Zap Map review: how to use the app, Zap-Pay and Premium

Zap Map, now written Zapmap, is a free UK app and website that shows more than 120,000 public EV chargers with live status and prices, plans routes, and lets you pay at more than 80,000 of them through Zap-Pay. Its Premium plan costs £29.99 a year and adds in-car use and 5% off Zap-Pay charging, which pays for itself only if you rapid charge regularly and want the charging card.

Zapmap does not own or run any chargers. It maps other operators’ chargers and, for many of them, takes the payment on their behalf, so the price and the hardware belong to the network you plug into. This review rests on Zapmap’s own published terms and price data and on gov.uk rules, not on testing by EV Compared.

What is Zapmap and who runs it?

Zapmap is a UK charging map company that has mapped public charge points since 2014. It says it now covers more than 95% of the UK’s public chargers, has 1.3 million registered users and 2 million app downloads, and holds a 4.6 rating on Apple’s App Store. FLEETCOR, the payments group now called Corpay, invested in Zap-Map in September 2022 and built its software into its UK fleet fuel card product.

Zapmap also publishes the data many UK charging stories quote, including its monthly price index and its count of public chargers. Those figures appear later on this page. For how it stacks up against other apps, see our round-up of the best EV charging apps.

How much does charging cost through Zapmap?

Charging through Zapmap costs the network’s rate: Zapmap says Zap-Pay prices are set, wherever possible, at the same or a similar level to the operator’s standard pay-as-you-go rate. It publishes no separate fee for paying in the app, though it warns that some networks charge more when you pay through a third party, which it cannot control. The app shows each charger’s price before you start.

Because Zapmap sets no tariff of its own, the table uses its own UK averages for what the networks charge, which it updated on 5 November 2026 and we checked on 10 November 2026.

Charger speed	UK average (October 2026)	With 5% Premium discount	Zapmap’s pence per mile
Standard and fast, 3 to 49 kW	54p/kWh	51.3p/kWh	about 16p
Rapid and ultra-rapid, 50 kW and above	82p/kWh	77.9p/kWh	about 24p
Top 10 rapid networks	51p to 93p/kWh	48.5p to 88.4p/kWh	not published

The spread between networks matters far more than the app. Zapmap found InstaVolt at 92p/kWh in October 2026 and Sainsbury’s Smart Charge, Fastned and Believ at 79p/kWh, while Tesla Superchargers open to all drivers averaged 69p/kWh. Our report on Zapmap’s October charging prices goes through the networks.

What does a typical public charge cost?

A rapid charge that adds 40 kWh costs £32.80 at the 82p/kWh average, and Premium’s 5% takes £1.64 off it. EV Compared worked these out by multiplying the energy added by Zapmap’s October 2026 average price, ignoring charging losses; our methodology sets out the inputs.

Energy added	At 54p/kWh	At 82p/kWh	At 82p less 5% (Premium)
20 kWh	£10.80	£16.40	£15.58
40 kWh	£21.60	£32.80	£31.16
50 kWh, the monthly discount cap	£27.00	£41.00	£38.95

At home the same 40 kWh is far cheaper: Zapmap puts the price cap at around 26p/kWh and an off-peak EV tariff at around 8.1p/kWh. Our guide to the cost of charging at home works through tariffs.

How do you pay with Zapmap: app, card or contactless?

You pay in the Zapmap app with a debit or credit card saved under payment methods, or with Apple Pay or Google Pay if it is set up on your phone. The app’s payment filter shows only the chargers where Zap-Pay works. Zapmap emails a receipt when the session ends, whichever way you paid.

The Zapmap charging card is an RFID card you tap on the charger to start and finish, with the session billed to your Zapmap account. It launched on 9 July 2025, is free with annual Premium and costs £10 otherwise. Most cards arrive within 10 days, and it can only be sent to and used in the UK.

Before each session, Zapmap places an authorisation hold of £30 on your card if you are registered, or £60 as a guest. It is adjusted to the real cost within minutes and up to an hour, and released within 24 hours if the charge fails to start.

Contactless at the charger is the alternative. Under the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, existing chargers of 50 kW and above and new chargers of 8 kW and above must take contactless. Slower and older units need not, which is where an app or card earns its place. Our comparison of Zap-Pay and contactless sets the two side by side.

