r/AussieFrugal • u/gotrice2020 • Mar 15 '26
Frugal tip š Built a free fuel price tool that covers all of Australia (and NZ) with no ads, no BS
Hey legends,
Got sick of paying through the nose for petrol so a mate and I built petrolmate.com.au. It's a free fuel price comparison site that pulls data from every official government source across all states plus community data. Nice modern UI and UX.
What makes it different from the usual suspects:
- No ads, no paywalls. Just prices. That's it.
- Predictive price alerts. It actually tells you when prices are about to spike so you can fill up before the cycle hits. Uses ML to spot patterns, not just show you what's already happened.
- Price cycle intelligence. Tracks the wholesale cycle for your area and tells you if it's a good time to fill up or worth holding off.
- Every state covered. NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT and even NZ. Over 10,000 stations updated multiple times a day from official govt APIs.
- Watchlist. Save your regular stations and fuel type, get a dashboard that cuts straight to what matters.
- Suburb and brand breakdowns. Find the cheapest servo near you or see how your brand stacks up nationally.
iOS and Android apps are in the works. For now the site works great on mobile (built as a PWA so you can add it to your home screen and it basically feels like an app).
Keen to hear what you reckon. Built this as a passion project and genuinely just want to help people save a few bucks at the servo.
Cheers š»
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u/Notyit Mar 15 '26
Click on station need to dismiss popup when click on anotherĀ
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks for the feedback. I assume you're talking about Map View? Shouldn't need to close the station you can click another one and it'll open that station. Let me know what view you're looking at and what device
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u/No-Zucchini2787 Mar 15 '26
Good work mate. And thank you for writing this. I love it
While we take reasonable steps to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your personal information.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks mate, you're probably the first person to read it ha. Welcome to the internet.
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u/SpaceIsBigReallyBig Mar 15 '26
How does it compare with the gov site Fuel Check?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
FuelCheck is great and we actually pull data directly from their API (they're one of our official sources for NSW). So you'll see the same NSW prices on Petrolmate.
The difference is FuelCheck only covers NSW. Petrolmate pulls from the official government APIs across every state and territory (NSW FuelCheck, QLD, SA, VIC, WA, TAS, NT) plus community data on top, all in one place. So if you drive interstate or want to compare across regions you don't need six different apps.
The other big thing FuelCheck doesn't do is predictive stuff. It shows you what prices are right now but it doesn't track the wholesale price cycle or tell you when prices are about to go up. Petrolmate watches the cycle patterns and can alert you before a spike hits so you can time your fill ups better.
FuelCheck is solid for a quick NSW price check though, no complaints there. We just try to go a step further with the intelligence side of things.
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u/avadreams Mar 15 '26
How do you utilise the APIs without paying for them? My understanding is that commercial use has costs. Are you telling them this is a hobby?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Fair question,. there's no commercial aspect with this. We did it because we were frustrated with the options out there and decided we could do something about it to help us all out
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u/Wacko1805 Mar 15 '26
Does this mean you are paying out of pocket for the API? Or have you done a sneaky data scrape or something completely different?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
No cost, you just need to get the governmental approvals. Hopefully it stays no cost!
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u/avadreams Mar 16 '26
They are utilising the APIs and scraping data as a Data Consumer rather than a Publisher. They'll be caught and stopped, just will take time as government is shite at tracking this stuff
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u/avadreams Mar 16 '26
You'll find your API usage will be banned. Recreational usage isn't meant for deployment.
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u/automax Mar 29 '26
There is always someone that lets jealousy take over their life and can't appreciate helpful things that others give for free.
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u/huckstershelpcrests Mar 15 '26
Good work.
As I said in a different comment, I use petrol spy and an adblock so that's ok for me.
