Why I Stopped Chasing 'Best' and Started Asking Better Questions About Business Fuel Cards

Here's my position, and I'm not hedging: There is no 'best' fuel card for small business. The question itself is wrong. I've managed fleet expenses for a 45-person company since 2020—roughly $18,000 in annual fuel spend across 12 drivers—and the search for "best" cost us about $2,400 in the first year alone. Not in fees. In wasted time, mismatched features, and one spectacular invoicing disaster I'll get to in a minute.

If you're Googling "what is the best fuel card for small business," you're asking a question that vendors love and that will lead you nowhere useful. Let me explain why, and what to ask instead.

The Illusion of "Best"

From the outside, fuel cards look like commodities. Gas discount, maybe some reporting, done. The reality is that your card choice intersects with your accounting workflow, your driver behavior, your geographic footprint, and your AP department's patience level in ways that aren't obvious until you're three months in and everything's on fire.

It took me 3 years and about 150 expense reports to understand that the "best" card is entirely context-dependent. Our first card—picked because it had the highest discount per gallon—couldn't integrate with our expense system. Every month, I manually reconciled 80+ transactions against driver logs. That's roughly 4 hours of my time, at (conservatively) $35/hour loaded cost. The 5¢/gallon savings? About $75/month. We were losing money on our "best" deal.

What Actually Matters (In Order)

After cycling through three different programs, here's how I'd rank priorities for a small business—and I mean actually small, sub-50 employees, where the office admin is also the fleet manager is also the person explaining to Finance why the fuel receipts don't match.

1. Invoicing Compatibility

This sounds boring. It is boring. It's also non-negotiable.

In 2021, I found a regional card with great per-gallon pricing—about $800 cheaper annually than our incumbent. Ordered cards for 8 drivers. First statement arrived as a PDF with line items that didn't include odometer readings or driver IDs. Our expense policy requires both. Finance rejected the entire batch. I ate $340 out of the department budget that quarter because I couldn't produce compliant documentation. (Which, honestly, felt excessive—but policy is policy.)

Now I verify invoicing format before I even look at pricing. Does the statement show: individual driver? Vehicle ID? Odometer? Transaction location? Time stamp? If any of those are missing, it's a no from me, regardless of discount.

2. Network Coverage for YOUR Routes

The "accepted at 95% of stations" claim is technically true and practically useless. What matters is coverage on your actual routes.

We have drivers doing regular runs between our main office and three regional sites. One route goes through a 40-mile stretch with exactly two gas stations. When I compared our top two card options, one covered both stations, one covered neither. The card with "broader national coverage" was worthless for that route. I only caught this because I literally mapped our top 10 routes against each network's station locator (this was back in 2022, took about 2 hours, saved us from a significant problem).

3. Controls That Match Your Management Style

Some cards let you set per-transaction limits. Some let you restrict purchase categories. Some let you limit by time of day or day of week. Some do all of it.

Here's the thing: more controls aren't better. They're just more.

If you're a hands-off manager who trusts your drivers, extensive controls create friction without value. If you've had issues with personal purchases on company cards (not that we ever had that problem... okay, we had that problem once), category restrictions matter. If you ask me, the card features should match your actual management approach, not some theoretical ideal of oversight.

The Discount Math Most People Get Wrong

It's tempting to think you can just compare cents-per-gallon discounts. But identical "savings" from different programs can result in wildly different actual costs.

Quick example: Card A offers 6¢/gallon rebate, no monthly fee, requires payment within 14 days. Card B offers 4¢/gallon rebate, $15 monthly fee, net-30 terms.

For our volume (roughly 1,500 gallons/month), Card A "saves" $90/month in rebates. Card B "saves" $60 minus $15 fee = $45/month. Card A wins, right?

Except: our AP department runs checks on the 15th and 30th. Card A's 14-day terms meant we frequently missed windows and paid late fees. Three late payments at $35 each wiped out the annual difference. Plus, the 14-day crunch meant AP prioritized fuel card payments over other invoices, creating cascading scheduling issues.

I don't have hard data on industry-wide fee structures, but based on our 5 years of experience, payment terms cause more total-cost problems than rebate differentials for companies our size.

Addressing the Obvious Objection

"But there must be SOME cards that are generally better than others."

To be fair, yes. There are cards with predatory fee structures, cards with terrible customer service, cards with networks so limited they're unusable for most businesses. I'm not saying all cards are equivalent.

What I'm saying is that the gap between "generally acceptable" options is much smaller than the gap between "any card" and "the right card for your specific situation." The difference between WEX, Fuelman, and a major oil company card? Probably 10-15% in total cost for most small businesses. The difference between a card that fits your workflow and one that doesn't? Easily 30-40%, once you count administrative time.

Granted, this requires more upfront evaluation work. But it saves significant pain later.

What I'd Actually Recommend

Instead of searching for "best," do this:

Step 1: List your top 10 routes or coverage areas. Check actual station availability for any card you're considering. (Station locators are free; use them.)

Step 2: Get a sample invoice from each finalist. Show it to whoever processes expenses. Ask: "Can you work with this?" If they hesitate, that's your answer.

Step 3: Calculate total cost including fees, rebates, AND your administrative time at a realistic hourly rate. If you're spending 4 hours/month on reconciliation, that's real money.

Step 4: Check payment terms against your actual AP schedule. Mismatched terms create invisible costs.

This approach worked for us, but we're a mid-size B2B company with predictable routes and in-house accounting. If you're a seasonal business with variable drivers or you outsource bookkeeping, the calculus might be different.

The Uncomfortable Truth

After 5 years of managing these relationships, I've come to believe that fuel card selection is a symptom, not a solution. The companies obsessing over which card is "best" are usually the ones without clear expense policies, driver accountability, or AP workflows that can handle any card efficiently.

Fix those first. Then the card choice becomes much less consequential.

I'd rather spend 10 minutes explaining our requirements to a vendor than deal with 12 months of mismatched expectations. An informed admin asks better questions and gets better answers. That's the real competitive advantage—not the extra 2¢ per gallon you might squeeze out of a "better" deal.

(As of January 2025, most major fleet card programs offer rebates in the 3-6¢/gallon range for small business volumes. Verify current terms directly with providers, as pricing changes frequently.)