Help & answers
Fuelcast tells you whether to fill up now or wait. Here's how it decides, and what to do when it doesn't behave as you'd expect.
Telling us the area shown in the app and the day helps us look it up. There's also a "Got it wrong?" link on the main screen that fills those details in for you.
Fuelcast is completely free. No subscription, no ads, nothing to unlock, and no data sold about you. There is no paid tier and nothing is being held back.
Common questions
Why does it sometimes refuse to give a verdict?
Because guessing would make the other weeks less believable. Fuelcast stays quiet in two situations: when the forecast isn't confident enough to trust, and when the expected move is under about 3¢ a gallon — too small to change your plans over, and smaller than the difference between two stations on the same road. It says "No clear signal" or "No real difference" rather than inventing advice.
Why does it show a region instead of my town?
Prices come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which surveys fuel prices nationally, for five large regions, for nine states, and for ten metro areas. If your state or city isn't among them, you'll see the wider regional figure — and the app says so on screen rather than implying it knows your street.
This matters less than it looks for the call: prices across a region move in the same direction about nine times out of ten, because they're driven by the same wholesale market. What doesn't travel well is the price level — which is why you can correct it.
The price shown doesn't match my gas station.
Expected, and fixable. Tap "Prices off? Tell us what you paid" on the main screen and enter what you actually paid. After two entries, Fuelcast learns how far your usual station sits from the published average and adjusts the prices it shows you. The forecast direction stays regional, because that's the part wide data does well.
Prices you enter stay on your phone. Two are needed because one fill can't tell a genuinely dearer station from an unlucky day.
Why is today's price called an estimate?
Pump prices are officially surveyed once a week, on Mondays. Today's figure is our estimate carried forward from that survey using this week's wholesale market moves. The app always shows the date of the last real measurement underneath.
Why didn't I get an alert?
Alerts are deliberately rare. Fuelcast only notifies you about prices rising, only at high confidence, only for moves of at least 3¢ a gallon, at most once every three days, and never at night. Falling prices drift down slowly, so there's no moment to catch.
Alerts are also worked out on your phone rather than pushed from a server, so iOS decides when the app may check in the background. Opening the app always checks immediately.
Does Fuelcast know where I am?
No. It never asks for location access. It uses the ZIP code you type, only to pick which published price series to read. See the privacy policy.
How accurate is it?
Measured out-of-sample against decades of historical data, forecasts at the confidence levels Fuelcast is willing to act on have been right around 90% of the time. The app also shows how its own recent calls actually turned out, scored against the official weekly survey — including the ones it got wrong.
Requirements
- iPhone running iOS 17 or later.
- United States only — the price data Fuelcast uses covers the U.S.
- An internet connection to fetch a fresh forecast. The last one is kept for offline viewing and clearly marked as such.