Tuesday 31 March 2026
Best petrol price tools in Australia (2026): FuelRadar, PetrolSpy, FuelCheck and more compared
There are half a dozen tools Australians use to track and predict petrol prices. Here's an honest comparison of what each does well, what it misses, and when to use which.
The landscape
Australian motorists have more options than ever for tracking petrol prices — but most tools do very different things. Some show you today's cheapest station. Some predict where the price cycle is headed. Some are government-run and mandatory for stations to participate in. Understanding what each tool actually does helps you use the right one at the right moment.
FuelRadar — best for cycle tracking
FuelRadar (fuelradar.com.au) is the most active commercial competitor in the space. It tracks city price cycles and publishes a daily market report. Its strength is breadth — national coverage, an active blog, and a well-known app. The gap is that its forecasting is cycle-only: it predicts when the next trough is due based on historical patterns, but doesn't incorporate live oil market signals. When global events (crude oil spikes, AUD movements) push the floor price higher, cycle-only tools don't capture that until the data has already moved.
PetrolSpy — best for live price lookup
PetrolSpy (petrolspy.com.au) is the most widely used price-lookup tool in Australia. It shows current prices at stations near you, with good coverage and a clean interface. It does not forecast — it tells you what prices are right now, not where they're heading. For finding the cheapest station on your current commute, it's hard to beat. For planning whether to fill up today or wait a week, it doesn't help.
FuelCheck and FuelWatch — best for raw accuracy
The government-run tools — NSW FuelCheck (fuelcheck.nsw.gov.au) and WA FuelWatch (fuelwatch.wa.gov.au) — are the primary sources of truth for price data. Stations are legally required to report to them. FuelWatch is uniquely useful in WA because it shows tomorrow's prices today (stations lock in prices 24 hours in advance). Both tools are data-only: no forecasting, no cycle analysis, no macro signals. They're the foundation that other tools build on.
MotorMouth — strong app, weak web presence
MotorMouth (motormouth.com.au) has a solid mobile app with good coverage and a loyal user base. Its weakness is that the site is a JavaScript single-page application, which means it has almost no web SEO presence — you can't find MotorMouth prices via Google. If you're already using the app, it's useful. If you're searching for price information via a browser, it effectively doesn't exist.
PetrolPulse — best for forward-looking forecasting
PetrolPulse (petrolpulse.com.au) is designed around a specific question: should I fill up now or wait? It combines city price cycle data with live oil market signals — Singapore MOGAS spot prices and the AUD/USD exchange rate — to forecast whether prices are heading up or down over the next 1–4 weeks. This macro layer means PetrolPulse can flag unusual price movements caused by global events, not just routine weekly cycles. It also now includes a national fuel shortage tracker showing which stations are currently out of diesel or unleaded, updated every 30 minutes from government feeds. Free, no account required.
Which tool to use when
Use FuelCheck or FuelWatch for the raw price at your local station. Use PetrolSpy or FuelRadar if you want an app with good national coverage. Use PetrolPulse if you want to know whether to fill up today or wait — and to understand whether the next price move is driven by the local cycle or something happening in global oil markets. The tools are complementary, not competing: knowing today's cheapest price and knowing whether prices are about to rise are different questions.
Check your city's current forecast to see whether now is the right time to fill up.