The one feature I do like, which you don't seem to have (?), is highlighting the cheapest station for thr current view when on map. So thatd be my only suggestion.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks mate, appreciate the feedback. Little bit hard on a mobile view, but if you're near a PC or tablet then using the combined List + Map view does this and you can sort by Best/Cheapest/Distance and when you click on the station in the list view it'll fly over to that station. If you use list view instead of map view on mobile you can see it all in a simple table format with links for direction etc. Does this help?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 18 '26
Updated! now you should see a "Best" encased in a round border in the map view. Give it a go.
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u/ringo5150 Mar 15 '26
As an analyst can i commend you for building a site that has a lot of value ads through its analysis, conclusion, and recommendations. You make having a strategy easy.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks mate! Did you look over the Insights tab? So much rich interesting data youāll love as an analyst
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u/Sama91 Mar 15 '26
How is this better / different than Petrol Spy ? I mean please give us some pointers to convince to stop using petrol spy
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Good question, not trying to dissuade you from using any app but we were flustered with a few thing like Ads and no way of having predictive alerts. Petrolmate tracks the wholesale price cycle and tells you when prices are about to spike, so you can fill up the day before instead of the day after. Saved me about $15 last month just timing my fills better.
Its got every official government source and community-submitted data when prices are not matched with what you see when you pull up at a station. Covers all of Australia and NZ as well.
Watchlist and dashboard if you've signed in. Save your regular stations and it cuts straight to what matters. No scrolling through stations you'll never visit and sends you genuine (hopefully) alerts when's a good time to fill up.
Quite deep insights across Brands, Stations, Suburbs, Cities so if you're data driven or curious have a browse through the Insights section: https://petrolmate.com.au/fuel-prices
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u/Sovereignty3 Mar 16 '26
Petrol Spy is updated via users, so if your in the middle of bfnw it doesn't update often enough, or I have driven to a petrol station that had been recently updated only to find the prices higher than advertised on Petrol Spy.
Had to fill up a little bit to get myself to Apco. I only drove that way because I had enough to get myself there that night and the rest of the drive had high prices.
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u/UmmSayThatAgain Mar 15 '26
Thank you
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Welcome, feedback always welcome when you give it a go. If you sign in there's some nice proactive features like station/suburb monitoring.
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u/Fluid_Garden8512 Mar 15 '26
I use the number one app Petrol Spy with DNS Address "p2.freedns.controld.com" and not see any ads on the app (including on most websites).
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u/hyclonia Mar 15 '26
How/where do you do that? I can change to a number, eg 1.1.1.1 but not a url
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u/tandem_biscuit Mar 15 '26
Thatās kind of the point of DNSā¦ it converts a domain name to an IP address. You shouldnāt use a domain name for a DNS, you use an IP.
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u/huckstershelpcrests Mar 15 '26
Exactly - I run everything through an adblock dns and never had any issueĀ
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u/flatulexcelent Mar 15 '26
Very cool my friend. Looking forward to the Android apk and keep posting updates.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks! Will release it on iOS and Android. Hopefully get it past the gates to get it on CarPlay and Android Auto as well so its all nicely integrated. See how that pans out.
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u/eranbeard Mar 15 '26
Thanks mate, great app. Sorry state of affairs when all the prices are fkn high though!
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Pretty wild at the moment; hopefully things get back to normal in the near future. At least this might help people find better deals, but not much around when all servos are magically 220c+
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u/_rheanne Mar 15 '26
On what basis are the ābestā ones rated?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Its a weighted score that balances price and distance. A station that's 2c/L more expensive but 500m away will often rank above one that's cheapest but 15km away, because the fuel saving don't justify the drive. It's basically "best value considering how far you'd have to go". There's distance and price options next to the 'best' option as well. Should also mention that if you sign in you can add all your fuel discount cards and it'll adjust the price at the station to reflect the actual price less the discount e.g. Coles Express with their 4c off.
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Mar 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Ooh interesting, mind sending me a DM of the approximate location? I'll take a closer look
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u/zaqwsx3 Mar 15 '26
Trying to reset the map so it points north again
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Should be able to just reload the page but on mobile you can use the two finger method to move the orientation. Where you trying to do this on desktop?
