Sarai

For business

EV charging as a business, not a science project

Sarai is the software under a charging network in Pakistan — the gateway that brings a charge point online, the pricing that makes it pay, the wallet that settles it, and the app that sends drivers to it. Two ways in, depending on what you own.

Why now

The economics changed in 2025

Charge point economics in Pakistan were, until recently, bad arithmetic. A site needed implausible utilisation to cover its own electricity. Three things moved:

  • The tariff cap. Charging-station electricity is capped at Rs 39.70 per kWh, cut from about Rs 71 — a 44 percent reduction, and the single biggest change to whether a charger pays for itself.
  • The fleet is arriving. BYD, MG, Deepal and the rest are selling here now, with local assembly scheduled, and the NEV Policy targets 30 percent of new vehicle sales electric by 2030.
  • Charging provision is going into the building code for new construction above a threshold, which makes a car park with conduit in it the cheap case rather than the expensive one.

We wrote the long version in the NEV Policy read as a driver and where the network actually stands.

The platform

What is actually built

Discovery
Live map, near / place / route search, community and open-data pins, guest browsing
Trip planning
Route-corridor stops, range-aware, auto-pick and swap, turn-by-turn
Charging
One-tap start, live SoC, power, current, energy and cost, Bluetooth current control
Payments
Prepaid wallet, low-balance guard, time-of-use pricing, discounts, PDF receipts
Trust
Verified reviews, reservations, fault reporting, connector compatibility
Operations
Web portal and staff app, OCPP 1.6 gateway, provisioning, live fleet, work orders
Money
Tariffs and time-of-use, dual-approval discounts, automatic settlement, revenue splits
Roaming
OCPI 2.2.1 — locations, sessions, CDRs, tokens and tariffs with other networks
Insight
Dashboards, session and energy analytics, ratings and fault reports

What it costs you

Nothing, until someone charges

There is no platform subscription and no per-charger licence. Sarai's share is a split of the per-kWh rate the driver is shown — agreed with you, settled after the session, never added on top of the displayed price. The driver pays the rate on the charger; how it divides behind that is between us.

Revenue splits run across platform, distributor and site owner, are recorded per session, and are configurable per distributor. The wallet settles automatically at the end of every session, net of any discount. The portal carries a plain "who owes who" view. Full pricing.

Questions

Questions operators ask

What does it cost to list or run a charger with Sarai?

There is no subscription and no per-charger fee. Sarai's platform share is a split of the per-kWh rate shown to the driver, agreed with the operator and settled after the session — it is not added on top of the displayed price.

Do I have to buy your hardware?

No. The OCPP 1.6 gateway is built for multi-vendor reality — vendor firmware quirks, export-register metering, string-typed payloads — so a standard charge point from most manufacturers can be brought online. Sarai also supplies and distributes hardware where you would rather buy the whole thing from one place.

Who sets the price per kWh?

You do, within the rate policy agreed with us. Pricing has precedence from per-charger time-of-use windows up to a platform-wide policy, tariffs can be per-kWh or flat with an optional idle fee, and site owners propose rate changes through a request flow that an administrator applies.

When do I get paid?

The driver's wallet settles at the end of every session, net of any discount, and the split is recorded per session. Settlements are raised and tracked in the portal, with a running view of what is owed between platform, distributor and site owner.

Can drivers from other networks use my chargers?

Yes, through OCPI 2.2.1 roaming — locations, sessions, CDRs, tokens and tariffs are exchanged with connected parties, with per-party pricing, visibility and reconciliation in the portal.

What if I already have a charger listed on the map?

Claim it. Community and open-data listings can be claimed by the site that owns them, which turns the pin into a managed charger with live status, your pricing, and the listing analytics behind it.

Start in the portal

Sign in, add a site, provision a charger. Or tell us what you have and we will tell you what it takes to bring it online.

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