Inside the scooter side hustle: Charging for Lime and Bird is a new cutthroat gig in St. Louis Starting at 9 p.m., those looking to make a buck can pick up low-charge scooters and plug them in at home. They return them to the street rech…

Customers instead use smartphone apps to find and pay for the GPS-equipped scooters. When they reach their destination, they park and lock the scooter until the next customer picks it up.

The city caps each company’s local fleet size at 2,500 scooters, though none of the companies have yet reached that number, said Scott Ogilvie, city transportation policy planner.

Bird and Lime each has 500 to 600 scooters deployed in the city this month, up from lower levels during the colder months, Ogilvie said.

Spin’s pricing matched Lime’s cost in St. Louis Monday: Both companies charge $1 to unlock a scooter plus 15 cents for every minute of the ride. Bird was charging $1 to unlock a scooter, plus 26 cents for every minute of the ride as of Monday.