Charging as a Service Market: What Demand Partners Need to Know

The conclusion first: the charging as a service market is not primarily a story about infrastructure. It is a story about distribution. The platforms that will define the CaaS market over the next decade are not those that own the most chargers — they are those that are closest to the driver, embedded in the daily journey, and capable of turning every charging session into a financial event that earns for them. For Demand Partners of every kind, the charging as a service market represents a structural revenue opportunity that requires no capital expenditure, no operational overhead, and no bilateral negotiation with individual CPOs. It requires a single integration with the right financial layer.

What the Charging as a Service Market Actually Is

Charging as a service, in its broadest definition, is the model by which EV charging access and its associated financial infrastructure are provided to end users — whether drivers, fleets, or platforms — without those users needing to own, build, or operate charging equipment themselves. The CaaS model shifts the infrastructure burden onto specialised providers and lets the platforms closest to the user focus entirely on the relationship and the revenue.

The charging as a service market has been measured in different ways depending on whether analysts are counting infrastructure services, software subscriptions, or the full transactional value flowing through CaaS deployments. On the more conservative measures, the market stood at around $165 million in 2025 and is projected to reach over $2 billion by 2035 at a CAGR of 29%. On broader infrastructure-inclusive measures, the numbers are significantly larger. Regardless of methodology, the directional signal is unambiguous: the charging as a service market is growing rapidly, and the commercial segments — fleets, corporate platforms, mobility services — dominate demand.

What is less often noted in those market figures is where the value actually accrues. The hardware layer of the charging as a service market — charger manufacturing, installation, grid connection — commoditises over time. The layer that retains margin is the one closest to the financial transaction: the platform that the driver uses, the API that routes the session, and the settlement infrastructure that determines who gets paid, on what timeline, at what rate. This is where Demand Partners have their structural advantage, and it is why the charging as a service market is, at its core, a Demand Partner opportunity.

Who the Demand Partners Are in This Market

The charging as a service market encompasses a wide range of Demand Partner types, each with a different relationship to their user base and a different angle on the charging transaction.

Wallets and fintech platforms already handle their users' daily financial transactions. EV charging is one more transaction category — high frequency, recurring, and easily embedded within an existing payment interface. A digital wallet that adds charging access through the CaaS model adds a service its users need without building anything new. Every session generates a revenue share. As explored in Fintech Monetisation Strategies, embedding recurring energy transactions is one of the most durable adjacencies available to a financial platform today.

Fleet operators and fleet software platforms represent the largest single segment of the charging as a service market by commercial volume. Fleets need charging everywhere their vehicles operate — not just at the depot. The CaaS model allows them to access public charging networks across geographies through a single commercial relationship, with consolidated invoicing and automated settlement. The Fleet Charging Settlement problem — multiple CPO invoices, manual reconciliation, fragmented reporting — is precisely what the charging as a service market is designed to solve.

OEM platforms and connected car services are among the most strategically positioned participants in the CaaS market. An OEM that embeds charging access natively — particularly through Plug and Charge Business Model implementations via ISO-15118, where the vehicle authenticates automatically — owns the most frictionless charging experience possible. The driver simply plugs in. The OEM platform earns on the session. The CaaS model enables this without the OEM needing to operate a single charger.

Insurance, roadside assistance, and corporate benefits platforms bring large EV-driver user bases to whom charging access is a meaningful and differentiating benefit. These platforms sit naturally within the CaaS model: they source the driver, the CaaS infrastructure handles the charging transaction, and the platform earns a transparent share per session.

Travel, hospitality, parking, and destination platforms engage drivers at the exact moments when charging is most likely to occur — at a hotel, a car park, an airport, a retail destination. For these platforms, the charging as a service model means capturing the financial value of dwell time that already exists, without adding operational complexity.

Public sector and smart city mobility platforms — transport authorities, city mobility apps, campus networks — have EV fleets and driver populations that require charging access across jurisdictions and networks. The CaaS model provides that access under a single framework, with the compliance and settlement handling that cross-border or multi-authority deployments require.

What Makes a CaaS Integration Work for a Demand Partner

The charging as a service market presents a genuine commercial opportunity for all of these platform types. But not all CaaS integrations are equivalent. The commercial quality of any CaaS arrangement for a Demand Partner depends on five things.

