On this page
- 01 How much energy free charging gives away
- 02 Who charges when nobody checks
- 03 What the law asks of free charging stations
- 04 Broken stations, manual cards and lost tenders
- 05 When staying without management software makes sense
- 06 Running 5, 10 or 20 stations on ELVO
- 07 Frequently asked questions
- 08 Read next
- 09 Sources
Use this article if you:
- run 5 to 20 charging stations that are not connected to any platform, or that you manage from the manufacturer’s phone app and a spreadsheet
- give charging away free and do not know what it costs you
- keep putting off the decision about software for your stations
EV chargers without management software cost you more than the energy they deliver. You pay for that energy without knowing who used it. You hear about faults from whoever finds them. Free stations open to the public still have to meet European rules. Tenders that ask for a certified platform stay closed to you.
One forum thread tells a story we read in several versions. A company had free chargers at work. Cars stayed plugged in and colleagues complained. Management set up a queue for the stations, people ignored it, and the complaints went on. Then management raised the price, and now nobody uses the stations. If you want to see your own numbers first, a 30-day free trial of ELVO, the charging platform we make, records every session on one station.
We wrote this guide in October 2026. Prices and legal dates are as of that month.
How much energy free charging gives away
Free charging costs you the energy each car takes, at your own price per kWh. The EU average for businesses using 20 to 499 MWh a year was 0.2165 EUR per kWh in the first half of 2026, excluding VAT. One 15 kWh session costs about 3.25 EUR.
You can work out your own figure in a few minutes:
- Count the stations and the sessions a day on each.
- Read the energy per session from the station or the meter. If you have no reading yet, 15 kWh is a round example to start with.
- Take your electricity price per kWh from your bill. The EU business average comes from Eurostat’s price statistics.
- Multiply stations, sessions, working days, kWh and price.
- Estimate how much goes to drivers you did not mean to charge for free. Without a record of sessions this stays a guess. Start from what you see in the car park, such as cars from the building next door.
With 15 kWh a session, 22 working days a month and 0.2165 EUR per kWh, the monthly cost looks like this:
| Stations | One session a day on each | Two sessions a day on each |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 357 EUR | 714 EUR |
| 10 | 714 EUR | 1,429 EUR |
| 20 | 1,429 EUR | 2,858 EUR |
Ten stations with one session a day come to about 8,573 EUR a year. Giving that energy to your staff or your guests can be a good decision. The loss is the part you did not choose: the car from the building next door, or the hybrid that stays plugged in for ten hours. Without a record of sessions, you cannot tell the two parts apart.
Who charges when nobody checks
With no platform, you have no central record of who charged at your stations. Forum threads about free charging keep describing the same things: cars left plugged in all day, complaints to management, and people charging who were not employees or customers.
“He doesn’t even work here,” one office worker wrote about the daily user of a free station at work. Management then put everybody on a price per kWh, because it was tired of the complaints. A shop owner held back from offering free charging for the same reason: people from the neighbouring businesses already parked there.
You can fix it and keep charging free. Give each driver a card, so the station starts only for the people you meant it for.
What the law asks of free charging stations
The EU regulation on charging infrastructure, Regulation 2023/1804, applies to publicly accessible points, including those on private land that only customers use. Free points are exempt only from its payment rules. A car park open only to employees or another closed group of people does not count as publicly accessible. Buildings fall under a separate law, the EU buildings directive, covered further down.
If customers or the general public can drive in, your stations count as publicly accessible, as in a supermarket car park open to its customers. The rules below come from the European regulation and its rules on data:
| What the rule asks | Does it apply to free points? | Since when |
|---|---|---|
| Each point is digitally connected: it sends and receives information in real time, and can be monitored, started and stopped remotely | Yes | 14 October 2024 |
| Status, availability and the price for a driver without an account are shared free as open data with the country’s national access point, a public data platform for charging points; changes are updated within one minute | Yes | 14 April 2025 |
| Points built after 13 April 2024, or renovated after 14 October 2024, must be able to adjust charging power from electronic signals, called smart charging | Yes | 13 April 2024 |
| A driver can pay without a contract, by card or other common means | No, free points are exempt | 13 April 2024 for new points |
A station with no link to any platform cannot be monitored or started remotely. So it does not meet the definition of a digitally connected point, even when charging is free.
If only employees or other authorised people can park there, the stations do not count as publicly accessible, so these rules do not reach them. The buildings directive can. The charging points it requires in buildings must be capable of smart charging and run on open, non-proprietary protocols. Member states had to put that into national law by 29 May 2026. Our guide to Article 14 covers which buildings are in scope.
Broken stations, manual cards and lost tenders
Some costs of running without software never show up on an invoice. You hear about a broken station from whoever finds it. You set up each driver card at each station, on site. And you cannot answer a tender that asks for a certified charging platform.
