Tesla vs Electrify America vs EVgo: Compare Your Route Costs
By GearUp Insights · Published Jun 1, 2026
Compare charging networks at the stations you can actually use. A lower posted price can lose its advantage after a membership fee or a detour, while the highest advertised power says little about your car’s average charging speed.
Updated September 14, 2026. GearUp compares official pricing structures and provides a worked station-cost model. This is not a nationwide station-price survey or a reliability ranking.
Tesla, Electrify America and EVgo: what to verify
| Network | Pricing evidence | Before choosing a stop |
|---|
| Tesla Supercharger | Site-specific prices; some locations bill by time | Confirm your vehicle can use that site, the applicable rate and any adapter requirement |
| Electrify America | Pass+ advertises about 25% charging savings; selected stations have time-of-use prices | Check the app’s current subscription fee and prices at your arrival time |
| EVgo | Plus $6.99/month; PlusMax $12.99/month; both waive session fees | Compare each plan’s station price with app-based Pay As You Go |
EVgo’s official page advertises up to 15% savings for Plus and up to 30% for PlusMax. Those are not guaranteed energy discounts. Pay As You Go has no monthly subscription and a $0.99 session fee. Sessions started by credit card have a separate $2.99 transaction fee. Do not mix payment routes when comparing totals.
Tesla directs drivers of other makes to its app or map to identify available sites. Electrify America directs drivers to its app or charger screen for current pricing. A connector type alone does not prove every site is available to your vehicle; check the station and vehicle guidance before departure.
GearUp station-cost comparison
These fictional offers isolate the math and are not quotes from the networks above. Each delivers 50 billed kWh. Offer A costs 45¢/kWh with no fee. Offer B costs 33¢/kWh plus a $7 monthly plan. Offer C costs 40¢/kWh plus a $0.99 session fee.
| Offer | One 50-kWh session in month | Four 50-kWh sessions in month |
|---|
| A: no subscription | $22.50 | $90.00 |
| B: paid plan | $23.50 | $73.00 |
| C: session fee | $20.99 | $83.96 |
C is cheapest for one stop; B is cheapest for four. The table charges B’s monthly subscription once, not once per session. Comparing only 33¢ with 40¢ would select the wrong offer for the one-stop month.
B’s saving against A is 12¢/kWh, so $7 ÷ $0.12 = 58.33 kWh/month reaches equality. Against C, avoided session fees also matter. Use the Charging Membership Break-Even Index for the formula and session-count sensitivity. Only energy purchased on the relevant plan counts.
How much detour erases a cheaper rate?
If one station is 10¢/kWh cheaper and you buy 50 kWh, its gross advantage is $5. Assume a 10-mile round-trip detour and consumption of 0.30 purchased kWh/mile, valued at 45¢/kWh. The extra energy costs $1.35, leaving $3.65 before valuing time or other fees.
If the detour adds 15 minutes and you choose to value your time at $15/hour, that adds $3.75: the cheaper station is now 10 cents worse overall. Time value is a personal scenario input, not a cash charge or an objectively correct hourly rate. Avoid a longer route for a price saving that cannot cover its extra costs.
Compare time with average power
Charging 50 kWh at an average 100 kW takes 30 minutes; at an average 150 kW it takes 20 minutes. These are idealized energy ÷ average-power calculations, before queues, setup and detours. The station’s maximum rating is not the average power your car will sustain.
For a route comparison, record expected arrival charge, compatible connector, the car’s charging curve and recent station availability. Keep a backup stop. We have not collected route-level uptime or queue observations, so we do not award a reliability winner or infer it from network size.
Do not compare incompatible network counts
A site is a location; a port or stall is a charging position. Global counts, U.S. counts, partner-operated sites and locations open to your vehicle have different denominators. The previous version combined these measures. This revision removes the mixed-size ranking because it did not answer whether a driver had a usable stop on a particular route.
For daily home charging with occasional trips, select compatible backup stations first and evaluate a paid plan only for the billing periods you need. For recurring public charging, compare a month of actual receipts across your regular stations. A larger network does not automatically offer the lowest cost near home.
Sources and methodology
Official pages checked September 14, 2026: Tesla Supercharging support, Electrify America pricing, and EVgo pricing. Operator terms inform the first comparison; all prices in offers A–C, detour inputs and average-power examples are stated GearUp assumptions.
Cost = billed kWh × rate + session fees + applicable monthly subscription + incremental travel costs. Use consistent tax treatment. The worked table excludes tax, parking, idle/congestion fees, free charging offers and equipment. Add them when applicable; do not assume a membership removes them. Calculations use unrounded inputs and round dollar outputs to cents.
September 14 correction: EVgo’s subscription/session distinction and advertised savings now follow its official pricing page. Removed unsupported universal membership thresholds and mixed global/U.S. size comparisons. For your monthly energy budget, use the charging calculator and input guide. For home access, start with the Home vs Public Charging Study.
New 2026 guide: See what public EV charging really costs in the U.S., including cost-per-100-mile calculations and current operator pricing rules.