About OTW
OTW — “On The Way” — finds the cheapest place to refuel along a drive, not the cheapest place in town. It is built and run in Australia, by one person, and it is free to use.
The problem it solves
Every fuel app can tell you the cheapest price near you. That is the wrong question when you are driving somewhere. A station 3¢/L cheaper that sits 8 km off the highway costs you 16 km of fuel and fifteen minutes to reach. On a 50-litre fill that saving is $1.50, and the detour has already eaten it.
OTW asks the question that actually decides where you stop: once the detour is paid for, which station leaves the most money in your pocket? Sometimes the answer is a servo that is not the cheapest on the map. Sometimes it is to drive past three of them. The arithmetic is on the how it works page, in full, because a number you cannot check is not worth much.
Where the data comes from
- Fuel prices
- Government fuel-price feeds: FuelCheck NSW/ACT, FuelCheck Tasmania, Fair Fuel Victoria (Servo Saver), Queensland fuel-price reporting, FuelWatch WA, SAFPIS in SA and MyFuel NT. Victoria has required retailers to report prices since August 2025. Prices 24–48 hours old are marked stale and excluded from recommendations; prices older than 48 hours are hidden.
- Fuel consumption
- The Australian Government's Green Vehicle Guide, used under licence. Every figure is the laboratory number published for your specific engine in your car's year — not a model average and not a figure borrowed from a later generation.
- Which cars we cover
- BITRE's Road vehicles Australia registration data decides which models are worth carrying, so the picker reflects what Australians actually drive rather than what is on sale.
- Tank capacities
- Ours, compiled from manufacturer specifications. This is the weakest number on the site and the one you can overwrite — if you know your real tank size, type it in and OTW uses yours.
- Routing and maps
- Mapbox, for the route line, distances and the map itself.
How it pays for itself
OTW plans to fund its free service through display advertising when ad placements are enabled. It does not take commissions from fuel retailers, it is not paid to rank any station above another, and no servo can buy its way up the list. Rankings use price, estimated range and detour fuel cost.
There is no account to create and nothing to subscribe to. Your saved car is stored in your own browser, not on a server — see the privacy policy.
What it doesn't do
- It does not know what you will actually be charged. Prices are what the station last reported, and a servo can change its board between a report and your arrival.
- It does not cover electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Both are real gaps; neither can be answered honestly with a petrol tank and a pump price.
- It does not know your driving. The consumption figure is a laboratory test, which OTW increases by 20% to approximate real conditions. A loaded roof rack, a headwind or a caravan will beat that estimate, so treat range as a guide and keep a margin.
- It does not cover every car. A model with no tank figure cannot be turned into a range, so it is left out rather than guessed at. If yours is missing, tell us and we will look it up.
Who makes it
OTW is independent and self-funded, built and maintained by one person in Australia. There is no company behind it and no investors. If something is wrong — a price, a tank size, a car that should be there and isn't — the fastest way to get it fixed is to say so, and it will be read by the person who can change it.