Nearly every charger stands on land the operator does not own. That makes revenue sharing the most common commercial structure in the industry and the most common source of disputes — almost never about the percentage, and almost always about what the percentage applies to.
Define the base, precisely
A "20% revenue share" is not a term; it is the beginning of an argument. Twenty percent of what?
- Gross session value including GST, or excluding it? Excluding is correct — you never owned the tax — but it must be written down.
- Before or after payment gateway charges? These are real and are yours to bear, but if the host expects gross, say so at signature.
- Before or after promotional discounts? If a launch offer halves a session’s value, does the host absorb half the discount or none of it?
- Is roaming revenue included? A session started by a partner network’s driver is still revenue from the host’s bay.
- Are idle fees shared? They are revenue, but they arise from bay occupancy, which is arguably the host’s asset.
Three structures and when each fits
| Structure | Fits when | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of net revenue | Utilisation is unproven | Host earns little early and may lose interest |
| Fixed ₹/kWh to host | Energy volume is predictable | Host is insulated from your price changes |
| Fixed rent | Site is proven and you want the upside | You carry all utilisation risk |
| Percentage with a minimum guarantee | Host needs certainty, you need alignment | The guarantee becomes rent in a bad month |
The percentage-with-minimum structure is the most common landing point, and the one that most needs a clear true-up mechanism: does an over-performing month offset an under-performing one, or is each month settled independently? Both are defensible; only one can be in the contract.
Effective dates, not edits
Terms get renegotiated. When they do, the new terms must apply from a date forward, and last quarter’s settlements must remain calculated on the old basis. A system that lets you edit a contract retroactively will eventually restate a statement the host has already been paid on, and that conversation is unrecoverable.
The statement is the product
What actually determines whether a partnership survives is not the split — it is whether the host believes the number. A statement that shows sessions, energy, gross value, deductions and net payable, with every line traceable to the session behind it, ends the monthly phone call. A single aggregate figure emailed as a PDF invites one.
Better still, give the host a login. A partner who can see their own chargers, their own uptime and their own earnings whenever they want stops asking, and starts telling you when a unit looks down.
Uptime obligations cut both ways
Hosts increasingly ask for uptime commitments, which is reasonable. Accept them — with two conditions: that the measurement is defined in the contract, and that outages caused by the host’s own power supply, network or blocked bays are excluded. Both are ordinary, and both require that you actually measure per-connector availability rather than estimate it.