Cheap fuel: where to find the best prices?

The price difference between the cheapest and most expensive gas station in the Netherlands can exceed forty cents per liter. For a forty-liter fill-up, that amounts to sixteen euros per visit. There are savings to be made—and there are now about ten Dutch websites and apps that promise to help you do just that.

At Tankslim we’ve compared them side-by-side. Below, we look at what they do well, where they fall short, and how Tankslim does things differently.

The competition: an honest look

ANWB Routeplanner — the most comprehensive of the bunch. You plan a route and enable a gas station layer on the map. It works well, is comprehensive, and the map is user-friendly. However, it remains a route planner with a fuel option, rather than a tool built specifically for comparing prices.

Tankje.nl — fast, simple, and comprehensive. No-nonsense; you see exactly what you’re looking for right away. For many people, this is just right.

Pompwijzer — strong content, featuring statistics and regional pages. However, there are quite a few ads interspersed, meaning the figures you came for sometimes have to compete with the surrounding banners.

Independer — neatly designed and pleasant to use, but light on information. You see prices, and that’s about it.

Brandstof-zoeker.nl — one of the first in the Netherlands and still active, which speaks volumes about the demand. The design belongs to a bygone era, and advertisements are prominently displayed.

DirectLease Tankservice — the data is accurate, but the presentation feels like a website from the early days of the internet.

Grid — here, you land on a marketing page rather than a price list, and the coverage of gas stations is incomplete.

None of these providers are doing anything wrong. They simply address a slightly different need than Tankslim does.

What Tankslim does differently

Tankslim factors in the detour

Almost every comparison tool shows which station is the cheapest. What hardly anyone mentions is the cost of getting there.

A station that is ten cents per liter cheaper but requires a four-kilometer detour yields a saving of four euros on a forty-liter fill-up—minus the fuel for that eight-kilometer round trip. At current prices, you are left with less than three euros in savings.

Tankslim calculates that detour based on actual driving routes, not "as the crow flies." A station just three hundred meters away on the other side of a canal might actually require a four-kilometer drive; that difference is reflected in the figure.

On the go, not just nearby

You usually don't refuel at home; you refuel while on the road. That’s why you can enter a route and see which stations lie along it, including the cost of the detour in kilometers and minutes for each station.

No ads obscuring the prices

You’re here for a number. That number appears at the top, not beneath a banner.

Regional figures

National averages make for interesting reading, but you refuel in a specific region. Tankslim is working on figures broken down by province and municipality: what is the average price here, which day is cheapest, and how big is the price difference in your local area? Check out the prices in your region.

The practical payoff

If you fill up with forty liters a week and consistently choose a station that is ten cents below the average, you save over two hundred euros a year. No detours, no extra effort—simply by knowing where you stop.

That is the whole idea. Not predicting oil prices or changing your driving style, but making one smart choice at the moment you’re going to fill up anyway.