Posted: July 29, 2026

Most people choose a fuel company by comparing prices per gallon. It’s the number on the quote, it’s the number in the ad, and it’s the number everyone asks about first.

On its own, it’s also close to useless.

The price per gallon is one line on a bill that has several. Delivery charges, tank lease, minimum use fees, and plan enrollment fees all land on the same invoice, and they vary enormously between companies. Two dealers can quote within a nickel of each other and end the year hundreds of dollars apart.

This is a guide to the whole bill. We’re a fuel company, so read it with that in mind. But every figure here comes from a survey we ran by calling our competitors as an ordinary customer, and we’ve published the method so you can check it.

What fees do propane and heating oil companies charge?

Beyond the price per gallon, home heating fuel bills commonly include a per delivery charge, an annual tank lease, a minimum use fee, and a fee to join a price protection plan. Not every company charges all four, and the companies that don’t charge them separately generally recover the same costs inside their price per gallon.

Here’s what each one is.

Per delivery charges go by several names: environmental compliance fee, hazmat fee, fuel surcharge, delivery fee. They cover spill prevention equipment, containment, regulatory reporting, and the cost of running the truck. They’re charged every time a truck comes.

Tank lease or rental is the annual charge for the tank in your yard, if you don’t own it. It covers purchase, maintenance, inspection and eventual replacement.

Minimum use fees apply when you don’t buy enough fuel in a year. The tank costs the company the same to own and maintain whether you burn 200 gallons or 900, so most dealers set a usage floor.

Plan enrollment fees are what you pay to lock a price or cap it for the season. Sometimes a flat fee, sometimes cents per gallon, often called a DSP or differential service premium.

How much are these fees in the Hudson Valley?

In our July 2026 survey of 16 area dealers, per delivery charges ranged from nothing to $16.92. Half the dealers surveyed listed no separate delivery charge at all.

That last row is the one most people have never heard of, and it’s usually the biggest number on this page.

Why do small customers pay more per gallon?

Nearly every fuel dealer charges low volume customers a higher price per gallon, a median of about 80 cents more in our survey, but most build it into the quoted price rather than naming it as a fee.

We compared the same dealers’ quotes for two households: one heating a whole house at 900 to 1,000 gallons a year, and one using propane only for hot water and cooking at 250 to 350 gallons a year. Every single dealer quoted the smaller customer a higher rate.

The premiums ranged from 51 cents to $2.15 per gallon. At the high end, a household using 300 gallons a year pays roughly $645 extra. Not as a fee, not as a line item, just as a higher number on the quote.

There’s a legitimate reason behind it. A 300 gallon customer requires the same tank, the same inspections, the same insurance and roughly the same number of truck visits as a customer using three times as much. Those costs get recovered from a third as many gallons.

The point isn’t that the premium is unfair. The point is that it’s usually invisible. A company that charges a named minimum use fee looks like it’s nickel and diming, while a company that quietly quotes small customers a dollar more per gallon looks like it has no fees at all. The second one is frequently more expensive.

Why does the company with “no fees” sometimes cost more?

Delivery, compliance, insurance and tank maintenance are real costs that every fuel dealer pays. A company showing no fees hasn’t eliminated them, it has moved them into the price per gallon where you can’t see or compare them.

This is the single most useful thing to understand when you’re shopping.

A named fee is auditable. You can ask what it covers, when it applies, and whether it’s waived. A cost folded into the per gallon price is none of those things, because it doesn’t have a name.

Neither approach is dishonest. But only one of them lets you compare.

How do I actually compare two fuel companies?

Convert every quote to all in annual cost: multiply the price per gallon by your yearly usage, then add delivery charges times your number of deliveries, plus tank lease, plus any minimum use or plan fee. Divide by your annual gallons to get your true price per gallon.

Here’s a worked example, using real figures from our survey. A household burning 900 gallons a year with a 500 gallon tank, about four deliveries, compares two dealers:

Dealer B quotes four cents less and costs eighteen dollars more. The entire difference is the tank lease, a number that never appears on a quote and that most customers never think to ask about.

What should I ask a fuel company before I sign?

Ask for every recurring charge in writing, not just the price per gallon. Five questions cover almost all of it:

1. What is the price per gallon, and what is it based on? Usage, tank ownership and delivery type all move it.
2. What do you charge per delivery, and what is it called on the invoice?
3. Is there an annual tank lease or rental, and how much?
4. What is your minimum use threshold, and what’s the fee if I fall below it? Ask for the threshold in gallons, not a description.
5. What does it cost to join a price protection plan: flat fee, per gallon, or both?

Question 4 is the one worth pressing on. Many companies publish that a minimum use fee exists without ever publishing the number that triggers it. If a company won’t tell you their threshold in gallons, you have no way to know whether you’ll be charged.

Where Kimlin stands

We publish our full fee schedule with dollar amounts, which as far as we know makes us the only fuel dealer in the Hudson Valley that does. That has a cost. Our numbers are the ones that can be quoted back at us, while a competitor’s identical costs sit unnamed inside their price per gallon.

We think it’s still the right call, for a plain reason: a customer who can see every charge can hold us to it. One who can’t is simply trusting us, and trust without visibility isn’t worth much.

Some specifics, so this isn’t just a claim:

• Our tank lease is $10 a year.
• Our minimum use fee applies only if annual usage falls below your tank’s capacity, one turn of the tank. Ask any other dealer for their threshold in gallons and get it in writing.
• Our full fee schedule, with amounts, is at our schedule of fees.

We’re not always the cheapest quote in the Hudson Valley, and we don’t tell people we are. We’d rather be the one you can check.

About this survey

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 about pricing, fees and price protection plans. 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 in the ranges.