Sign up for our popular daily email to catch all the latest EV news!
Still relying on a white-label eMobility app for your CPO or eMSP business? It might have helped you get to market quickly, but now it’s costing you more than you think.
In this article, Roman Bord, Co-Founder of Stormotion, shares insights from 8 years of developing custom eMobility solutions, explaining how to adapt your app to market demands and drive long-term growth.
If you’re reading The EV Report, you already understand that the eMobility industry is changing fast. Several years ago, mobile apps were an interface that connected drivers with chargers. But now, they’re a critical part of your business infrastructure. They’re your brand, unique value proposition, and product differentiation.
As decision makers at a growing EV charging or eMobility company, your role has changed, too. It’s not enough to find a white-label app vendor and hope they’ll do the rest. You need to drive the industry, build partnerships, roll out loyalty features, and respond quickly to new user behaviors.
It’s clear: white-label solutions are good for quick market entry. But when you want to develop strong bonds with your client, white-label apps just aren’t the right match for it. You’re losing a competitive edge and loyal users, giving up control over integrations, user experience, and feature updates.
Key Highlights:
- Explore why white-label platforms become a limiting factor as your eMobility business grows
- Run a quick self-check to see if you’ve outgrown your white-label app
- Understand what results to expect with custom eMobility app development
- Learn how custom loyalty programs, upselling opportunities, and operational agility give decision-makers more control
- Get a roadmap for building a custom eMobility app that adapts to market demands and supports long-term growth
New EU regulations like AFIR, growing expectations around interoperability, and changing driver behaviors, especially around loyalty and rewards, are raising the stakes. For companies still relying on white-label platforms, it’s getting harder to keep up. Without the flexibility to adapt your app, you risk missing out on strategic partnerships, dynamic pricing opportunities, and the speed needed to release new features.
Here are four signals that it’s time to break out of the white-label eMobility platform.
- Zero differentiation
White-label UX/UI often offers limited branding and customization. It means your app looks like the other CPO or eMSP on the market. When everyone provides the same experience, differentiation disappears.
- Slow product cycles
Need to add a CRM, loyalty program, or a monetization option? You have to wait for vendor approval and additional fees.
Strategically, the longer the vendor develops the white-label app, the slower they will react to your Feature Requests. They will wait to gather a significant number of their clients who need this feature. As a result, you, the person responsible for the product, won’t be proactive in responding to the needs of your users, but will only react to the trends in the industry.
- Limited control
You don’t have full intellectual property ownership of your app and its data. Every change should be discussed with a vendor and its development team. They decide whether to add or not to add a requested feature or integration. Moreover, the vendor is the one who decides what partnership programs or monetization options to add to the white-label app, even when it doesn’t meet the needs of your users.
- Poor flexibility
When you decide to expand into new markets with different regulations or user expectations, you may need to rebuild parts of your white-label app or work around its limitations. You have to discuss this possibility with your vendor. If they approve your business roadmap, you need to pay additional fees for their services.
Now, ask yourself:
- Can you launch a new loyalty feature within a sprint?
- When customers request features, can you implement them immediately, or do you wait in line behind other clients?
- Do you have access to advanced analytics of user behavior, churn risk, and usage patterns?
- Can you integrate CRM, ERP, or a payment system without vendor delays?
- Are you sure your app reflects your product values?
If the answer to most of these is “no,” there’s a good chance your current app is holding you back. Here are five reasons why switching to a custom-built eMobility app is a strategic shift.
- Brand differentiation
Branding isn’t your logo. It’s how users search for stations, how they start a session, and how they feel after a charge. With a custom eMobility app, you can design UX/UI that builds trust, reduces churn, and increases daily engagement.
- Custom loyalty features
Custom eMobility app enables you to build strategic partnerships and grow your network. Let’s take a look at two real-world examples.
A European CPO designed a loyalty program that rewards drivers with points for using their stations, redeemable for discounts. They also partnered with a retail chain that issues promo codes for charging discounts to their customers. And they’re going to expand their loyalty features through networking growth.
Another CPO integrated a QR-code feature to provide customers with benefits like free airport lounge entry.
These exclusive features increase repeat sessions and improve brand loyalty. It would be hard to achieve such flexibility using a white-label app.
- Upselling opportunities
You can also expand your custom eMobility app functionality with upselling integrations. Analyze user analytics and find hidden opportunities. For example, you can offer premium access to faster chargers or bundle charging sessions with parking. Offering value-added services, you can boost ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and increase user loyalty by solving their pain points.
- Operational agility
Users interact with your brand through the client-facing app. Building the custom eMobility app, you have full control of the intellectual property. You can release updates faster and close more profitable deals with partners.
- Data-driven decisions
White-label dashboards just give you the basic information. Custom analytic tools give you behavioral insights: where users drop off, which chargers they avoid, and what drives them to use your platform. You can use this data to reduce churn rate, adjust pricing models, run effective marketing campaigns, and grow a partnership network.
One of the biggest misconceptions you may hear is that custom app development is too expensive. But keep in mind the hidden costs of a white-label solution. They include extra fees for branding changes, new market entry, API integrations, you name it.
Let’s say your white-label EV rental app provider charges $2,000/month, plus $300 per integration, and $5,000 for branding changes. Over 2 years, that’s ~$60,000+. A custom eMobility app development costs about $45,000–$70,000 but gives you total control, scalability, and intellectual property ownership from day one.
So, how can you move from a generic to a game-changer eMobility app?
- Assess your current situation
Identify where your white-label solution is limiting growth or efficiency. It can be API integrations, loyalty programs, or data visualization. Then, you should define dos and don’ts for eMobility app development.
- Set strategic goals
Decide what you want to achieve with a custom app: monetization, partnerships, user retention, or expansion. Based on this information, you can choose your feature set and architecture.
- Partner with specialists
We can’t deny that keeping the code base up-to-date can be costly. But it doesn’t have to become a burden. The key is finding the right development partner who knows the industry regulations and can support you long-term.
In the end, it all comes down to how you want to serve your customers, stand out from competitors, and grow in a way that fits your vision.
For growing CPOs and eMobility providers, having a custom app isn’t a “nice to have” anymore. It’s how you stay competitive. In a market where user experience, integrations, and speed to adapt make all the difference, owning your app means owning your future. White-label platforms played their part in getting the industry off the ground. But if you want to lead, not just keep up, it’s time to take control of the experience your customers rely on every day.
About the author
Roman Bord is the Co-Founder of Stormotion, a mobile and web development agency specializing in building connected digital apps for companies in the IoT, EV, and Fitness sectors. With over 8 years of experience in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) integrations and product strategy, Roman has helped his partners launch innovative IoT products with seamless user experiences — many of which have gone on to lead their markets. He leads product teams from idea to execution, focusing on quality, scalability, and real business impact.
Sign up for our popular daily email to catch all the latest EV news!
