precise cost of the energy you use to charge an EV is never an exact science.

External factors such as the weather, the reliability of the electricity supply and the charge-point itself can all play a part.

But by using the rough guide below, you should be able to get a fairly reasonable idea of the cost.

Let’s take a look at a basic way to breakdown your electricity costs using some example figures:

Your Energy Tariff

Firstly, find out how much your energy supplier charges per kWh.

This should be available on your bills, statements or within your online account.

For this example, let’s say your energy provider charges 29.58p/kWh

Your Standing Charge

Easily overlooked, but remember all energy suppliers include a daily standing charge as part of their fees.

Again, this should be available on your monthly statements or within your provider's online account, and be a part of your final calculations.

For this example, let’s say your energy provider’s standing charge is 47.57p/day

Your EV Charger’s Output

Finally, to calculate the cost of your energy usage, we of course need to know what output rate your EV charger provides.

If you have a home EV charger connected to a single-phase electricity supply (as most are), then your EV charger’s output is highly likely to be 7.4kWh

So now, let’s work out how much it costs to charge your electric car per hour using your home electricity supply.

Calculating Electricity Costs Per Hour

This part of the equation is a very simple calculation.

Your energy provider charges 29.58p per kWh.

Your EV charger provides 7.4 kWh of electricity per hour.

So the base cost of using electricity to charge an EV for 1 hour is:

Calculating Standing Charges Per Hour

Your energy supplier charges 47.57p per day.

Since you're calculating the cost per hour, you need to consider how many hours of charging are included in the daily standing charge.

To do this, divide the daily standing charge by 24 hours (the number of hours in a day).

So the daily standing charge per hour is:

This may seem like a very insignificant amount but it all adds up!

Combine Electricity Costs & Standing Charges

Add the cost of electricity and the daily standing charge per hour to find the total cost per hour:

EV Charging Fee Calculator

Now that we have all the figures and formulas, let's break it down:

1. Cost of electricity for 1 hour = 7.4 kWh x 29.58 pence/kWh = 218.892 pence.
2. Daily standing charge per hour = 47.57 pence / 24 hours = 1.9821 pence per hour.
3. Total cost per hour = 218.892 pence + 1.9821 pence = 220.87 pence per hour.

Below is a table showing a basic breakdown of this calculation:

Based on the above figures, it costs us approximately £2.21/hr to charge an electric car.

What Price Should I Rent My Charger Out?

Thankfully, you don't have to worry about doing all those fiddly sums!

By using our online Charger Price Calculator, you can quickly and easily work out your electricity costs and then add a suitable markup to rent your EV charger out to other drivers.

Why not give it a try?

All you need are two things:

1. Your energy providers tariff and standing charges in p/kWh
2. Your EV charger's output level in kWh

Then all you have to do is enter the figures into 'Step 1' to see your actual costs, then add a desired percentage markup into 'Step 2' to get a suggested price.

Even better is the fact our calculator will tell you if your final calculated fee is considered affordable, moderate or expensive compared to public chargepoint operators.

It takes seconds to work out your ideal fee and it's completely free to use!

By comparison, you could typically expect to pay the following hourly rates using many of the well known vendors (where additional parking charges may also apply):

*Figures correct at the the time of publication

So by using our calculator to ensure you price your EV charger less than the above price ranges, you stand a much better chance of receiving bookings.

It really is that easy!

As you can see, even after adding a markup of between 30-50% on top of your base electricity costs, you can still be very competitive against the major charge point operators.

Transaction Fees

It’s important to remember that there could be additional fees to take into consideration, such as merchant payment gateways who tend to charge a transaction fee when processing payments you receive.

Sometimes these fees are charged to the service provider and will not affect you, whilst at other times deducted from the recipient's final balance.

Joosup, for example, uses PayPal when processing payments directly from EVO to host, at which point PayPal takes a small transaction fee from the amount the host receives.

At the time of writing, PayPal’s Standard Transaction fees are 2.9% per transaction.

They also charge a small one-time fixed fee of £0.30p, which also needs to be taken into consideration when deciding upon your final hourly rate.

So based on a standard rate of 2.9% per transaction, any markup in excess of 20-30% will be more than sufficient to cover this small cost, as well as the one-time £0.30p fixed fee and still be profitable!

How Much Can I Make Renting My Charger?

Using the table below, you can see approximately how much could be earned by adding a 40% markup on top of the example base electricity fees outlined above over various charging session times, minus PayPal’s fees:

The above table is based upon standard daytime electricity rates.

If you plan to allow EVO’s to park and charge their vehicles overnight at your property, it’s recommended to offer a set price for a set period of time based on your overnight tariff.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s really worthwhile taking a little time to calculate what your actual electricity costs are to charge an EV per hour.

By doing so, you can easily calculate what fee you should rent your charger to other drivers.

It’s a relatively quick and simple process, and best of all, it will give you a baseline to work from when adding your markup and deducting any payment processing fees.

What’s clear is home charging is still by far the cheapest and most competitive price-wise when charging an electric vehicle, since the UK government has refused to reduce the current rate of VAT on public charging.

So take advantage of this!

By listing your EV charger on Joosup (available for iOS and Android), you can easily make a 30-40% markup and still be cheaper than the major public charge point operators.