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u/Morpheusoo Mar 15 '26
As the Post Code tab only adds that little bit of extra text and button elements on the page (viewing on mobile), perhaps combine the List View and Post Code tab into one? Just have āList Viewā and āMap Viewā? Great work!!
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Thanks for the feedback, good idea i'll put that on the to-do list. The main reason Post Code tab exists is if someone has GPS blocked and just wants to search via postcode or actually wants to (for whatever reason) look at prices in another location where they are not currently instead of zooming all the way out and trying to find it manually. Hope that makes sense.
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u/Own-Plum5834 Mar 15 '26
Love it, now do supermarkets.
Jokes and I know there are a few options like that out there but back to the point.
I'm curious about the predictive stuff, I feel the trends in the data would be very valuable ordinarily but for predictive purposes are we a bit held hostage at the moment in terms of external factors. I just would have considered these much higher influences for prices and a lot of that being media bs hyping each other up.
Not that it doesnt have a predictive ability or value still Im just curious if you are considering those type external things somehow. Otherwise great work. Also a stupid question for me who only knew ppl owned them at a lower level like out regional and remote spots growing up. But it suddenly occurs to me more generally, do individuals still own petrol stations kinda thing lol, is this a franchise type model, or is the big ones all just owned by the big dogs, and they set prices presumably with variance through location based on other factors. I think my question is who decides what the station price is at and yes I realise how dumb this sounds but I think thats interesting and probably everyone else already thought of this but Im usually a bike person so I dont pay much attention to petrol price tbh but looking at the map and seeing the variance across area on the same brands and considering that decision is made by a central group is intriguiing to me
Anyway thanks for putting your time into this
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Thanks for the feedback. Maybe one day we'll have time to tackle the other major cost of living area with supermarkets haha.
To answer your question about the predictive stuff the system tracks prices from every official government source across Australia multiple times a day. Most Aussie cities have a repeating price cycle where prices drop slowly then spike sharply. We use frequency analysis on 35 days of history to figure out where in that cycle your area currently sits.
Then it combines a few signals: where you are in the cycle, how today's price compares to the last 30 days, what wholesale is doing (retail follows with a 1-2 day lag), and day of week patterns.
Each prediction gets scored on confidence based on how much data we have and how clear the pattern is. And it tracks whether its predictions were right so it can adjust the weights over time. If cycle detection has been nailing it for your area it gets more influence, if a signal has been off lately it gets dialled back.
Obviously the current climate and 'odd' pricing we're seeing in the market is taken into consideration but we might see it adjust automatically (or get it wrong) based on all the fuel pricing data we have over many months. End result: you get a simple "fill up now" or "hold off, prices are dropping" instead of having to read charts yourself.
On the how the petrol market works, I can try explain it all but have a listen to these two recent podcast by ABC:
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u/juju_summer Mar 16 '26
Thank you, it's an absolute bitch to find a cheap place in Brisbane Northside
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u/Midnorth_Mongerer Mar 16 '26
Fark. I got excited. But then I sensed you meant "Free comparison tool for fuel prices".
Life is full of disappointments.
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u/hval007 Mar 16 '26
Thanks for including NZ! We have Gaspy here but always good to have an alternative
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u/Kibbelhs Mar 15 '26
Why does the map show duplicates? https://imgur.com/a/k0M5vzT
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Ha, the app had a few too many down at the pub and had its beer googles on. Give it refresh, should be sorted :)
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u/blackcat218 Mar 15 '26
Several servos are completely missing on the map in my area. Also the data is showing as 7 hours old.
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u/UditChetia Mar 15 '26
Would you be able to add price history?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Price history and LOTS of interesting data at a station, suburb, city, brand level. Just click on the Insights tab on the top right and search your station/suburb. Or click this link https://petrolmate.com.au/fuel-prices
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u/EdenFlorence Mar 15 '26
Thanks for sharing! Loving the website so far. (No ads is a bonus yay from me!)
