The honest picture
There is no single “average” public charging price in the UK that tells you anything useful. A kilowatt-hour from a free Pod Point at Tesco costs nothing. The same kWh from a pay-as-you-go ultra-rapid on a motorway can cost over 90p. Between those extremes sit dozens of networks, each with different pricing, different speeds, different reliability records and different subscription models. The network you use, and how you pay, matters as much as the car you drive.
What follows is an honest, network-by-network breakdown of what you'll actually pay in 2026, based on published tariffs and real-world data from Zapmap.
Rapid charging networks (50 kW+)
Tesla Supercharger: Tesla's network is now fully open to non-Tesla vehicles across the UK. Non-members pay around 62p/kWh, making it one of the cheapest rapid options available. Tesla membership brings the rate lower still. V3 stalls deliver up to 250 kW to compatible cars, and the network is growing rapidly with new sites appearing monthly. Reliability is excellent, consistently among the highest-rated networks on Zapmap. If your car supports CCS and you rapid charge regularly, Tesla Superchargers are hard to beat on price and experience.
BP Pulse: The largest UK charging network by site count, with a mix of older 50 kW units and newer 150 kW+ rapid chargers. Rapid charging costs around 89–92p/kWh on a pay-as-you-go basis. A monthly subscription is available that brings the per-kWh rate down meaningfully. Reliability has been a sore point historically, older units were frequently out of service, but BP Pulse has invested heavily in upgrading the estate and scores are improving. The sheer number of locations makes it hard to avoid entirely.
InstaVolt: A straightforward, no-nonsense network. Contactless payment at every unit, no app required, no subscription needed. Pricing sits around 89–92p/kWh. Chargers are typically 50–125 kW and appear at retail parks, supermarkets and service stations. Reliability is good. InstaVolt consistently scores well on uptime. The simplicity is the selling point: tap your card, charge, leave.
Ionity: The ultra-rapid premium option. Ionity sites sit on motorway corridors and major A-roads, with chargers capable of 350 kW. Pricing is steep on pay-as-you-go, but the Ionity Passport subscription brings the rate to around 79p/kWh, still not cheap, but competitive for the speeds available. If you do long motorway trips regularly and your car can pull 150 kW+, Ionity sites are worth knowing about. For shorter local trips, the premium is hard to justify.
Gridserve: Gridserve operates the Electric Highway (motorway service station chargers) and its own Electric Forecourts, purpose-built charging hubs with waiting lounges and retail. Pricing is competitive, sitting in the high-70s to low-80s pence per kWh. The Electric Forecourts are among the best charging experiences in the UK, with reliable high-speed units and proper facilities. The network is still growing but coverage on major routes is solid.
Osprey: Formerly known as Engenie, Osprey operates 50–150 kW chargers, often at fuel forecourts and retail locations. Pricing is competitive and sits in the mid-range. Contactless payment is supported across the network. Osprey doesn't have the scale of BP Pulse or the speed of Ionity, but it fills gaps well and units are generally reliable.
Destination and slow charging
Not all public charging is rapid. Destination chargers, the 7–22 kW AC units at supermarkets, car parks, hotels and workplaces, are significantly cheaper and sometimes free. Pod Point offers free charging at many Tesco and Lidl stores, which is genuinely useful if you can plug in while you shop. According to Zapmap data from May 2026, the average price for slower public charging sits around 54p/kWh, still more expensive than home charging, but a world away from the 89p+ you pay at a rapid charger.
Workplace charging, where your employer provides AC chargers, can be even cheaper or free. These slower sessions close the gap with home charging significantly and are the best option for drivers without a driveway who want to keep costs down.
Subscriptions: are they worth it?
Several networks offer monthly subscriptions that reduce the per-kWh price: BP Pulse has its subscription plan, Tesla offers a membership tier, and Ionity sells the Ionity Passport. The maths is simple: if you rapid charge more than two or three times a month on the same network, the subscription typically pays for itself. If you charge less often or spread sessions across multiple networks, you're better off on pay-as-you-go.
The catch is lock-in. Subscribing to one network encourages you to seek out that network's chargers even when a closer or faster alternative exists. For most drivers, paying a single subscription to the network you use most frequently is worth it; paying for two or more rarely makes sense.
Why home charging still wins
Even the cheapest public rapid network can't compete with a home charger on a good tariff. Off-peak EV electricity rates in the UK sit around 7–9p/kWh in 2026. The cheapest public rapid, Tesla Supercharger, charges roughly 62p/kWh. That's a seven-to-one cost difference. For a car that does 3.5 miles per kWh, home charging costs around 2–3p per mile. Tesla Supercharging costs around 18p per mile. BP Pulse or InstaVolt pushes past 25p per mile.
This is why we keep saying: a home charger plus a cheap tariff is the single biggest lever on EV running cost. If you have a driveway, get a charger installed. Everything else is secondary.
What this means for your monthly cost
Your charging network choice can swing your monthly running cost by tens of pounds. A driver covering 800 miles a month could pay under £20 on a home tariff, around £140 on Tesla Superchargers, or over £200 on pay-as-you-go BP Pulse rapids. The difference is real and it compounds every month.
On every car page on HonestRange, you can toggle between charging scenarios, home, mixed and public-only, to see exactly how network choice affects the monthly cost for the car you're considering. The numbers are specific to each model's real-world efficiency, not averages.