How fuel cards make (and cost) money, and how we compare them

A business fuel card lets drivers pay for fuel on one company account instead of personal cards and receipts. Cards differ much more on fees and where they're accepted than their headline discount suggests.

The main types

• Branded cards (e.g. a single oil company): usually low or no card fees and a per-litre/gallon discount, but only at that brand's sites.
• Universal / multi-network cards (Visa, Mastercard or a multi-brand network): accepted almost everywhere, but often with per-card fees, network fees at "out-of-network" sites, or smaller rebates.
• Truck-stop network cards: deep diesel discounts at participating truck stops; best for trucking routes.
• Bunkered / fixed-price cards (common in the UK): you pay a weekly fixed price or a pence-per-litre management charge rather than the pump price.
• Prepaid cards: you load funds first, so there's no credit line and approval is usually easier.

Fees to look for

• Card fee: per card, monthly or yearly. Multiply by your number of vehicles.
• Account or plan fee: a flat monthly charge regardless of cards.
• Transaction / network fees: per swipe, per litre, or a percentage at non-partner sites.
• Low-spend or inactive fees: charged if you use the card too little.
• Late fees and interest: often the largest cost if a payment slips; rebates are usually forfeited too.
• Admin fees: paper invoices, replacement cards, copy receipts.

Discounts and rebates

"Up to" discounts are the maximum, usually reached only at certain sites or above a monthly volume. A rebate is credited after you pay on time; a discount comes off at the pump. Introductory rates (e.g. "9c per litre for 12 months") revert to a lower standard rate. We show both where published.

Where a card works

Each card page has an "Accepted at" box. It quotes the issuer's own claimed site count word for word, links the page it came from with the date we checked it, and separates where the card is accepted from where its discount applies (they often differ: a universal card may work at 95% of stations but only discount at a partner network). We link to the issuer's own station locator rather than copying it, and we don't draw our own maps.

South Africa: regulated petrol, diesel-only discounts

South Africa sets the retail petrol price by regulation and adjusts it on the first Wednesday of each month. Under the Petroleum Products Act regulations a retailer must sell at the prescribed petrol price and "may not give or offer any benefit to any consumer as a condition or as a result of any sale of petroleum products". The retail diesel price is not regulated; only a wholesale list price is published.

• No petrol discounts at the pump. For petrol vehicles, compare SA cards on fees, controls, toll/e-tag handling, credit terms and reporting.
• Discounts are diesel-only. Published SA savings (for example bp FleetMove's diesel reward or the diesel averages Standard Bank quotes) apply to diesel.
• Per-fuel-transaction fees are common (for example R8.30 on Standard Bank's Garage Card, R6.46 on FNB Auto Advance), so we list them separately.
• Many SA fleet products are priced individually. Where the issuer doesn't publish a fee we show Not published; values we could only partly confirm are labelled Unverified.

Sources: DMPR: Fuel Price Structure · Petroleum Products Act regulations, reg. 3.

Our method

• We record only figures we can read on the issuer's own website or published fee schedule, and link each source with the date checked.
• Anything we can't find is shown as Not published. We never estimate it. Values we could only partly confirm (a dated page or an old promotion) are labelled Unverified with the reason.
• Each source page is re-checked weekly by an automated script; changes are logged and reviewed by a person before the comparison table is updated.
• The calculator ranks only by published recurring fees and your filters. It doesn't predict savings, because discounts depend on where you fuel.

Independence & affiliate disclosure

Fuel Card Index is independent and not owned by any fuel retailer or card issuer. Some issuers run referral or partner programmes that pay a fee when a business is approved. If we use such links, they will be clearly labelled, they will not change the order of any table or calculator result, and cards without a programme are listed on exactly the same terms. Nothing here is financial advice.

Spot an error?

Fees change often. If a figure is out of date, the issuer's own page is the final word, and we'll correct ours at the next check.