What is your oil program costing you?
Most shops are buying in a container one or two sizes too small — and the cost shows up in three separate places at once: the price per gallon, the hours spent moving containers, and the fee to get rid of the empties.
Four costs, not one.
Container size is not a purchasing detail. It sets your price per gallon, your labor, your storage and your disposal bill all at once — which is why moving one size up so often pays for itself in the first quarter.
Small packages carry a premium
The same oil costs roughly 75% more per gallon in quart bottles than in bulk, and about 30% more in pails. You are paying for plastic, labels and handling on every gallon.
Somebody moves every container
A pail takes about four minutes to receive, move and dispense from. At 350 gallons a month that is 70 containers and roughly 56 hours a year of paid time on a drum pump's worth of work.
Disposal is a real line item
Drum disposal runs about $22 each; pails around $2.50. Totes and bulk tanks get returned or refilled, so that line goes to zero the moment you move up.
Every extra supplier costs you
Small-order surcharges, separate freight, four invoices to reconcile, four delivery windows to staff. Consolidating typically recovers 3–7% of product spend before anyone negotiates a price.
What we left out
Tank and pump capital, spill containment, waste-oil credits, volume rebates and downtime from running out. Every one of those tends to move the number further in your favor.
This is an estimate, not a quote
The figures above are conservative published averages, not your invoices. Send us one real invoice and we will replace every estimate with your actual numbers — free, no obligation.
Replace the estimate with your real numbers.
Send one recent invoice — or just tell us what you buy. We will price the same volume in the right container and show you the difference line by line, in under 24 hours.