My name is Ian. I've been heating my home with oil since 2006. Around 1.5 million UK households in rural areas aren't connected to mains gas and probably never will be. For us, heating oil isn't a lifestyle choice. It's just how the heating works.
When I moved into my first oil-heated property in Shropshire, the price was around 35p per litre. I called the nearest supplier, paid what they quoted, and got on with it. I didn't know any better, and I didn't think to ask.
A couple of years later, a neighbour mentioned what he'd paid for his last delivery. It was significantly less than I'd been paying. Same week. Same postcode. Same 1,000 litres. He'd just called around before ordering. I hadn't.
"Same week. Same postcode. Same 1,000 litres. He'd paid significantly less, just by shopping around."
That gap, and the fact that it exists at all. Is what PriceTank is built around. The price variation between suppliers on any given day is remarkable, and has been for as long as I've been buying oil. On a 1,000-litre order it's not unusual to see a 10–15p per litre spread between the most and least expensive quote. That's £100–£150. For the same fuel. Delivered the same week. It's not a small difference. It's a meaningful chunk of many households' annual fuel bill.
I started calling three suppliers before every order. It worked almost every time, but it was always a faff. Leave a message here, call back there, scribble down prices, forget which one quoted what. The friction meant most people simply didn't bother, paid whatever the first supplier quoted, and assumed that was just the price of oil.
Over the years, more information moved online. Comparison tools appeared, but most of what I came across felt like it was built for the suppliers, not for the buyer. Opaque pricing, referral links that dumped you on a homepage with nothing pre-filled, no explanation of what drives the market or when to buy. I wanted something better, and eventually decided to build it.
PriceTank is the resource I always wanted as a buyer. I built it with a small team who share the same frustration. People who've watched friends and family overpay year after year for no reason other than not knowing the price next door was lower. Genuinely impartial, honest about what we know and what we don't, and focused on helping you make a better decision rather than just generating a click.