On forums about free charging, people write about a free workplace station broken for a month while the company waits for a technician. Our uptime guide explains what a station reports and what you can fix before you send anyone.
Cards take a site visit each. A building manager we know had to walk to each station and add each RFID card through the station’s own phone app, over Bluetooth. The process often failed and was repeated for every station.
Tenders can shut you out. Some public tenders ask the installer to offer stations together with software. Some of them want the platform certified for OCPP, the open protocol between station and platform, not merely compatible with it. An installer we work with could not bid, because it had no software to offer. With ELVO it entered such a tender, won it and delivered the project. Our tender guide lists what the software section asks for.
When staying without management software makes sense
A simple charger with no subscription can be enough. That holds for a few stations in a closed car park that charge only your own vehicles, when you never need to know who charged or how much. Even then, buy stations that can connect to any OCPP platform. If you later want to see who charges, or to bill staff for the energy, you connect the stations to a platform instead of replacing them.
Once customers or the general public can plug in, the European rules above apply, and a station with no platform link no longer meets them.
Running 5, 10 or 20 stations on ELVO
What you set up in ELVO depends on who uses the stations. After a 30-day free trial, ELVO costs EUR 3.99 per station per month. For 5, 10 or 20 stations that is 19.95, 39.90 or 79.80 EUR a month, plus 3% only on paid charging sessions.
If the stations are for your employees and charging stays free, each driver gets an RFID card. Every card keeps its own history of sessions. If you prefer plug and charge, autostart starts the session when a car plugs in, with no card or app. Each autostart session is still recorded against a card you pick. To see the total, filter the sessions table and export it to Excel, one row per session.
If customers or the general public can drive in, drivers start, stop and pay in the ELVO driver app. The money goes straight to you, and the 3% fee is invoiced monthly together with your subscription. You track each station’s status and sessions in real time and control it remotely. You change prices and access rules from the dashboard.
If your stations are on a manufacturer’s app or come from several brands, you first add the stations in ELVO. Then you change the OCPP URL in each station, the address it uses to reach its platform, to the one ELVO gives you. You can test ELVO on one site in parallel before you migrate the rest.
If a station stops working, you can check it from your desk: a station that loses its connection shows as offline in your station list. You can restart it, update its firmware and fix up to 9 out of 10 problems remotely.
If the stations share one supply, you set a power cap for the site, and ELVO redistributes it across the active stations, with no extra hardware on site.
ELVO is compatible with 700+ charger models and holds an Open Charge Alliance certificate for its platform, OCA.0016.1071.CSMS, for the full set of OCPP functions and security.
Try ELVO free for 30 days. You need no sales call, and the plan runs month to month. Connect one station, keep charging free if you want, and see who charges and how much before you decide anything else.
Frequently asked questions
How much does free EV charging cost a business?
Multiply stations, sessions per day, working days, kWh per session and your price per kWh. At the EU average business price of 0.2165 EUR per kWh, excluding VAT, one 15 kWh session costs about 3.25 EUR. Ten stations with one such session on each of 22 working days cost about 714 EUR a month.
Do free charging stations have to follow the EU rules for public chargers?
Yes, if the public can drive in. Free points are exempt only from the payment rules. Since 14 October 2024 every publicly accessible point has to be digitally connected. Since 14 April 2025 its status, availability and price have to be published, with changes updated within one minute.
Do charging stations for employees only need management software?
Not under the EU charging regulation, because a car park open only to employees or authorised people is not public. The buildings directive can still apply: the charging points it requires must be capable of smart charging and run on open protocols. Member states had to put that into national law by 29 May 2026.
Can I keep EV charging free and still see who charges?
Yes. Give each driver a card and keep charging free, or let the station start on its own when a car plugs in. With autostart, every session is still recorded against a card you pick. With both, you see the kWh of each session and can export them to Excel.
Is a simple charger with no subscription enough?
It can be, for a few stations in a closed car park that charge only your own vehicles, if you never need to know who charged or how much. Even then, buy stations that can connect to any OCPP platform, so you can add a platform later without replacing them.
How do I add software to EV chargers that are already installed?
You add the stations in the platform, then change the OCPP URL in each station so it reports to that platform. Some brands need a site visit for that setting. You can start with one site and migrate the rest later.
Read next
- EV charger uptime: what downtime costs and how to fix it
- EV charging billing: a practical guide for operators
- EV charging software cost: the pricing models explained
Sources
- Eurostat, electricity prices for non-household consumers, bi-annual data, first half of 2026
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on alternative fuels infrastructure, consolidated text
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/655, data updates
- Directive (EU) 2024/1275 on the energy performance of buildings, consolidated text
- Open Charge Alliance, ELVO certificate OCA.0016.1071.CSMS
ELVO Team. We operate CPMS for manufacturers, distributors, installers, and operators across Europe and beyond.
Published 30 October 2026.