What roaming looks like when you try to do it yourself
Some operators start by building a few direct CPO connections. It works at first. But each connection means a separate contract, a separate technical integration, a separate invoicing relationship, and ongoing maintenance.
“If you want to do this yourself, you need a team just to manage the CPO relationships,” says Matias. “And then there’s invoicing, tariff management, CDR processing. It adds up fast.”
Roam OCPI replaces that with one connection. Access to over 1 million charge points across 28 countries, without building your own roaming operations.
We’ve written separately about why limited coverage costs you customers. This piece is about the work that disappears from your plate when you let someone else run it.
Three things you don’t have to build yourself
If you try to run roaming in-house, these are the three areas that will consume your team’s time: tariff management, charge detail record processing, and invoicing. At scale, each one becomes a full-time job. Here’s what Plugsurfing handles instead.
Tariff management
CPOs deliver pricing data in a range of formats and structures. Update frequencies vary. Some data arrives clean. Some doesn’t.
Plugsurfing normalizes all of it. Our platform ingests tariff data from 900+ CPOs, runs quality checks, and applies logic that catches errors and anomalies before they reach your customers. You get clean, reliable pricing data for your app. Your users see accurate prices. You don’t have to chase down discrepancies yourself.
CDR management
Every charging session generates a charge detail record. With 900+ CPOs, that means hundreds of different CDR formats coming in constantly.
Plugsurfing receives, validates, and standardizes them into one consistent format. If there are errors or missing data, our operations team resolves them directly with the CPO. Your system gets clean records.
For a closer look at what that operations work looks like day to day, read our interview with Aaron Rubenstein, who leads our roaming operations team.
Consolidated invoicing
Instead of receiving and reconciling hundreds of CPO invoices every month, you get a consolidated invoice from Plugsurfing. We match CPO invoices against CDR data, investigate discrepancies, and handle disputes. One billing relationship instead of hundreds.
You’re the merchant of record. What does that mean?
This is one of the first things Matias walks through with new customers, because it shapes how Roam OCPI fits into your business.
The OCPI 2.2.1 protocol handles location data, session authorization, and charge detail records, but not payment transactions. In practice, that means you keep full control of the customer relationship: your users pay you, and you manage the payment side.
Plugsurfing’s role is on the network side. We consolidate the CPO costs for the roaming sessions your customers generate, and send you an invoice for those costs plus our service fee.
How the money flows
→ Your customer pays you for the charging session
→ You pay Plugsurfing (consolidated CPO costs + service fee)
→ Plugsurfing pays the CPOs
In short: you own the customer relationship. We run the network operations behind it.
A note on VAT registration
As the merchant of record, you’ll need VAT registration in the countries where your users charge. For many customers, this naturally aligns with the markets they already operate in. You can filter the network to match, and expand later as your business grows into new regions.
Who this is for (and who it isn’t)
Roam OCPI is built for companies that already have their own EMP backend, their own app, and their own customer relationships. It assumes a certain level of operational maturity.
Typical customers include CPOs with their own charging app and a fleet offering, and fuel distributors adding EV charging alongside their existing business.
If you don’t have your own backend or app yet, Drive API or a white-label solution is a better starting point. Those options take care of more on your behalf.
The commercial model is straightforward: the more your customers roam, the less you pay per session. Your Plugsurfing contact can walk you through the details for your expected volume.
Ready to talk?
If you’re running your own charging solution and need your users covered beyond your network, this is built for that. One connection, managed operations, and a clear commercial model.
