Fuel 
The best fuel price app in Australia is the one that actually covers your state with live, government-sourced prices and doesn't make you pay or wade through ads to see them. For nationwide coverage on that test, that's the Fuel Daddy live map — free, no ads, no sign-up, with live prices at 8,300+ stations across every mainland state and Tasmania. But "best" genuinely depends on where you live and what you want, so below is a fair look at all the main options, including where the others beat us.
If you only ever fill up in one city, a state government app or a single-brand loyalty app might do everything you need. If you drive between states, or you just want one app that works everywhere without the clutter, a national comparison app makes more sense. Let's go through them properly.
What actually makes a fuel app worth using
Before comparing names, it helps to know what separates a useful app from a frustrating one. Four things matter:
- Coverage — does it show prices where you actually drive? An app that's brilliant in Sydney is useless on a Brisbane school run.
- Data source and freshness — the best data comes from the state government FuelCheck and FuelWatch schemes, where stations are legally required to report their prices. Crowd-sourced prices can lag or be wrong.
- Cost and ads — some apps are free but heavy on advertising or push notifications; others charge a subscription.
- Standout features — price-lock, route planning, loyalty integration, charger maps. One killer feature can make an app worth keeping even if it's not the best all-rounder.
It's also worth understanding why the numbers move so much in the first place. Prices in most capital cities follow a sawtooth pattern, so a good app is only half the battle — knowing the best time to buy fuel and how fuel prices are set turns a price list into real savings.
The main fuel price apps compared
Here's how the most widely used options stack up across Australia. We've kept it to the four things above so you can compare like for like.
| App | Coverage | Data source | Cost / ads | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel Daddy | National — QLD, NSW/ACT, VIC, WA, NT, TAS (8,300+ stations) | Live government data (FuelCheck, FuelWatch and state feeds) | Free, no ads, no sign-up | One app for the whole country, plus EV charger map |
| MotorMouth | National, strongest in eastern states | Mix of official feeds and reported prices | Free with ads | Long-running brand with price-cycle forecasts |
| PetrolPulse | National, with outage tracking | Government and reported data | Free with ads | Highlights stations that are out of fuel |
| 7-Eleven Fuel | 7-Eleven sites only (eastern states + WA) | 7-Eleven's own prices | Free, single brand | Price-lock — freeze a price for 7 days |
| FuelMap | National, community-driven | Largely crowd-sourced | Free with ads | Covers small towns the official feeds sometimes miss |
| Govt apps (FuelCheck NSW, FuelWatch WA) | Single state only | Official, legally reported | Free, no ads | Authoritative data straight from the source |
Fuel Daddy: the national all-rounder
We'll be upfront that this is our app, so judge it on the test we set at the top. Fuel Daddy pulls live prices straight from the state government schemes and shows them on one map covering Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. There are no ads and no account required — open the map and the cheapest stations near you are there.
Beyond the live map, there are 14-day price-trend charts so you can see where a city sits in its cycle, a live outage tracker, and trip and savings calculators. If you want to browse by area rather than your current location, the state directories cover Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia down to the suburb. Where we're weaker: in very small country towns the official feeds occasionally have gaps that a community app fills.
MotorMouth and PetrolPulse
MotorMouth has been around a long time and is well known on the east coast. It blends official feeds with reported prices and offers cycle forecasting, which is genuinely handy in cities with a clear price cycle. The trade-off is advertising, which clutters the experience for some users.
PetrolPulse covers the country and makes a point of flagging stations that have run dry — useful during supply disruptions. It's also ad-supported. Both are solid free options; whether they beat a no-ads app comes down to how much the advertising bothers you and whether their coverage is strong where you drive.
7-Eleven Fuel: the price-lock standout
The 7-Eleven app only shows 7-Eleven sites, so it's not a comparison tool. But it has one feature nothing else offers: price-lock. You can lock in the lowest nearby 7-Eleven price and hold it for up to seven days, then redeem it whenever you fill up — even if the pump price has since climbed. During the rising side of a price cycle, that's a legitimately powerful trick. We've written a full 7-Eleven Fuel Lock explainer on exactly how to use it, because the timing is what makes or breaks the saving.
The smart play is to run a comparison app to find the genuinely cheapest fuel, and keep the 7-Eleven app as a second tool to lock a low price before the cycle turns. The same logic applies to fuel loyalty programs — the discount dockets and rewards schemes are worth stacking on top of a cheap base price, not chasing on their own.
FuelMap and the community apps
FuelMap leans on its user community to report prices. That's both its strength and its weakness: it can surface a price in a tiny town that no official feed lists, but a reported price can also be stale or simply wrong. For most city and suburban driving, a government-sourced app will be more reliable. For remote travel, a community app is a useful backup to cross-check.
State government apps: FuelCheck and FuelWatch
If you never leave one state, the official government app is hard to fault on data quality. NSW runs FuelCheck, where stations must report prices by law, and WA runs FuelWatch, which works a little differently — prices are submitted the day before and locked in for 24 hours. That WA system is worth understanding on its own; our FuelWatch explainer walks through how the 24-hour rule changes your strategy. The downside of the government apps is obvious: each only covers its own state, so cross-border drivers end up juggling multiple apps.
This is exactly the gap a national app fills. Fuel Daddy uses the same authoritative FuelCheck and FuelWatch data the official apps do, then adds Queensland, Victoria, the Territory and Tasmania alongside it in one place.
So which fuel app should you actually use?
Match the app to how you drive. If you fill up across state lines or just want one clean, ad-free tool everywhere, a national comparison app is the answer. If you're loyal to one chain, the brand app plus its price-lock is worth keeping as a sidekick. If you only ever drive in one state and want raw official data, the government app does the job for free.
Whatever you choose, the bigger savings come from timing and habits, not the app icon. Buy near the bottom of the cycle, don't pay for premium your car doesn't need (our guide to premium versus regular petrol covers that), and use the small wins consistently. For a full rundown of the levers, our guide on how to save money on fuel pulls it all together — and the live map shows you tonight's cheapest station in seconds.
