We already use a white-label micromobility platform. Can you build custom modules on top of it rather than replacing the whole system?

Yes. Building the differentiated layer on top of an existing platform (a custom rebalancing dashboard, a city-specific compliance workflow, or a pricing engine the platform's config can't express) is a specific type of engagement we take on. We scope exactly what needs custom development versus what stays on the existing platform during discovery.

How do you handle IoT lock integrations across different hardware vendors?

We integrate via MQTT, REST, and vendor-specific SDKs, covering Segway, Omni, Comodule, Teltonika, and similar IoT hardware providers. Lock and unlock commands, battery telemetry, GPS polling frequency, and connectivity fallback logic are all part of the integration scope. If your vehicles use a proprietary firmware stack, we review the API documentation and hardware specs during discovery before committing to timelines.

How long does it take to build a micromobility platform, and what does it cost?

Most operators start with a focused v1: a rider app, IoT fleet control, and a basic ops dashboard. That first build launches a validated v1 in 12 to 16 weeks to test in a live market. From there the platform expands to a full multi-city system with fleet rebalancing, dynamic pricing, maintenance scheduling, and permit compliance across later phases. Cost depends on scope, IoT hardware complexity, and the number of city markets. We scope every project before pricing. Fixed cost, agreed before work starts.

Can you build geofencing that meets the requirements of multiple city contracts simultaneously?

Yes. Multi-zone geofencing with city-specific no-ride zones, slow-speed corridors, preferred parking areas, and permit boundary enforcement is built into the fleet control layer. When city requirements differ across markets, the system manages each zone ruleset independently so one configuration change doesn't break another.

Should we build custom micromobility software or use a white-label platform?

Use a white-label platform if you are pre-launch or operating under 500 vehicles in a single market. The economics work until the platform's pricing model, configuration limits, or contract terms become constraints. Build custom when your differentiation requires behavior the platform can't deliver: a proprietary pricing model, a city compliance workflow specific to your permit terms, or a hardware integration the vendor doesn't support. Most operators we work with have already launched on a platform and reached the ceiling of what it can configure.

Do you build the field operations app as well as the rider-facing app?

Yes. Field team apps for rebalancing crews, battery-swap teams, and mechanics are part of the platform scope. The field app surfaces an assigned task queue with vehicle location, turn-by-turn navigation, and checklist-guided handoffs for each task type. Completed tasks feed back into the ops dashboard in real time so fleet managers see rebalancing progress without chasing the field team for updates.

We're losing our city tender or at risk of it. Can software help us win it back?

Losing the city contract ends the business. Cities narrow operator lists and keep the ones that demonstrate unit economics and compliance. We build the evidence layer tenders ask for: zone compliance audit trails, per-ride cost reporting, rebalancing service levels for underserved areas, and permit-boundary enforcement with version-controlled zone history. Software doesn't win tenders alone, but it produces the documentation that does.

Micromobility Software Development

Industry reporting on Bird's unit economics put average revenue at about $2.43 per mile ridden, against total costs of roughly $2.55 per mile. Most scooters died before even turning a profit. Reported analyses put operations and charging at nearly 60% of per-ride costs. With the era of easy money over, scooter companies must prove they can scale sustainably. The software question is no longer how to launch the fleet. It's how to stop the fleet from losing money.

IoT fleet control with real-time GPS, lock and unlock commands, battery telemetry, and fallback handling for low-connectivity zones
Rider-facing iOS and Android apps with account management, ride history, in-app payments via Stripe, and city-compliant end-of-ride photo capture
Fleet rebalancing systems with demand forecasting, zone utilization scoring, and task routing for field teams
Dynamic pricing engines that adjust per-minute rates by zone, time of day, battery level, and local demand

The problem

Sound familiar?

Rebalancing crews working from guesswork because your fleet dashboard shows vehicle location but not demand forecasts or zone-level utilization rates?
Locked into a white-label platform that handles 80% of your operations but forces workarounds for the pricing model, maintenance workflows, or city permit data your contract actually requires?
IoT lock commands timing out in low-signal areas and your ops team spending hours manually triaging stranded vehicles with no fallback protocol in the software?