The first is pricing integrity. As detailed in EV Charging Margins, one of the structural problems in the current charging market is markup applied by intermediary layers between the CPO's published tariff and the price the driver sees. A well-structured CaaS model enforces transparent public pricing — the driver pays the official CPO tariff, and the Demand Partner's revenue share is earned as a defined portion of that transparent transaction, not as a hidden markup on top of it. This matters for driver trust, for regulatory compliance, and for the long-term commercial credibility of the platform.

The second is settlement automation. The charging as a service market only generates meaningful recurring revenue for a Demand Partner if session revenue is captured, attributed, and settled automatically. Manual reconciliation — matching session data from multiple CPO sources to invoices arriving on different cycles — is not a scalable model. CaaS at scale means automated settlement, per session, within a predictable cycle.

The third is network reach. The value of a CaaS integration scales with the breadth of the CPO network accessible through it. A Demand Partner whose drivers can charge on only a narrow set of networks is not delivering a meaningful service to those drivers, and is not generating meaningful session volume. As explored in Charging App vs Roaming Hub, the difference between a single-network app and a hub-connected platform is the difference between a local arrangement and a market position.

The fourth is operational transparency. Demand Partners need clean, attributable session data — by driver, by vehicle, by network, by cost — flowing into their own systems in real time. The charging as a service market only generates operational intelligence for the platform if the data layer beneath it is designed to provide it.

The fifth is the absence of bilateral overhead. One of the defining features of the CaaS model is that the Demand Partner should not need to negotiate individual roaming agreements with CPOs. One API integration replaces what would otherwise be dozens of separate commercial relationships, each requiring its own technical connection, its own contract, and its own reconciliation process.

Where the Charging as a Service Market Is Heading

The charging as a service market is moving in two directions simultaneously, and both favour the well-positioned Demand Partner.

The first direction is geographic expansion. Markets in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia are accelerating EV adoption rapidly, and their charging infrastructure is being built in the CaaS model from the outset — without the legacy of proprietary networks and bilateral roaming agreements that characterises more established markets. For global Demand Partners, this means the CaaS model is the native commercial framework in the fastest-growing EV markets. Getting positioned in those markets now, through a CaaS infrastructure that handles local payment rails, FX, and compliance automatically, is a structural advantage that compounds as adoption grows.

The second direction is V2G integration. As explored in How to Monetise EV Charging, the charging transaction is increasingly bidirectional — vehicles not only draw from the grid but export energy back to it, generating revenue for the driver and the platform that manages the relationship. The charging as a service market that exists today handles the inbound session. The CaaS market of the next five years will handle both directions, and the platforms embedded in that financial layer will earn on energy flowing in either direction.

How NetworkCore Powers the Charging as a Service Market for Demand Partners

NetworkCore is the financial infrastructure layer beneath the charging as a service market. For Demand Partners, this is what that means in practice.

A single API integration gives the Demand Partner access to a growing network of CPOs across markets, without bilateral negotiations, without separate technical connections per operator, and without infrastructure of any kind to own or manage. Session routing, payment capture, revenue sharing, and settlement are handled automatically — the charging transaction works exactly like any other financial transaction embedded in the platform. Revenue is earned per session, transparently allocated, and settled on a 48-hour cycle.

Drivers see the official public CPO tariff — no hidden markup, no pricing discrepancy between what the charger displays and what the invoice says. For platforms where driver trust is a core commercial asset, this is not a minor detail. It is a foundational commitment that the EV Charging Business Model requires but that many existing roaming arrangements cannot guarantee.

Invoicing, VAT handling, FX conversion for cross-border sessions, and compliance documentation are automated — the Demand Partner receives clean, attributable data per session without a reconciliation exercise at month-end. For fleet platforms specifically, this means the Fleet Charging Settlement problem is resolved at the infrastructure level, not patched over at the reporting level.

And as the charging as a service market evolves toward bidirectional energy flows and V2G participation, NetworkCore's architecture — built on OCPI and ISO-15118 — is positioned to handle the settlement of energy exported as readily as energy consumed. The financial layer that handles the inbound charging transaction is the same layer that will handle the outbound one.

The charging as a service market is a Demand Partner opportunity. NetworkCore is built to make that opportunity operational from day one.