Guide 2 of 11 · 5 minute read

Fuel discounts: what “20% off” is really worth

A discount on the fuel surcharge is the most common fuel term, and the most commonly misunderstood.

Percent of a percent

A fuel discount is a percentage off the surcharge percentage. A 20% discount on a 30.25% surcharge leaves you paying 24.20%: a cut of 6.05 percentage points, not 20 points. On $2 million of affected spend that is $121,000 a year, which is real money, but it is not the same as having fuel cut by a fifth of your bill.

When you compare offers, convert everything to percentage points and then to dollars per $100. “Points off” language (for example, “published rate minus 4 points”) behaves differently: it is worth the same amount whatever diesel does, while a percentage discount grows as the surcharge grows.

Which services it covers

Check that the discount applies to every service you use. Discounts are often written for ground only, leaving air, international and returns at the full published rate. If air or international is a meaningful share of your spend, the gap can be larger than the ground discount itself.

What to ask for

• A discount stated as a percentage of the published surcharge, applied to every service and every surcharge that fuel is charged on.
• Language that keeps the discount in force if the carrier changes its fuel table.
• A floor under the discount rather than a ceiling on it: some agreements quietly cap the discount’s value in dollars.

How to check you are getting it

Take one week of invoices, find the published surcharge for the ship-date week, apply your discount, and compare with the percentage actually billed. Our invoice check does the arithmetic.

By the Logistics Contract Optimizer team. Rates cited are from the week of November 2, 2026 unless stated; see the rate board for this week.

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