Our story

Purpose

Parking should never get in the way of your day.

Nobody drives somewhere to park. You go to a meeting, a birthday, a client, the doctor. Parking is the part in between, and it should take as little of your time, attention and money as possible.

Vision

A Netherlands where parking is never a surprise. You know what it costs before you start, it ends when you said it would, and the invoice at the end of the month holds no questions.

Mission

We build the parking app that does everything for you and shows the price up front. You start in a few taps, we stop on time, also when your phone is off, and you pay a small fee per parking action and per top-up, with no subscription.

The idea

Parking you don't have to think about, at a price you already know.

Parking is a chore between you and where you are going. So we take as much of it off your hands as we can: finding the zone, the meter, the end time, the stopping. And you see the price before you start, so there is nothing left to wonder about. It is the same afterwards.

What we are against

Surprises afterwards. Most people don't mind paying for parking. What they mind is the rest: the fine because the zone was wrong, the parking action that kept running through dinner, the subscription that charged them in a month they barely parked, the fee they only noticed on their bank statement. For an organization it is the pile of expense claims that nobody sees until the end of the month.

Everything we build takes one of those surprises away.

How we started

We started SimplePark as three students who wanted to share empty driveways. It didn't work: a marketplace needs drivers and owners at the same time, and we couldn't bring both. But talking to all those drivers taught us something. Finding a spot was annoying. Paying for it was worse: an app with a subscription, a fee that was hard to find, and the worry of forgetting to stop.

So we went to the street, and built the parking app we wanted ourselves. You see the zone, the rate and the maximum parking time before you start. You set an end time, and we stop your parking action on our servers, also when your phone is off. You pay the municipality's rate plus € 0.29 per parking action, and € 0.29 when you top up, or nothing extra when we collect once a month. No subscription.

Where we are going

Street parking was the start. SimplePark Business brings the same to organizations: their people park for work and for themselves in one app, and the organization gets one invoice a month that adds up to the last parking action. Beyond that we look at garages, P+R and charging. That is a direction, not a plan with a date: if we ever do it, it is on the same terms, parking you don't have to think about, at a price you already know.

Why we tell it this way

• The idea is one sentence, not two. It used to be a mission (parking should be invisible) and a promise (you always know what it costs) that pulled in opposite directions. Now they are one: you can stop thinking about parking because you already know the price. An earlier wording said everything disappears except what it costs; that made the price sound like the heavy part, so we don't use it.
• The enemy is a surprise, not a competitor or a price model. It is true for drivers and for organizations, and it stays true whichever way SimplePark Business is priced.
• The origin is a lesson, not a pivot story. It explains why our price looks the way it does. It belongs on the about page; on business pages we lead with facts instead (see positioning).
• We name the top-up fee in the story itself. A brand built on honesty is judged by the least favorable line of its price list, so that line is in here.
• The future is a direction, not a promise. It lives on this page only. The vision and the mission don't mention garages, P+R or charging, and we don't market them until they are in the app.