Is Zapmap Premium worth it?

Zapmap Premium is not worth it for the discount alone, but it can be if you want the charging card or in-car use. It costs £29.99 a year, about £2.50 a month, or £3.49 a month on a rolling plan, and the annual plan has a free seven-day trial.

Feature	Free	Premium
Find all UK public chargers, live data and prices	Yes	Yes
Plan routes	Yes, 3 saved	Yes, unlimited saved
Saved filters and managed EVs	1 each	Unlimited
Enhanced filters, new charge points, what3words	No	Yes
Pay with Zap-Pay	Yes	Yes
5% Zap-Pay discount, first 50 kWh a month	No	Yes
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto	No	Yes
Adverts	Yes	No
Charging card	£10	Free with annual plan

The 50 kWh cap sets the ceiling on what the discount can save. EV Compared worked out the break-even by multiplying 5% of the price by the kWh charged, up to the cap, and comparing it with the fee.

• At 82p/kWh, the most you can save is £2.05 a month, or £24.60 a year, so the discount alone never covers the £29.99 annual fee or the £3.49 monthly fee.
• The annual fee is covered by the discount alone only on chargers priced at about £1/kWh, above every network in Zapmap’s October top 10.
• If you would buy the £10 card anyway, annual Premium effectively costs £19.99, which the discount covers at about 488 kWh a year, or 41 kWh of rapid charging a month. At Zapmap’s own 24p a mile for 82p/kWh, that is roughly 140 miles a month on rapid chargers.

So Premium suits a driver who uses CarPlay or Android Auto, charges in public most weeks and wants the card. A driver who charges at home and uses the occasional rapid charger is better off on the free plan, paying by contactless.

Where are the chargers?

Zapmap counted 98,899 public charging devices at 48,815 UK locations at the end of October 2026, with 30,060 rapid or ultra-rapid chargers at 7,202 locations. Zap-Pay covers more than 80,000 chargers on more than 50 networks, so it reaches many chargers but not all of them; the payment filter shows which.

Outside the UK, Zapmap sells Premium in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, priced at €29.99 a year or €3.99 a month. Its charging card works only in the UK. The wider picture of where chargers are being built is in our state of UK public charging report.

How reliable is Zapmap, and are there idle fees?

Zapmap’s live status is as good as the data the operator sends, and more than 80% of the chargers in the app show it. Operators must publish open data that reflects a status change within 30 seconds, and each operator’s rapid network must be available 99% of the time across a year, with a free, staffed helpline open 24 hours a day.

Zapmap’s map markers and user ratings help you skip a broken site, and Premium can filter by rating. Idle or overstay fees are set by the operator, not Zapmap, so read the price details for the charger and move the car when the session ends. Our guide to finding working chargers on a road trip covers planning around faults.

How do you use Zapmap, step by step?

Using Zapmap to pay takes a few taps once your account is set up.

1. Download the free Zapmap app and register, so the hold is £30 rather than £60.
2. Add a debit or credit card under payment methods, or set up Apple Pay or Google Pay on your phone.
3. If you want the card, go to Settings, Payments, Charging card, and order it.
4. On the map, tap the green tick to show only chargers reported as available, and use the payment filter to show where Zap-Pay works.
5. Check the charger’s speed and price, then plug in.
6. Tap your card on the charger, or select your connector in the app and follow the prompts.
7. Stop the session the same way, unplug, move the car and wait for the emailed receipt.

Who is Zapmap for?

Zapmap suits almost every UK EV driver as a free map, because it covers more than 95% of public chargers and shows live status on most of them. Zap-Pay suits drivers who use slower chargers without contactless or several networks that each want their own app.

It suits less well a driver who wants a cross-network discount on every charge, since the 5% stops at 50 kWh a month, or one who tours Europe with the card. For home charging, which is where most of the savings are, Best Chargers covers choosing a wallbox.

Our verdict, based on published prices and terms rather than our own testing: keep the free Zapmap app on your phone for finding chargers and paying where contactless is missing. Pay for Premium for CarPlay, Android Auto and the card, not to save money on charging.