Fleet Fueling Cost Calculator
Fuel, paid driver time at the pump, card fees and losses on one line, compared with a delivered price. Results update as you type.
Every default below is an example. Replace it with your own figure.
Your monthly fueling cost
Enter your fleet to see results.
| Cost | Today | Delivery | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | — | — | — |
- Cost per mile, today
- —
- Cost per mile, delivery
- —
- Per vehicle, today
- —
- Per vehicle, delivery
- —
- Driver hours freed
- —
- On-road gallons
- —
- Dyed diesel tax effect
- —
How this is calculated
All figures are per month. A month is 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 weeks. Blank or invalid inputs count as 0; negative numbers count as 0.
- On-road gallons = vehicles × miles ÷ MPG (or vehicles × gallons per vehicle).
- Fuel today = on-road gallons × price you pay now.
- Driver time today = vehicles × stops per week × 4.33 × minutes ÷ 60 × loaded hourly cost.
- Card fees today = cards × fee per card + (vehicles × stops per week × 4.33) × fee per transaction.
- Shrinkage today = on-road gallons × shrinkage % × price you pay now.
- Fuel with delivery = delivered share × gallons × delivered price + on-road share × gallons × price now. The on-road share is "fuel still bought on the road".
- Driver time, card fees and shrinkage with delivery = today's figure × the on-road share. With 0% left on the road they drop to 0. Card fees are scaled the same way, which assumes you cut cards in proportion.
- Delivery fee = the monthly fee from your quote.
- Off-road fuel: today = gallons × price now (or × the dyed price if you already run dyed). With delivery = gallons × dyed price if the equipment is eligible, or × delivered price if it has to stay on clear diesel.
- Dyed price = your quoted dyed price, or, if blank, delivered price − tax gap. With no state chosen (or no dyed rate in the table) and no quoted dyed price, off-road gallons use the delivered price and no tax effect is shown.
- Tax gap = your state's total on-road diesel tax − its total dyed diesel tax per gallon (federal and state, from our diesel taxes by state table, as of —). Sales tax and local taxes aren't included.
- Difference = today − with delivery. Positive means delivery costs less; negative means it costs more.
- Cost per mile = on-road cost (everything except off-road fuel) ÷ (vehicles × miles). Per vehicle = the same on-road cost ÷ vehicles.
- Driver hours freed = vehicles × stops × 4.33 × minutes ÷ 60 × delivered share.
Not included: detour miles and vehicle wear, staff time reconciling card statements, tank rental if you choose stored fuel instead of wet hosing, DEF, and whether freed hours actually turn into billable work or less overtime. Driver time only becomes cash if those hours go somewhere useful.
Your inputs stay in this browser (local storage) so they're there next time. Nothing is sent to FuelGo.
How to use the fleet fueling cost calculator
- Pull a month of card data. Gallons, transactions and fees by vehicle. That replaces three example inputs at once.
- Enter your fleet. Vehicle count and monthly miles. Use MPG, or switch to gallons per vehicle if your reports already show it.
- Time one real fuel stop. Leave the yard to back on route, including the line and the receipt. Multiply by stops per week.
- Get a delivered price. Ask for the price per gallon and any delivery or service fee in writing, and enter both. Until then the fuel line is identical in both columns.
- Add off-road equipment if you fuel machines or generators with taxed clear diesel today, and pick your state.
- Read the breakdown, not just the total. If most of the difference is driver time, ask whether those hours turn into work or overtime saved.
What drives fleet fueling cost
The pump price is the line everyone watches. It's rarely the only one that moves.
Fuel price per gallon
Usually the biggest line, and it moves weekly. EIA's U.S. average for on-highway diesel went from $5.97 on Sept. 7 to $6.53 on Sept. 21, then $6.20 on Oct. 5, 2026. At 10 MPG, fuel alone is price ÷ MPG: about $0.62 a mile at $6.20. Compare delivered and pump prices on the same day.
Fuel economy
MPG sets how many gallons each mile costs. DOE's Alternative Fuels Data Center lists average fuel economy (in gasoline-gallon equivalents) of 18.5 for light trucks and vans, 7.2 for delivery trucks and 6.3 for Class 8 trucks. Your own data beats any average.
Driver time
A Geotab telematics study of 14 million trips found fleet vehicles spent about 12 minutes at the station and that a stop added about 20 minutes to the trip, with a 2.2-mile detour. BLS puts the median heavy and tractor-trailer driver wage at $28.19 an hour (May 2025), and wages are 68.1% of employer cost for transportation and material moving jobs.
Card fees and controls
Fees depend on your provider and contract, so read your statement, not the brochure. Controls matter as much as fees: who can fuel, which product, how many gallons, and how fast exceptions get flagged.
Shrinkage and misuse
Gallons that go into a personal vehicle, a can or the wrong unit. We haven't found a reliable published rate, so this tool leaves it at 0. If you've audited card fills against tank sizes and telematics, enter your own figure.
