Why WATTWEG earns nothing from your charging

At a glance

• WATTWEG takes no commission on charging, sells no placement and shows no ads. We make money from WATTWEG Plus, an optional purchase for convenience and planning.
• What you need at the charger stays free: the price of your charge, how to start it, a reminder before idle fees, and a troubleshooting guide.
• Many charging apps are also operators or charge card providers, or earn per session, for example through transaction fees or payment partners. That’s legitimate, but it shapes which question an app answers.
• The question we want to answer is often “do you need a new card or subscription at all?” The honest answer is frequently no. That’s easier to say when you don’t earn from the yes.

I built WATTWEG because at the charger I didn’t know what a session would cost. I charge mostly at home and publicly when travelling, and I didn’t want a third tariff or a fourth subscription. The apps I found were often well made, but almost all belonged to a company that earns from my charging. That didn’t bother me as long as I knew. I just wanted one place that calculates without a stake in the result.

How charging apps make money

Five models, often combined. Examples come from the companies’ own public statements; we describe, we don’t judge.

Model	How it works	Public examples
Operator app	sells electricity at its own chargers, roams at others	EnBW mobility+, EWE Go, Aral pulse, Fastned, IONITY
Charge card provider	margin between purchase price from the operator and price to you, plus subscriptions	Elli, MAINGAU, ADAC e-Charge, Plugsurfing, Electroverse
Transaction fee	a percentage or amount per session	Tap Electric lists pay-as-you-go as the charger tariff plus 10% transaction costs per session
Revenue share via payment partners	the app starts the session through a partner and gets a share	ABRP has started sessions via Cariqa Connect since May 2026
Data and advertising	selling market data to providers, ads, highlighted tariffs	Chargeprice names B2B as its main revenue and offers providers “Visibility & Promotion”

There are also apps without these ties. Fernweh Charge shows ad hoc prices from Germany’s open AFIR data for free. That is very close to what WATTWEG does for Germany, which shows the approach works. So we never claim to be the first or only app with open prices.

None of these models is dishonest. An operator app has to show its own chargers; a card provider needs a margin; a comparison paid by providers can still show correct prices. But whoever earns from an answer has a reason to give it more often. With charge cards, that answer is usually “take our card” or “take this subscription”.

How WATTWEG makes money

WATTWEG Plus unlocks trips with stops and multiple saved trips, the subscription calculator, charging history with a savings balance, Live Activity and widgets. We plan a 30-day pass for holiday trips, a yearly plan and a one-off purchase. Prices will be set in the App Store before launch, so we don’t quote any here yet.

Free forever: the full price of your charge with your cards or by bank card, start instructions, idle fee reminders, the troubleshooting guide, and an A-to-B trip with three plans. That’s it.

The rules we follow

1. No ranking bonus. No provider ranks higher because it pays, supplies data or is well known.
2. Usable now beats cheap. An option you can use right now comes before a cheaper one that needs a card you’d have to order.
3. Plus changes no order. Paying buys features, not different recommendations.
4. No price beats a wrong price. If a price is missing, the app says “price unknown”. Never zero, never a guess.
5. Every price shows its source and age. Reported by the operator, from our catalogue with evidence, or unknown.
6. If we ever offer “start charging” in the app through a payment partner, any commission will be shown and such chargers won’t rank higher. Until then, that feature is deliberately switched off.

Why we don’t need your data

Our server collects open operator data and serves it as static tiles of one degree by one degree. The app downloads the tiles for your area and calculates on your phone. The server only sees which tile was requested, not who you are, which cards you have or where you charge. There is no account and no login. Your wallet, car, history and trips stay on your device.

Where we have limits

Neutral doesn’t mean complete. We don’t have a price for every charger, because many operators don’t report one. We don’t have every tariff, because some providers only show prices in their app or block our requests. Both are documented openly in our methodology. WATTWEG is a small project by Heidrich Digital, the trading name of Till Heidrich – Content Creation in Tostedt, Germany; details are in the legal notice.

What you get is a calculation, not a sales pitch. If a subscription pays off for you, WATTWEG says so, with the number behind it. If not, it says that too. The worked maths is in Do I need a charging subscription?, and every tariff we use is open in the catalogue.