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Diesel is $6.13 a gallon this week, $2.29 more than a year ago, per the EIA.
Searches for "fuel surcharge" ran 157% higher this summer than last, per Google's Keyword Planner. I get the instinct. The fuel card is the loudest bill you have.
A surcharge answers a question you haven't asked yet: which customers are worth the drive. That answer isn't on the fuel card. It's split across three of your systems, and one of your farthest customers might be one of your best.
In this issue:
Why the fuel spike is the wrong reason to change your prices
A one-sheet score for every customer you drove to this year
The customer a surcharge would push away
How AI-Era Pricing Is Reshaping Finance Operations
Usage-based and hybrid pricing models are changing how B2B companies generate revenue — and creating new headaches for the finance teams behind them.
Tabs co-founder Rebecca Schwartz and PwC Partner Amit Dhir sat down to unpack exactly what that means in practice: how pricing model decisions ripple into revenue recognition, forecasting, and financial ops — and what it takes to scale without piling on manual work.
Watch the on-demand recording to get practical frameworks, real-world examples, and a clear path to operationalizing usage-based revenue — including a forward-looking take on how AI will reshape financial workflows. If your team is navigating pricing complexity heading into the back half of the year, this is worth an hour.
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IN THE KNOW
The short version: the 60% increase in diesel cost is a good reason to ask which customers are worth the drive, and a bad reason to change your prices. You can't price the drive until you know what each customer is worth over time, and that answer is split across three systems.
One ticket is the worst way to judge a customer
Picture two customers. The first lives 20 miles out, has a maintenance agreement, calls you every season, and sent you her neighbor last spring. The second lives two miles away, called once, haggled, and paid late.
Judge either one by a single ticket and the math looks easy. The far job burns more fuel and more of a tech's paid time, so it looks worse. The close job looks fine.
A flat fuel surcharge charges both of them the same. A trip charge by distance hits the first one harder. Dropping the far zone loses her and her neighbor, and keeps the customer who paid late.
Each of those moves is a pricing decision made with half the numbers. The far customer may still lose you money. You just can't tell from the ticket.
The drive only matters next to what the customer is worth. Fuel is one line on the cost side. The value side is the part a fuel card can't show you.
What a customer is worth lives in three systems
A customer’s worth comes down to three things: what they’ve bought from you over time, how reliably they pay, and what they’ve sent your way. Each one lives in a different system.
Your field software has the history. How often they call, what they bought, whether they’re on an agreement, how far away they live. Your books have the payments. Whether they paid and how long it took. The referrals sit somewhere else again, in an ad report, a CRM, or a tech’s memory.
Put those side by side and they won’t agree on who your best customer is. Each system ranks by what it can see. The field software has never seen a late payment. Your books have never seen a referral.
So the call on the drive gets made with whichever number is closest. This month that’s the fuel bill. It’s the loudest number you have, and it tells you the least about who’s at the end of the drive.
The spike is a reason to look before you reprice
Diesel will move again. The EIA had it down for a second straight week. The question it raised stays put: which customers you'd still drive to if you were starting your route over.
I learned this in my storage business. The rate on a unit says little about the tenant. Tenant stickiness is the most underpriced thing in that business, and it never shows up on one month's rent roll.
A ticket is the same thing. It’s one month’s rent roll for a customer you might keep for ten years.
Line up the three systems and you may find far customers who carry their weight and close ones who don't. Then you can choose a surcharge, a trip charge, an agreement, or a polite goodbye, one customer at a time, with a number instead of a fuel bill.
Try this before you touch your prices. Pull your 20 farthest customers from your field software. Next to each name, write what they’ve paid you in total, how many days they take to pay, and whether they ever sent you anyone. If that last column takes you an afternoon, that’s the problem.
Hit reply and tell me how many of the 20 you’d keep.
Price the drive after you know who's at the end of it.
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MAKE IT MODERN
Score every customer you drove to in the last 12 months. One sheet, one afternoon.
From your field software, export your customer list or job history for the last 12 months: job count, total invoiced, agreement status, lead source, and address.
From QuickBooks, pull each customer's total paid and average days to pay.
In Google Sheets, match the two lists by customer name, then add round-trip miles from your shop. The zip code is close enough.
Paste the sheet into ChatGPT or Claude with this prompt:
Here are my customers from the last 12 months: jobs, invoiced, paid, days to pay, agreement, lead source, and round-trip miles. Rank them by paid revenue per round-trip mile. Flag far customers who rank high and close customers who rank low. Only use my numbers.
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FROM THE STOICS
Some things are in our control and others not.
You don't set the price of diesel. You do decide which customers get your trucks, and you can decide it with a number.
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BEFORE YOU GO
If you want help turning your field software, QuickBooks, and lead sources into one customer list, reply "diagnostic" and I'll send the details.