Short answer

RaftLabs builds custom micromobility software for e-scooter, bike-share, and micro-transit operators. Micromobility software development covers IoT lock control, rider apps, fleet rebalancing, dynamic pricing, maintenance scheduling, and geofencing. We scope every project before pricing. Fixed cost, agreed before work starts.

Trusted by

01 Diagnosis

Where micromobility operations actually leak

01
Problem
The ride loses money and nobody can say where
Solution
Industry reporting on Bird's unit economics put average revenue at about $2.43 per mile ridden, against total costs of roughly $2.55 per mile. This negative margin had to be subsidized by venture capital. Reported analyses put operations and charging at nearly 60% of per-ride costs, with maintenance and repairs adding roughly $0.50 per ride. The average e-scooter lasted about three months in service, while breaking even on its upfront cost took almost four months of rides. Most scooters died before even turning a profit.Software that reports per-vehicle, per-ride, and per-zone economics in real time turns the unit-economics question from a quarterly surprise into a daily dashboard. The outcome is a business that knows its margin, not one that discovers it.
02
Problem
Rebalancing by gut feel burns money
Solution
The goal is not to move vehicles constantly. The goal is to understand when a move is actually useful, which vehicles should be moved. Without zone-level demand forecasting and utilization scoring in the ops dashboard, field teams plan their day on intuition. If unchecked, the fleet as a whole becomes unbalanced: too many vehicles in low-demand areas, and not enough in high-demand areas.A rebalancing system with live zone utilization data, demand forecasting, and task routing for field staff cuts the labor cost while keeping vehicles where riders actually want them. The outcome is moves that earn their keep.
03
Problem
New operators start on manual processes
Solution
A common mistake made by new operators is to start out with manual processes. Meticulous data-tracking from the beginning is the best shot at long-term success. Pricing set once a month in a config file doesn't respond to a stadium event that triples demand in one zone. It doesn't respond to a rainy Tuesday that kills ridership, or a low-battery cluster that costs more to retrieve than the ride revenue justifies.A dynamic pricing engine adjusts per-minute and unlock rates by zone, time of day, battery state, and real-time demand signals, all within the fare bands the city permit allows. The outcome is pricing that responds to demand instead of averaging across it.
04
Problem
The city contract is the business
Solution
Some cities impose per-ride fees and permitting costs and require operators to rebalance to underserved areas, adding cost without direct revenue. Cities narrow operator lists: one market went from 11 operators to 6, and the survivors were the ones that could demonstrate unit economics and compliance. Losing the tender ends the business.Multi-city geofencing with independent zone rulesets per market, version-controlled zone history for permit audits, and permit-boundary enforcement built into the fleet control layer. The outcome is compliance you can document when the tender asks.

