Fuel finders rated: how to find the lowest fuel prices
Several phone apps and websites are available to help you find the cheapest fuel prices in your area. We test seven to see how well they work...
While the situation in the Middle East remains volatile and oil prices are high, one thing is certain: anyone who drives a petrol or diesel car will be feeling the effects of inflated fuel costs. So, it’ll be worth their while to shop around for the cheapest option.
The average price of a litre of unleaded petrol in the UK at the time of writing was 158.31p – about 20% higher than it was before the US-Iran conflict started on 28 February. Diesel was at 191.54p per litre – up by about 35%. Supermarket petrol prices averaged 155.5p. Those figures were the highest since late 2022.
This makes the Government’s new Fuel Finder Scheme very timely. Although it was introduced in early February to increase competition and transparency at filling stations, it now has a more significant role to play in helping motorists to keep costs down.
The scheme made it a legal requirement for all fuel stations to publish up-to-date prices every 30 minutes. These are shared with operators of third-party apps and sat-navs, enabling drivers to compare prices in real time, with the potential to reap savings of around £40 per year.
The requirement was only voluntary before this point, and the change came after criticism of petrol retailers by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for being too slow to lower prices when oil costs went down.
The CMA started enforcing the new rule from 1 May in an effort to ensure that all petrol retailers provide the latest prices as often as required.
The Government initially cited only the Fuel Finder app as a place to find real-time price data, but it recently added another six fuel price apps and websites to its list of recommended sources, giving consumers a broader choice of options. We’ve taken a closer look at all of them, to find out how they perform.
1. Petrolprices.com
Website and app, free to use
What Car? Rating 5 stars
Established in 2005, this is one of the longest-running and most prominent fuel comparison services in the UK. It’s easy to access information on the website and app, with no need to log in. The results show on a map, with a list beside it that contains useful information, such as user ratings and the date prices were last updated and by whom.
It’s easy to filter results by brand, fuel type and distance; the latter can be adjusted in one-mile increments up to a 20-mile radius.
The map on the website is a bit glitchy and hard to zoom in on accurately, but the one on the app responds better and is easier to use. Neither showed all of the fuel stations near to our location, but those that did appear had up-to-date pricing. You can sign up for a free account to get access to free, crowd-sourced fuel price data and tailored price alerts.
2. RAC Fuel Watch
App only (non-members), free to use
What Car? rating 5 stars
Only members can view fuel price data on the RAC’s website as an alternative to using the myRAC app, but anyone can use the latter for fuel finding and route planning. You do have to sign up, but this is pretty quick and easy.
Once that’s done, you can search within five, 10 or 20 miles of your location, with prices shown on a map or in a list. The icons on the map aren’t colour coded, but they have brand logos on them, and the cheapest one has additional colouring so it stands out.
The only shortcoming we found with this app was that the map didn’t show the less well-known brands’ stations in our area – just the big names. Still, the prices displayed were all up to date.
We found it easy to move around the map, and the sites were positioned correctly on the map.
3. Confused.com
Website and app, free to use
What Car? rating 3 stars
The fuel price finder can be used on the website and app by simply entering your postcode and choosing the type of fuel. The results show the five closest locations within a five-mile radius with the lowest prices. There’s a single-click option to double the search area to 10 miles, and you can click again to expand it further.
You get shown only the cheapest location, with the other four results blanked out, until you either register or sign in. Doing this is free, and it lets you do up to 20 searches a week and get detailed results for them. Results are in a list with big, clear text; it’s just a shame there are no links to click on to see each location on a map.
Data accuracy appears to be patchy, however. We asked for sites in Kent and the results included one in Leicestershire and one in Manchester.
4. Fuel Finder UK
Website and app, free for basic service, £1.99 a month (£22 a year) for Pro service
What Car? rating 3 stars
It’s quick and easy to create a free account, and this provides similar real-time fuel prices as most other sites. Information is displayed on a map that wasn’t totally accurate when showing the locations of some of the sites in our local area. The icons on the map are colour coded by price and have an abbreviation of the brand name.
When you click on a location, you get information on its address and the last time its prices were updated, plus a link for directions to it. There is an option to alter the area of the results from a five-mile to 50-mile radius from your location. We weren’t able to zoom in on the website map, but could on the app.
Upgrading to Pro adds lots of other features, including the ability to watch prices at regularly used sites, route planning via the cheapest locations and the ability to rate fuel stations and report those with out-of-date prices.
5. Drivescore
Website and app, free to use
What Car? rating 2 stars
The main purpose of this website and app is to assess how safely people drive in order to help them save money on car insurance.
We couldn’t access the fuel finder on the website, but could use it on the app, once we’d signed up for an account.
This was a fairly lengthy process involving responding to a lot of questions and prompts regarding your car and driving habits, and allowing the app to track you – so this isn’t a site to go to if you just want quick access to fuel prices.
When you do get to the fuel finder area on the app, it provides a map with icons for each site. Each icon shows an accurate location for the station and the price in a coloured band ranging from green to red; green indicates the cheapest fuel and red the priciest. Clicking on a site gives the option of navigation directions for it.
6. FuelSpy
Website only, free to use
What Car? rating 2 stars
This website-based service can be accessed without signing up for an account. It provides information on a map that is clear and easy to use. There are options to filter the results by fuel type and brand using a drop-down menu, and the map icons show the relevant brand logo and price. They’re colour-coded, so it’s easy to see at a glance which is the cheapest, and when you click on an icon and choose more details, you get an option to see how much a full tank of fuel will cost at the site.
However, not all of the stations are placed accurately on the map and, most concerningly, some of the locations flagged as the cheapest were showing incorrect, out-of-date prices. This means users could end up driving to a location they think is the cheapest and end up paying more than expected for fuel.
7. MotorMouthUK
App only, free to use
What Car? rating 2 stars
Using this app is simple: just download it and pick the fuel type you want, and the results appear on a map. However, the map icons only show the price per litre. They’re not colour-coded, they contain no brand information and the map showed very few street names (for the area in Kent we checked), making it hard to tell exactly where stations were.
It’s easy to zoom in on the map, and the results change as you do this, but the quality of the information remained poor in our test. There is a filter at the top of the page to pick the brands you want to view, and when you click on a price on the map, you get rudimentary information at the bottom of the screen for some, but not all, locations; this is mainly just the brand and area, though, with no address or other information.
What Car? verdict
We found a surprising difference between the usability and quality of information in the seven apps we assessed. While we found some problems with pricing data accuracy at the time of our test, this should be less of a concern now that the CMA is scrutinising the reporting.
However, some of the poorer providers had low-quality maps with little information, and they didn’t place fuel stations accurately, making them difficult to use.
It’s also a shame that Fuel Finder UK – the first site to be recommended by the Government – is the only one to charge a fee for all but the most basic information.
The best sites provide accurate price and location information, along with other useful information.
It’s worth noting that we tested only the recommended sites; others are available if you prefer.
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