Off-road tax
Dyed diesel is exempt from federal excise tax ($0.244 per gallon) when used in nontaxable ways such as off-highway business use and farming. Use in a highway vehicle registered or required to be registered is not off-highway use, and the IRS penalty is the greater of $1,000 or $10 per gallon. State taxes on dyed diesel vary; see diesel taxes by state.
Temporary federal relief, fall 2026: an executive order signed October 5, 2026 directs Treasury to defer federal excise tax and waive certain penalties for highway use of dyed diesel from October 5 through December 31, 2026. It's a deferral, not a repeal, and state rules still apply. The calculator uses standard tax rates. Check current IRS guidance and your state before changing what goes in road vehicles.
Sources: EIA weekly retail diesel prices · AFDC average fuel economy by vehicle category · Geotab off-route refueling study (Nov. 2024) · BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook · BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 · IRS Publication 510 · White House fact sheet, Oct. 2026 · EY Tax News, Oct. 8, 2026
When fuel delivery makes sense, and when it doesn't
Delivery tends to fit when
- Vehicles park at the same yard, terminal or job site every night.
- Drivers fuel on the clock, and those minutes would otherwise go to routes or overtime.
- You run off-road equipment on taxed clear diesel that could legally run dyed.
- You want gallons recorded by vehicle instead of reconciling card exceptions.
- Fuel needs to be in the tank at shift start, not on the way to the first job.
It may not pay when
- Trucks run long routes and fuel on the road anyway. Set "fuel still bought on the road" high and see what's left.
- The fleet is small and stops are quick, on the way, and cheap.
- Your card discount already beats the delivered price plus fees.
- Vehicles are spread across many locations with nowhere to fuel them parked.
- The saving is all driver time that wouldn't turn into work or lower payroll.
Many fleets do both: delivery for the units that come home every night, a card for the ones that don't. Model that with the "fuel still bought on the road" input. For a side-by-side of the two approaches, see on-site fuel delivery vs fuel cards.
How FuelGo fuels fleets
Mobile fleet fueling, usually called wet hosing: our driver fuels each vehicle or machine where it's parked, usually overnight or between shifts. No tank to install, and nobody on your crew handles a nozzle.
- Every gallon loggedby vehicle, time and location
- On-road and dyed dieselplus gasoline and DEF
- No minimum order20–4,400 gallons per drop
- Quoted per gallonOPIS-based or indexed pricing
- 24/7/365 dispatcha dispatcher replies within the hour
- No contractspay by credit card, ACH or check
Fleet fueling cost questions
How do you calculate fleet fuel cost per mile?
Add up a month of fueling cost (fuel, paid driver time at the pump, card fees and losses) and divide it by the miles the fleet drove that month. Fuel alone is price per gallon divided by MPG: $6.20 a gallon at 10 MPG is about $0.62 a mile before anything else. The calculator above shows both.
Is mobile fleet fueling cheaper than fuel cards?
Sometimes. It depends on the delivered price against what you pay at the pump, any delivery fee, and how much paid time drivers spend fueling. For a fleet that parks at one yard, driver time can outweigh a few cents a gallon: 20 vehicles making 2 stops a week at 20 minutes and $41 an hour is about $2,370 a month. For trucks that fuel on the road anyway, it may not pay. Run your own numbers with a real quote.
How much time do drivers spend fueling?
A Geotab study of 14 million fleet trips found vehicles spent about 12 minutes at the station, and each stop added about 20 minutes to the trip once the 2.2-mile average detour was counted. Telematics data or a stopwatch on a few real stops will give a better number for your routes.
Can off-road equipment use dyed diesel?
Yes, when the use is nontaxable, such as off-highway business use in equipment that isn’t registered or required to be registered for the road, and farming. Putting dyed diesel in a highway vehicle can bring an IRS penalty of the greater of $1,000 or $10 a gallon. An October 2026 executive order directs temporary federal relief for highway use through December 31, 2026, but state rules still apply. See our off-road diesel compliance guide.
What does wet hosing cost?
There’s no flat national price. Delivered fuel is quoted per gallon and moves with the market; FuelGo quotes OPIS-based or indexed pricing with no minimum order. Ask any supplier for the delivered price per gallon and every delivery or service fee in writing, then enter both in the calculator. See mobile fleet fueling.
How much can dyed diesel save on off-road equipment?
The saving is the tax gap: your state’s total on-road diesel tax minus its tax on dyed diesel, per gallon. It applies only to gallons you now buy as taxed clear diesel for equipment that can legally run dyed. Pick your state in the calculator, or see the full diesel taxes by state table. Sales tax isn’t included.
What does this calculator leave out?
Detour miles and vehicle wear, office time spent reconciling card statements, tank rental if you choose stored fuel over wet hosing, and DEF. It also can’t tell you whether freed driver hours turn into work or lower payroll. Treat the result as a starting point for a quote, not a guarantee.
Replace the example with a real price
Send your vehicle count, fuel types and where they park. A dispatcher replies within the hour. Put the delivered price from your quote into the calculator.