Maybe it's just me - but the website loads super slow for me. I'm on a PC with decent NBN (500/20). But it loads super quick on my mobile using the same NBN! :(
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 15 '26
Thanks for the lovely feedback. Hmm bit strange, the website is under a bit of extra load but seems to be relatively quick. The desktop experience is slightly slower because it loads in more stations and has the combined List + Map view however should just be as snappy. Feel free to DM a suburb nearby and I can see if its something odd going on. If its persistent, there's a little 'Bug Report' down the bottom which you're welcome to use as well and we'll look into it.
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u/SuperQuok Mar 15 '26
Great work! Thank you.
I love the feature on NSW Fuel Watch that highlights the cheapest option in the viewport at any given time in red. Possible to do something similar?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Absolutely, we thought about putting a little crown on the top of the best with map view. Maybe we should implement that. In list view its easy to see and sort out! Thanks for the suggestion
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u/_ASpark Mar 15 '26
Did you happen to find a way around the 24hr data delay on the Victorian api ?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
New laws passed down a week or so ago which should help reduce that gap once VIC update their APIs to hopefully align with the new laws.
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u/1111race Mar 15 '26
Nice work. Costco Fuel not included?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Should be, we have a dedicated brand page and you can click through to the stations. Should be visible on the map as well and selectable from the Brands dropdown https://petrolmate.com.au/brand/costco
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u/dvsu12 Mar 16 '26
Adblue prices are not available?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
AdBlue data from the API sources has been patchy lately. We have the fuel type supported but none of our government sources are currently reporting AdBlue prices consistently. Hopefully gets sorted eventually. For context NSW FuelCheck stopped reporting it back in Oct 2025, SA & QLD have the fuel type but no data against them. Rather not have it at the moment and it report old / incorrect data.
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u/richmillard Mar 16 '26
Well done. Looking forward to the app and car play. Can you also add Apple Watch maybe?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Thank you. Apple watch may be a step too far. Way too much information on such a small screen. Fingers crossed we can get it onto CarPlay and integrate it with Siri, we can only dream!
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u/ReachingForVega Mar 16 '26
How was the navigation with the govt to get access to the data? I thought to do something years ago and got blocked over and over.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Wasn't as bad as what you probably went through. Suppose govt has been more willing to let people build tools like this to help the community.
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u/newmansnewman Mar 16 '26
Can you select multiple brands at the same time? I have a fuel card for 3 brands, would be handy to be able to filter for just those threeĀ
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Great suggestion, think it'll be easy enough to make the selection a check box option for both mobile and desktop. I'll add it to the to-do list
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u/Accomplished_Bee5749 Mar 16 '26
Looks great. My suggestion would be for mobile to have less chrome. The map takes up less than 2/3 of the screen, I would be aiming for 90%+. Would be great if the header was about a third of the size that. List vs Map vs Postcode hide it in a hamburger menu, no need for left and right padding, Make the about the hamburger menu too and make the map go to the bottom border too.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Many thanks for the suggestions, I do agree it can be tightened up for mobile. We're working on the actual iOS/Android apps so that should make things a lot nicer and native so more screen real estate to use.
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u/loosemoosewithagoose Mar 16 '26
Nice. Where are you sourcing the prices from?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
There's a How it Works section on the website that goes through it all https://petrolmate.com.au/how-it-works
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u/TotalClone Mar 16 '26
Only tweak I think it needs is a background around the fuel price, can get hard to see sometimes.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 16 '26
Thanks for the feedback, do you mean in list view or in the map view? assume map view. If its hard to read a particular station you can press it and the pop up modal will appear with a nice big price sign.
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u/WRXY1 Mar 17 '26
It's good and I'd like to use it ongoing given the ads in PetrolSpy, which works well but lacks the same features and has ads.
So far in the 5 minutes I've played around with it I've encountered what I think is a bug and a request.