02 What we ship

Micromobility software we build

IoT fleet control and lock management
We integrate with IoT hardware vendors including Segway IoT, Omni, Comodule, and Teltonika using MQTT, REST, and vendor-specific SDKs. Lock and unlock commands, GPS polling, battery state telemetry, motor diagnostics, and over-the-air firmware update triggers are all surfaced through a unified fleet control API that your ops dashboard and field app consume. Command retry logic, offline queue handling, and connectivity fallback protocols are built into the integration layer, so a dropped cellular connection in a tunnel doesn't mean a stranded vehicle.
Built for e-scooter operators managing mixed IoT hardware fleets, campus mobility programs with controlled network environments, and operators who need a hardware-agnostic control layer as they expand to new vehicle types.
Rider iOS and Android apps
The rider app covers the full trip lifecycle: account creation with identity verification, vehicle discovery on a live map, QR and NFC unlock, in-ride telemetry display, and end-of-ride photo capture for parking compliance. Payment runs through Stripe or Adyen, with support for prepaid wallets, ride passes, and corporate billing accounts. Push notifications handle ride reminders, low-battery alerts, and zone-exit warnings before a geofencing penalty triggers.
Built for shared e-scooter and bike-share operators launching or rebuilding their consumer app, corporate fleet programs with employee accounts and billing integration, and operators whose current rider app has a completion rate below 85% at the unlock step.
Fleet rebalancing and operations dashboard
The operations dashboard gives fleet managers a live map with zone utilization overlays, vehicle cluster heat maps, battery-level filters, and demand forecasts by hour and zone. Rebalancing task lists are generated automatically from utilization scoring: which zones are over-stocked, which are depleted, and what the minimum move count is to reach target distribution. Field teams get a companion mobile app with their assigned task queue, turn-by-turn navigation to each vehicle, and checklist-guided handoffs.
Built for operators with fleets above 200 vehicles where manual rebalancing coordination creates margin pressure, and for operators adding a second city market who need structured task management rather than team group chats.
Dynamic pricing engine
The pricing engine adjusts unlock fees and per-minute rates across zones and time windows without a developer touching config files. Rules combine demand signals from the live fleet (vehicle density per zone, active ride count, historical ridership by hour) with external triggers like local event calendars and weather data. Pricing boundaries defined in the city permit are enforced at the rule level so no dynamic adjustment can breach the rate ceiling or floor set in the operating license.
Built for operators at profitability inflection points who need pricing to respond to demand rather than averaging across it, and for operators entering new markets where city contracts include variable rate allowances.
Maintenance scheduling and vehicle health
Vehicle health scoring runs on telemetry from the IoT layer: battery cycle count and capacity degradation, motor fault codes, trip distance since last service, and rider-reported issues from in-app feedback. When a vehicle crosses a threshold (500 trips since last brake check, battery below 75% rated capacity, three rider complaints in seven days), it moves into the maintenance queue automatically. The maintenance queue is served to mechanics as a prioritized daily list with fault details, last GPS location, and parts-required flags.
Built for operators with in-house mechanics who are currently tracking maintenance in spreadsheets or paper logs, and for operators whose vendor contract requires documented service intervals for warranty compliance.
Geofencing and city permit compliance
Zone configuration covers no-ride zones, slow-speed corridors (where the IoT layer throttles the motor to a city-specified limit), preferred parking areas, prohibited parking zones, and permit boundary perimeters. Each zone type carries its own enforcement logic: a speed throttle, a ride-end block, a parking surcharge, or a rider warning notification triggered at the zone boundary. Multi-city deployments manage independent zone rulesets per market, and city permit data is version-controlled so the compliance team can produce an audit trail showing the exact zone configuration active on any given date.
Built for operators in multiple city markets with different permit requirements, for operators facing permit renewal audits that require documented zone compliance history, and for campus mobility programs with controlled operating perimeters.

03 Buy, build, or wait

The micromobility question is really about whether the software is cutting cost or just running the fleet.

Buy or rent

White-label platforms, pre-launch
Under 500 vehicles in a single market, before the pricing model and configuration limits become constraints.
Manual processes, as a bridge
The common mistake. Meticulous data-tracking from the beginning beats the spreadsheet later.

Build custom

When the ride loses money
Reported unit economics ran roughly $2.43 revenue vs $2.55 cost per mile. Software that reports per-ride economics, not just vehicle locations.
When rebalancing burns the margin
The goal is not to move vehicles constantly. It's to understand when a move is actually useful.
When the tender is the business
Cities narrow operator lists. Compliance documentation wins the renewal.

Bottom line

Stay on the white-label platform while you're under 500 vehicles and the economics work. Build when the unit economics, the rebalancing cost, or the tender documentation outgrow it.

04 How we work

How we build micromobility software

01
Discovery
We map your fleet size, vehicle hardware and IoT vendor stack, city permit obligations, current ops workflows, and the specific gaps where your existing platform or manual processes create cost or rider experience problems. We review API documentation for your IoT hardware and identify integration risk early. The risk this retires: the hardware the software can't talk to.
02
Architecture
We design the data model around your fleet: the vehicle state machine, IoT command flow, zone configuration schema, pricing rule engine, and the API surface your rider app and ops dashboard will consume. City permit compliance constraints are factored into the zone configuration architecture before any code is written. The risk this retires: the zone ruleset that breaks the permit.
03
Build
Core IoT integration and vehicle state management ship first, followed by the rider app and then the ops dashboard and pricing engine. Two-week checkpoints with working software give your team early visibility and let you course-correct before the build is complete rather than after. The risk this retires: the integration that fails on the street.
04
Launch and handover
Go-live starts with a controlled zone or vehicle subset before full fleet activation. Monitoring covers IoT command success rates, app crash rates, payment failure rates, and geofencing trigger accuracy. The risk this retires: the launch that strands the fleet.

