Enter your annual mileage and charging split to see instantly which Irish public charging memberships save you money.
The main inputs (annual mileage, home charging percentage, DC/AC split and, for ESB Charge Smart, how much of your public charging happens overnight) drive all the numbers. If you're not sure what to put in, here's how to find out:
Still unsure how much you spend on public charging right now? Our Public Charging Cost Calculator lets you pick a specific network and charger type and calculate your exact per-session and monthly costs. Use it to benchmark what you're currently paying before evaluating membership options here.
For each network, the calculator takes your estimated annual public kWh usage, split into DC and AC, and multiplies it by both the PAYG rate and the member rate. The membership fee (monthly × 12 or annual flat) is added to the member cost. If the member total is lower, membership pays off; if it's higher, PAYG is cheaper. The recommendation bar above the cards spells this out directly for your specific inputs.
The comparison is energy cost plus membership fee only. Per-session connection fees (like ePower's real €0.50 PAYG initiation charge, waived under eVeryday membership) aren't separately added to the totals shown here. In ePower's case this doesn't skew the comparison, since ePower's PAYG rate itself isn't published anywhere, so we only show the eVeryday membership plan rather than a PAYG-vs-member comparison for that network.
As a general rule of thumb: ESB ecars Charge Lite (the membership plan) breaks even at roughly 1,150 public kWh per year, DC or AC (the per-kWh saving is the same 5c/kWh either way); Ionity breaks even at much lower usage, as low as roughly 230 kWh/yr on the Motion Annual tier (€49.99/yr + €0.59/kWh), or roughly 310–410 kWh/yr on the Monthly tiers, because the PAYG markup is very high (€0.81/kWh Direct vs €0.46/kWh with a Power Monthly subscription). ePower eVeryday's real-world advantage over PAYG includes avoiding their €0.50 per-session fee, on top of the lower per-kWh rate shown here.
Most Irish EV owners with a home charger do the majority of their charging overnight on a cheaper home electricity tariff. If this sounds like you, the home percentage input is the most important slider: increasing it reduces your public kWh and makes memberships harder to justify. Use our Home Charging Calculator to work out your annual home charging cost and see exactly how much you're spending at night-rate versus daytime tariffs, giving you the full picture of your total charging outlay, home and public combined.
If you don't have a home charger yet, or you're renting and relying entirely on public charge points, set home charging to 0%. At that point membership plans become significantly more compelling. Your annual public kWh figure is maximised, and the per-kWh savings from even a modest membership compound quickly across the year.
ESB ecars prices updated 4 November 2026 to the new rates effective 2 November (pay as you go €0.70/kWh Standard AC and €0.83/kWh Fast and High-Power DC; Charge Lite, formerly the Member plan, €4.79/month at €0.65 and €0.78). ESB's new Charge Smart plan (€6.99/month, with cheaper rates between 9pm and 7am: €0.52/kWh AC and €0.66/kWh DC) is modelled using the "overnight" slider, since its saving depends on when you charge; outside those hours it costs the same per kWh as Charge Lite. ePower and Ionity prices were last reconfirmed August 2026 (Ionity's Direct rate briefly rose to €0.85/kWh in July but was corrected back to €0.81/kWh in August following a Europe-wide price cut; ePower's DC member rate rose to €0.66/kWh in August). Tesla's rates could not be independently re-verified (no public price page exists) and remain a 2024 driver-forum estimate. Always confirm current rates on the network's app or website before signing up; rates can change without notice.
De Energy Hub lets you run bookable, priced EV charging sessions across any number of chargers: search or scan to book, promo codes and per-kWh or per-session billing. It works with the EV chargers you already own.
