Calculate fuel costs for your next job with our free calculator.
Unless you have been living under a rock lately, you know the story.
Fuel prices in Australia have jumped hard as the conflict in the Middle East has disrupted global oil flows. About 20% of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz, and economists have warned Aussie petrol prices could continue to rise as the conflict drags on. Australia also imports around 90% of its petroleum needs, which makes local businesses pretty exposed when global supply gets shaky.
For tradies, that is not just a servo problem. It hits the whole job.
Higher fuel costs can flow into:
- Travel to and from site
- Machine and vehicle running costs
- Supplier freight and delivery charges
- Subcontractor pricing
- Materials that get more expensive once transport costs move
So if you’re still quoting jobs off rough numbers or last month’s assumptions, this is exactly the kind of moment where margin starts quietly disappearing.
The problem is not just the fuel bill
A lot of tradies look at fuel and think, “Yeah, it’s annoying, but we’ll wear it.”
That works for about five minutes.
The real issue is that fuel spikes tend to ripple through everything else. Road freight operators have already been warning that rising diesel prices get passed on through invoices, and broader commentary in Australia has linked the current fuel shock to wider inflation and small business pressure.
That means a job you quoted a week or two ago might already be tighter than you thought.
And if the job runs over, needs extra trips, or burns more machine hours than expected, you can end up doing plenty of work for not much reward.
What tradies should be doing right now
This is not about panic. It’s about tightening things up.
Here’s what’s worth looking at.
1) Start factoring fuel into your quotes properly
Fuel is easy to overlook because it gets buried inside the bigger picture.
But once prices move enough, it stops being a background cost and starts becoming something you need to account for properly, especially on:
- Longer jobs
- Remote jobs
- Jobs with multiple site visits
- Work that relies on utes, trucks, trailers, diggers, loaders, or pumps
- Jobs with a lot of supplier runs or dump runs
If you do not price fuel properly, you’re basically donating margin.
2) Look at the real travel pattern of the job
It’s not just “how far is the site?”
It’s:
- How many days you’ll be there
- How many trips happen each day
- What vehicle or machine is being used
- Whether it’s diesel or petrol
- How fuel efficient that setup actually is
That’s why we built a tool for it.
Introducing the NextMinute Fuel Calculator
We’ve built a free fuel calculator to help tradies estimate fuel costs on jobs more accurately.
Instead of guessing, the calculator helps you estimate fuel costs based on:
- Job duration
- Number of days on site
- Travel distance
- Trips per day
- Fuel type
- Current fuel price
- The vehicles you’re using
- Manufacturer fuel efficiency specs
So rather than throwing in a rough allowance and hoping for the best, you can build a more realistic number into the quote from the start.
3) Review older quote templates and assumptions
This is a good time to check:
- Delivery allowances
- Cartage
- Machine rates
- Travel assumptions
- Supplier freight
- Call-out or mobilisation costs
If your quote templates were built before fuel jumped, there’s a good chance some of those numbers are now light.
4) Plan jobs tighter so you burn less fuel in the first place
The other side of this is not just quoting better. It’s running jobs tighter.
When fuel is expensive, messy scheduling hurts more.
Extra trips, missed materials, poor sequencing, last-minute changes, and crews turning up without the right info all chew through time and fuel.
That’s where tighter planning starts to matter a lot more.
5) Track actuals vs estimates while the job is running
This is the big one.
Even with a better quote, you still want to know:
- Are we on track?
- Are travel and machine costs blowing out?
- Did we underestimate this stage?
- Are supplier or freight costs landing higher than expected?
If you only review numbers once the job is finished, it’s too late.
How NextMinute helps tradies stay tighter when costs are rising
The new fuel calculator is a great first step, but it works even better as part of a tighter system.
NextMinute helps tradies:
- Quote more accurately
- Plan and schedule jobs properly
- Capture time, costs, photos and notes against the job
- Manage variations
- Track actuals vs estimates by job and job stage
- Get clearer financial reporting
- Sync with Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks to cut double handling
That matters even more in times like this, because when costs are moving, rough admin and messy numbers get exposed fast.
Better quoting
Use clearer assumptions and stronger cost inputs from the start, including fuel, labour, materials, and supplier costs.
Better planning and scheduling
Cut down unnecessary travel, poor sequencing, and wasted trips by keeping the crew and the office on the same page.
Better cost tracking
With actuals vs estimates reporting, you can see how the job is tracking while it’s still live, not after the profit’s already gone.
Better financial visibility
Clear reporting helps you work out where the margin moved, whether it was labour, materials, machine use, supplier charges, or a stage that blew out.
The goal is not perfection. It’s control.
Nobody can control global oil markets from the ute.
But you can control how tightly you quote, plan, and track your jobs.
And right now, that matters.
If fuel is starting to bite, use the new NextMinute Fuel Calculator to get a more realistic handle on job costs before you send the quote.
Then, if you want to go a step further, NextMinute can help you keep the whole job under control from quote to final invoice, with less admin and better visibility on where the money’s going.