05 Track record

What micromobility and transport operators get when they work with us

Weeks to launch a validated v1, then expand: 12-16

Shipping custom software in production: Since 2015

Lock control, GPS, and battery telemetry integration: IoT

Cost agreed before each phase begins: Fixed

08 Why us

Why choose us?

01
We've seen your problem before
Across dozens of industries, we recognise your situation fast, then frame the fix around your margin and your operations, not a generic template.
02
We own the number, not the ticket
We measure success the way you do: hours saved, revenue earned, margin recovered. We stay through launch and growth, so the result is ours to own.
03
Serious businesses trust us
Vodafone, T-Mobile, Cisco, Energia, Aldi, Nike. Building since 2015. Serious businesses keep coming back because we stay accountable long after launch.

09 Questions

Common questions

: Yes. Building the differentiated layer on top of an existing platform (a custom rebalancing dashboard, a city-specific compliance workflow, or a pricing engine the platform's config can't express) is a specific type of engagement we take on. We scope exactly what needs custom development versus what stays on the existing platform during discovery, so you're not paying to rebuild what already works.
: We integrate via MQTT, REST, and vendor-specific SDKs, covering Segway IoT, Omni, Comodule, Teltonika, and similar hardware providers. Lock and unlock commands, battery telemetry, GPS polling frequency, and connectivity fallback logic are all part of the integration scope. If your vehicles use a proprietary firmware stack, we review the API documentation and hardware specs during discovery before committing to timelines.
: Most operators start with a focused v1: a rider app, IoT fleet control, and a basic ops dashboard. That first build launches a validated v1 in 12 to 16 weeks to test in a live market. From there the platform expands to a full multi-city system with fleet rebalancing, dynamic pricing, maintenance scheduling, and permit compliance across later phases. Cost depends on scope, IoT hardware complexity, and the number of city markets. We scope every project before pricing. Fixed cost, agreed before work starts.
: Yes. Multi-zone geofencing with city-specific no-ride zones, slow-speed corridors, preferred parking areas, and permit boundary enforcement is built into the fleet control layer. When city requirements differ across markets, the system manages each zone ruleset independently so one configuration change in one city doesn't affect another. Zone change history is version-controlled for permit audit purposes.
: Use a white-label platform if you are pre-launch or operating under 500 vehicles in a single market. The economics work until the platform's pricing model, configuration limits, or contract terms become constraints. Build custom when your differentiation requires behavior the platform can't deliver: a proprietary pricing model, a city compliance workflow specific to your permit terms, or a hardware integration the vendor doesn't support. Most operators we work with have already launched on a platform and reached the ceiling of what it can configure.
: Yes. Field team apps for rebalancing crews, battery-swap teams, and mechanics are part of the platform scope. The field app surfaces an assigned task queue with vehicle location, turn-by-turn navigation, and checklist-guided handoffs for each task type. Completed tasks feed back into the ops dashboard in real time so fleet managers see rebalancing progress without chasing the field team for updates.
: Losing the city contract ends the business. Cities narrow operator lists and keep the ones that demonstrate unit economics and compliance. We build the evidence layer tenders ask for: zone compliance audit trails, per-ride cost reporting, rebalancing service levels for underserved areas, and permit-boundary enforcement with version-controlled zone history. Software doesn't win tenders alone, but it produces the documentation that does.

Micromobility software by product

Get a build-vs-white-label plan for your fleet

Tell us your fleet size, IoT hardware, city markets, and where your current platform falls short. We'll tell you what we'd build, what it costs, and what we'd leave alone.

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Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
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