Posted: August 5, 2026
The lowest quoted price per gallon and the lowest actual cost are frequently two different companies. This is how to find the second one.
Convert each quote to all in annual cost: price per gallon times your yearly usage, plus delivery charges times your number of deliveries, plus tank lease, plus any minimum use or plan fee. Then divide by your annual gallons. That final figure is your true price per gallon, and it’s the only number worth comparing.
Written out, for a single company:
(price per gallon x annual gallons) + (delivery fee x deliveries per year) + annual tank lease + minimum use fee + plan fee = total annual cost
Then: total annual cost divided by annual gallons = your true price per gallon.
Your annual gallons, your tank size, and for each company: price per gallon, per delivery charge, annual tank lease, minimum use threshold and fee, and plan enrollment cost.
Your annual usage is on last year’s statements. If you’re new to the home, ask the dealer who served it, because they’ll have the delivery history.
If a company won’t give you one of those numbers, leave it blank. A blank isn’t a zero. It’s an unanswered question, and it will show up on a bill later.
Most households receive a delivery when the tank reaches about 30 percent and are filled to about 80 percent, so a usable delivery is roughly half of tank capacity. A 500 gallon tank delivers about 250 gallons at a time, which means a household using 900 gallons a year gets about four deliveries. A 275 gallon oil tank runs about 200 gallons per fill.
This matters because per delivery charges are multiplied by that count. A $15.99 charge is $63.96 a year at four deliveries, and more if you’re on will call and taking smaller, more frequent fills.
Annual tank lease. It never appears on a price quote, most people never think to ask, and in our July 2026 survey the reported figures ranged from $10 to well over $100 a year.
On a 900 gallon household, a $119 difference in tank lease works out to about 13 cents a gallon. That’s enough to reverse a comparison that looked settled.
Two quotes from our July 2026 survey, for a household burning 900 gallons a year with a 500 gallon tank:
| Dealer A | Dealer B | |
|---|---|---|
| Quoted price per gallon | $3.100 | $3.059 |
| Fuel cost | $2,790.00 | $2,753.10 |
| Delivery charges (4) | $63.96 | none listed |
| Annual tank lease | $10.00 | $129.00 |
| Total for the year | $2,863.96 | $2,882.10 |
| True price per gallon | $3.182 | $3.202 |
Dealer B quotes four cents cheaper and costs eighteen dollars more.
Delivery, compliance, insurance and tank maintenance are costs every fuel dealer pays. A company showing no fees hasn’t eliminated them, it has moved them into the price per gallon.
That isn’t dishonest, and sometimes it genuinely is cheaper. But it means the only way to compare the two approaches is on total annual cost. A named fee you can question beats an unnamed cost you can’t find.
No. It’s arithmetic on numbers you enter, and there are no prices built into it. Against a dealer with no tank lease and no delivery charge, this math will tell you they’re cheaper, and it should.
We put it together because we’d rather compete on the whole bill than on one line of it. We publish every fee we charge, with dollar amounts, which makes us easy to run through this exercise. Ask the other companies on your list for the same numbers and see how far you get.
In July 2026, Kimlin Energy contacted 16 propane and heating oil dealers serving Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties as a residential customer and asked each the same set of questions. Figures reflect quotes given during that period and change with the market. Ranges are reported in aggregate; individual dealers are not named. Kimlin’s own figures are included.