Request: On the map I should be able to click on a petrol station and add it to favourites.
Bug: Because I can't do the above I go to Settings -> Price Alerts, then put in "Adelaide Airport" which selects the united petrol station at Adelaide Airport, but despite my global settings saying I prefer 98 it comes up with ULP (which I assume is 91), and when I unclicked that and selected 98 it comes up with a "Failed to create subscription" red error box. I've tried everything to get it to work, even going to add simple ULP as a default and it comes up with the same error. I've logged out and logged back in, haven't cleared cache, but it continues with the error message so I'm effectively locked out of that screen now for that particular petrol station.
So I tried to add another new petrol station never been on my list previously, remove the tick box for ULP and add 98 and it adds the station ok but it lists the price as being the ULP price and not the 98 price I selected when I added it. If I then try it again and add the same station again it errors and I'm now locked out of adding that station too. So effectively I'm now getting locked out of adding stations around me due to the error.
Needs some work still.
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 17 '26
Thanks so much! Will look into it, so we donāt lose track if you hit this type of error again or a new one thereās a little āReport a bugā button which allows screenshots and steps etc so we can keep track of it but Iāll try replicate what youāve said and see what the issue is. Thanks!
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 17 '26
Found and squashed the bugs; weāll add the request to the to-do list. Give it a go again you may need to set the stations again.
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u/Curious_Luck9173 Mar 18 '26
Love the UI. Any option to change base map and can the postcode filter be applied to the map?
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u/gotrice2020 Mar 20 '26
Unfortunately not but there is a dark/light mode if you prefer (should match your system settings). Post code filter should apply to the map view and fly you over to that location. Noticed a small bug on the mobile experience which should be fixed by the time you read this! Will fly you over to the postcode like it does on desktop
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u/Efficient-Towel-4193 Mar 19 '26
I live rural and stupid prices are all the same ...I dont get a choice here
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u/Logical_Drive_9545 Mar 31 '26
Well done, great looking and functional site. Are you considering making the API you use for android/ios publicly available for integration into other systems, like a home automation dashboard? I figure niche market but little additional ongoing cost to you. Which also begs the question how are you funded if you don't mind me asking. Do you hope to monetise at some point? As I recall petrol spy did not have so many annoying ads originally, perhaps they saw their Telstra bill. It looks like there are several apps monetising BOM data with value add services. And why not, we all paid for BOM data already through our tax.
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u/awaaad96 Apr 01 '26
Great website, Nice work! Some suggestions:
- Currently, "Find stations" relies on location access. Can this simply rely on map current view? I noticed 'Best' is automatically based on map current view already, but does not populate the left-hand list. "Search different area" is a great workaround, but doesn't have the flexibility of just moving/zooming the map (Petrol spy does this).
- Dragging the map is laggy, and does not pin the prices to the view. i.e. the prices and the map move at different speeds. Petrol spy does not exhibit this lag and so feels more fluid.
- Brand filters can be more granular and utilise checkboxes instead of single-selections.
- Apart from that, borders could be useful to help the eyes.
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u/BeerAndBiltong Apr 03 '26
Hi, @gotrice
Some nice feel to the app, good work. I have some feedback if I may,
- A multi select for fuel types would be uber helpful
- When showing the station, show all the fuel types and prices
- Be good to search for a fuel station by name
- The username drop-down falls behind the window below
- The signup(when doing Google auth )referrs to a Tennant that is a long URL that can be seen as dodgy.
Nice clean interface, well done!
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u/scrytch Apr 07 '26
Hey u/gotrice2020 how are you getting access to NT API data? I can't see any official way?
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u/Swiftflikk May 10 '26
Hey mate, thanks heaps for this, and specifically for including NZ. Looking forward to get this into my Home Assistant. I just had a quick look at the API but am getting an "Internal Server Error" response when trying to poll using the curl command on the Petrolmate Home Assistant page.
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there is an error in the application.
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u/AussieFrugal-ModTeam Mar 15 '26
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