Blink Charging is one of the original public EV charging companies, founded in 2009 and trading on NASDAQ as BLNK since 2018. It has built one of the largest Level 2 charging footprints in the US — roughly 20,600 Level 2 ports across the country — while staying a distant fifth in DC fast charging, with about 2,011 fast ports spread across 690 locations nationwide as of mid-2026.
What Blink Is
Blink runs a hardware-and-software model close to ChargePoint’s: it sells or leases charging hardware to property owners — retail centers, apartment complexes, workplaces, and a notable concentration of car dealerships — who then set their own pricing and operate the station under the Blink network umbrella. Blink also owns and operates a smaller portion of its DC fast charging fleet directly, mostly newer Kempower-based installations the company has been expanding since 2025.
That hybrid model — mostly hosted Level 2, a growing slice of company-owned DC fast — explains why Blink shows up so heavily in our own station data at exactly the kind of locations you’d expect: shopping centers, apartment parking, and a striking number of auto dealerships. In our own seven-state launch region, Blink has 854 stations: 302 in Washington, 208 in Oregon, 205 in Colorado, 69 in Utah, 50 in Idaho, 12 in Montana, and 8 in Wyoming. It’s a real, day-to-day part of the regional charging picture — just not a highway-corridor one.
Pricing
Blink pricing is set per-host, which means the company’s published rate ranges are wide. Level 2 sessions typically run $0.29 to $0.49 per kWh, or $0.04 to $0.06 per minute where per-kWh pricing isn’t permitted by local law. DC fast charging costs more — $0.49 to $0.69 per kWh for non-members, varying by state and station. A Blink Member account gets a discount on both, plus reduced session fees. There’s no flat membership fee structure published the way Electrify America’s Pass+ or EVgo’s EVgo+ work — the member benefit here is a percentage knock off whatever the host has set, not a subscription tier.
The host-set pricing model means two Blink stations across town from each other can charge meaningfully different rates. Check the app before you plug in. The session cost you see is not guaranteed to match what a different Blink station nearby will charge.
The App and Account
The Blink Mobile app handles account setup, payment, and starting a charging session — tap-to-charge via the app or an RFID card, similar to ChargePoint. You can charge without creating an account at some locations via a guest checkout flow, but the better rates require a Blink Member account.
This is also where Blink’s reputation gets shakiest. Customer reviews through 2026 consistently describe problems adding credit cards to the app (often requiring multiple attempts with different cards), charging sessions that don’t get recorded properly, and customer support hold times that have been reported well over an hour. If you’re relying on Blink for an important charging stop, don’t assume the app will behave — have a backup plan.
Connectors and Compatibility
Blink’s network is overwhelmingly J1772 Level 2 — across our regional data, the connector is J1772 at the vast majority of Blink sites we’ve indexed, capped around 19.2 kW. The smaller DC fast fleet uses CCS and, less commonly, CHAdeMO, typically at 150 kW.
Tesla and other NACS-native vehicles need an adapter to use Blink’s J1772 Level 2 chargers — the same one you’d use at a ChargePoint Level 2 site.
If you’re looking for fast charging specifically, Blink is not the network to plan a trip around. Its DC fast locations cluster at dealerships and retail centers rather than along interstate corridors, which makes them useful for a service-visit or shopping-trip top-off but unreliable as a road-trip charging plan.
Reliability — the Honest Section
Blink’s reliability story is genuinely mixed, and it’s worth being specific about where the problems actually show up rather than offering a vague “your mileage may vary.” The complaints that recur most often in 2026 customer reviews are about billing accuracy — sessions charged incorrectly, pre-authorization holds that don’t get refunded promptly, and in some documented cases, the same person overcharged multiple times in a single year. There are also real reports of DC fast stations sitting broken for months with open support tickets and no repair.
To Blink’s credit, the company has been visibly investing in its DC fast network — 136 new fast-charging stalls approved or under construction in Q1 2026 alone, and a shift toward Kempower hardware that has a better reliability reputation than Blink’s older charging units. That’s a real, measurable improvement trajectory. It just hasn’t fully closed the gap yet. If you’re charging Level 2 at a workplace or retail lot where a slow or occasionally glitchy session isn’t a big deal, Blink is fine. If you’re counting on a Blink DC fast stall to make a trip work, build in a backup.
How Blink Compares
Against the other four networks we cover, Blink’s closest analog is ChargePoint — both are primarily Level 2 hardware-and-software platforms serving hosts rather than owning a highway network outright. ChargePoint is far larger (roughly 37,000 US stations to Blink’s 5,800) and has a better-established reliability reputation. Blink’s DC fast fleet, while smaller than Electrify America’s or EVgo’s, has grown the fastest of any network we track over the past year.
Blink in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West
Washington and Oregon carry the bulk of Blink’s presence in our launch region — 302 and 208 stations respectively — concentrated in the same retail and workplace locations you’d find ChargePoint at. Colorado’s 205 stations follow a similar pattern along the Front Range. Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have thinner but real coverage, mostly in the larger cities rather than along the rural corridors this directory focuses on for trip planning.
If you’re researching a specific stop, check our state and city guides for the charging picture as a whole — Blink is a meaningful part of it, but rarely the only option worth knowing about.