Cheapest Way to Get an EV Charger Installed

A home EV charger costs between £800 and £1,300 installed. That's the range for a standard 7kW smart charger on a typical UK home.

The range exists because the price is made up of things you can control and things you can't. The charger itself is the easy part. Installation labour, cable runs, and what's lurking behind your fuse board are where the money goes.

Here's how to keep the total as low as possible.

What you're actually paying for

The consumer unit is the wildcard. If yours is old or full, the installer needs to upgrade it before fitting the charger. That alone can add £300 to £600 to the bill. You won't know until they survey your setup.

1. Claim the government grant (if you qualify)

The OZEV EV Chargepoint Grant covers up to £500 from April 2026. That's the single biggest saving available.

The catch: most homeowners don't qualify. The grant is only for renters, flat owners, and landlords. Standard homeowners (detached, semi, terraced house you own) were removed from the scheme in 2022.

If you do qualify, apply through Find a Grant (gov.uk) before your installation. You'll need an OZEV approved installer and charger.

Full details in our OZEV grant guide.

2. Get multiple quotes

The most obvious advice and the most ignored. Prices vary by hundreds of pounds between installers for the same job. Not because some are ripping you off, but because their overheads, travel costs, and margins differ.

Get at least three quotes. Use comparison services to make this easier:

• Rightcharge (rightcharge.co.uk) compares installers and charger combinations. Independent. Often returns better pricing than going direct.
• Smart Home Charge (smarthomecharge.co.uk) has its own installer network and supplies chargers. Good for bundled pricing.

Both are free to use. Both are more efficient than phoning around installers individually.

3. Keep the cable run short

The distance between your consumer unit (fuse board) and the charger location is one of the biggest variables in the quote. Every extra metre of cable adds cost, and if the cable needs to be buried in armoured conduit across a garden or driveway, the groundwork adds more.

If you have a choice of where to mount the charger, pick the wall closest to your fuse board. A charger on the outside of the wall where the consumer unit sits inside is the cheapest possible installation. One on a detached garage 20 metres away is the most expensive.

4. Choose a mid range charger

The charger market has stratified. At the bottom: the Easee One from around £410 (unit only, cable extra). At the top: the Andersen A3 at £700+ (before the designer fascia options). The difference in what they deliver to your car is zero. Both provide 7kW.

The mid range sweet spot is £450 to £600 for the unit. That gets you a smart charger with app control, tariff scheduling, and decent build quality. The Ohme Home Pro, Hypervolt Home 3, and Zappi all sit here.

Paying more buys you aesthetics (Andersen), exceptional weatherproofing (Hypervolt), or solar diversion (Zappi). If you don't need those things, a mid range charger does everything you'll actually use.

5. Group buying

An installer driving to one house, doing one job, and driving home has a fixed cost: travel, setup, admin. An installer doing four jobs on the same street in one day has the same fixed cost, spread across four customers.

That's the logic behind group buying for EV charger installation. The saving comes from the installer's efficiency, not from cutting corners on the work itself.

There's no major national group buying scheme for EV chargers in the UK yet. Some councils have run local schemes, but coverage is patchy. Cheaper Charger is building postcode based groups to fill that gap.

6. Don't install a charger you don't need

This sounds counterintuitive on a website that helps you buy chargers. But hear it out.

Every EV comes with a 3 pin charging cable. You can plug it into a standard socket and charge at about 2.3kW: roughly 8 to 10 miles of range per hour. If you only drive 20 miles a day, an overnight charge on a 3 pin plug gives you more than enough.

The safety caveats are real. A standard 13A socket isn't designed for continuous high power draw over many hours. Older properties without RCD protection are more exposed. Most manufacturers recommend 3 pin charging for emergencies only.

But if you're genuinely short on cash and only drive short distances, using the 3 pin cable for a few months while you save for a proper installation is a valid option. Don't let perfect be the enemy of plugged in.

What NOT to do

Don't install it yourself

EV charger installation creates a new electrical circuit. That's notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations. It must be done by a registered electrician. An illegal installation won't be covered by your home insurance, may void your car's warranty, and creates a genuine fire risk.

There is no legal DIY route. Full stop.

Don't buy a charger first and find an installer second

Some chargers are only available through specific installer networks. Some installers prefer working with certain brands. Buying a charger without confirming your installer will fit it can lead to compatibility issues, voided warranties, or an installer who won't touch it.

Talk to the installer first. Let them recommend a charger, then compare that recommendation with what you'd choose yourself.

Don't ignore the consumer unit

If an installer quotes suspiciously low, check whether the quote includes consumer unit work. Some cheaper quotes exclude this and then add it as an extra once they've started. Always ask: "Is consumer unit upgrade included if needed, or is that extra?"

The realistic floor price

If everything goes your way (short cable run, no consumer unit work, a budget charger, and a competitive quote), the floor is around £750 to £850 installed.

If you qualify for the OZEV grant, that drops to £300 to £400 out of pocket.

If your setup is more complicated (long cable run, old fuse board, underground routing), budget £1,200 to £1,500.

Most people land somewhere in between.