Build vs Buy

Build vs buy: custom EV charging platform or off-the-shelf CPMS?

Off-the-shelf charging management platforms and custom OCPP builds solve the same problem from opposite directions. Choosing wrong is expensive either way.

The two paths

A charge point operator building or upgrading its software has two real options. The first is an off-the-shelf charging management platform (CPMS), commercial products such as Ampeco, Monta, or Driivz, sold as a subscription that covers the central system, billing, roaming, and often a driver app. The second is a custom build: a central system engineered specifically for your hardware, your data reporting requirements, and your business model, often built on an open OCPP stack such as CitrineOS (OCPP 2.x, cloud-native) or SteVe (OCPP 1.6, the long-standing open reference implementation). Neither option is generically better. Each wins under different conditions, and getting the choice wrong is expensive in both directions.

When off-the-shelf wins

• Standard hardware. If your chargers are common, well-supported models, a commercial CPMS has almost certainly integrated them already.
• Speed to market matters more than control. A subscription platform can have a network live in weeks, not months.
• You want billing and roaming solved, not built. Payment processing, roaming network membership, and a driver app come included rather than as separate projects.
• Your team has no engineering capacity. A subscription platform needs configuration, not a development team to maintain it.
• Your operation is small to mid-size and growing predictably. Per-charger or per-transaction pricing scales cleanly at this size, before the economics shift toward ownership.

When custom wins

• Your hardware mix is not fully supported. Operators running several vendors, older units, or non-standard configurations often hit gaps in commercial platforms that a custom central system does not have.
• Compliance reporting needs to be exact. DATEX II reporting and AFIR-specific data requirements are easier to get precisely right when you control the pipeline, rather than depending on a vendor's release schedule for a regulatory change.
• You are building a product, not just running a network. Installers and fleet operators reselling charging as part of a broader offer often need data, billing logic, or customer-facing features a generic CPMS does not expose.
• You want to own the roadmap. A custom system changes on your schedule. A subscription platform changes on the vendor's.
• You are operating at a scale where ownership beats renting. Per-transaction subscription fees that made sense at 50 chargers can become the largest line item in the budget at 500.

Real cost bands

Off-the-shelf platforms are priced as ongoing subscriptions, typically per charger or per transaction, so the entry cost is low and the ongoing cost scales with the network. Custom builds are priced as projects. A single-site OCPP integration or a focused migration sits at the low end of the range, around $10,000. A full multi-tenant charging management platform, with billing, roaming, DATEX II reporting, and payment integration built in, sits at the high end, up to roughly $250,000. Most mid-size charge point operator projects, an OCPP 2.0.1 migration plus AFIR compliance work, land well inside that range rather than at either extreme.

A decision framework

1. Count your hardware vendors. One or two common vendors favors off-the-shelf. Three or more, or anything non-standard, favors custom.
2. Price your subscription at your target scale, not your current one. Run the per-transaction cost at five times your current charger count before deciding.
3. List what you cannot change today. If a commercial platform's release schedule, data model, or fee structure is already a constraint, that constraint gets worse, not better, as you grow.
4. Separate what you must build from what would be nice to build. Many operators only need a custom fix for one gap, DATEX II reporting or a specific hardware integration, not a full platform replacement.
5. Price both paths over three years, not year one. Subscription fees compound with transaction volume. Custom builds carry upfront cost and lower marginal cost per session.

How Digiton approaches this

We do not default to a rebuild. Where an off-the-shelf platform already covers what an operator needs, we say so, and scope the smaller integration or migration work instead. Where the hardware mix, compliance reporting, or business model does not fit what is available off the shelf, we build the central system on an open OCPP stack, scoped as a fixed project rather than an open-ended engineering engagement. Read more on our EV charging and OCPP integration practice, or start with our OCPP 1.6 to 2.0.1 migration guide and AFIR compliance guide if the immediate driver is a 2026 or 2027 deadline rather than a platform decision.

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