What we do
Most fuel calculators assume a car. PumpTally focuses on the trips where fuel is a real line in the budget: moving across the country in a rental truck, taking a motorhome out, or pulling a trailer behind a pickup. Each calculator starts from realistic fuel economy for that kind of vehicle and adjusts for towing.
- Moving truck gas calculator: Fuel for a rental truck or cargo van, by truck size, with or without a car in tow.
- RV and towing fuel calculator: Motorhomes, camper vans and trucks pulling a travel trailer or fifth wheel.
- Road trip gas calculator: Any car, any distance, with the cost split between everyone riding along.
Where the numbers come from
Fuel prices are the weekly retail averages published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The site currently uses prices for the week of October 19, 2026 and refreshes them when it’s rebuilt. Where EIA publishes a city or state average we use it; otherwise we use the regional average.
Driving distances and routes between cities come from the Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM), which uses map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. For other towns, the calculator estimates road miles from the straight-line distance using a factor we measured against real routes; the town list comes from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Fuel economy figures are typical real-world values, not manufacturer ratings, and you can always replace them with your own.
How accurate are the estimates?
Close enough to budget with, not exact. The biggest swing is usually fuel economy: speed, load, wind and hills can move it by 20% or more. If you know your own MPG, enter it and the estimate gets much better.