# The month French gas stations ran out, a thermometer studio pushed a fuel-price app behind Waze · Mobile app

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_com.fuelsaver.gasprices.stationfinder.v2.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
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> In 2026 September, French fuel prices spiked and 15% of gas stations ran out, so everyone was hunting for fuel. It uses "cheap gasoline" as its title in store search, rates a bit higher than the established players, and is probably still buying Play installs, siphoning off the new users from this wave.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · Android · written 11-6

Gas Prices & Fuel Finder (French store name Carburant : essence moins cher / FuelSaver) · APPVERSE

# The month French gas stations ran out, a thermometer studio pushed a fuel-price app behind Waze

**What it is** A fuel-price map app: open it and see which nearby station is cheapest, then navigate there in one tap. All data comes from government-published fuel prices, covering 30 countries.

**Why it took off** In 2026 September, fuel prices in France spiked and 15% of stations ran out, so everyone was hunting for fuel. It used "cheap gasoline" in the store titles, its ratings ran well above the incumbents, and it is probably still buying installs on Play, which let it capture that wave of new users.

**B** 55 **How you could follow** Don't build another fuel-price app in France. Copy the playbook instead: find a country or category that has just opened official data and has sudden demand (electricity prices, outages, disasters), launch a few weeks early, use local search terms in the titles, push ratings up, then turn on Google app ads when the crisis hits. Or build the real-time outage reporting it didn't do well.

Follow-on score 55: few people know about it (no media coverage, no one talking on social platforms, revenue not public), and the playbook can be copied across countries and categories with free data. But France's category is already crowded with established apps and eight copycats that didn't break out, the product has no moat, demand follows the crisis, the window is counted in weeks, and you need a ready-made monetization template and paid-acquisition capability. Few people know about it

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-05-15 · 11-06 installs 236,520

Android · Total installs worldwide

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-06 (9 days, 9 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.

Codelio, a small French studio that makes phone utilities, already had a room-thermometer app with 7M installs. In 2026, European fuel prices spiked twice, so it built an app using free government-published fuel price data to help people find cheaper stations. It launched with a local keyword title in each country, and hit #2 on the France Google Play navigation free chart, just behind Waze. The ones it pushed down were long-established apps like Essence&CO, Gasoil Now, and SLMC. The product is nearly identical to the incumbents; it won on timing and store tactics. Below: what it is, why now, where users came from, where the money comes from, and whether you can do the same.

### 5 a.m., Colmar

In 2026 September 20, 15% of French gas stations were missing at least one fuel type. Two days earlier the figure had been 11% (TF1info, 09-20). Two days later, about 9,600 stations nationwide, 1,570 of them, were reporting outages (La Montagne, 09-22). On September 24, Le Monde published an outage map under the headline asking how hard it is to get fuel near you.

In those same days, reviews of an app on Google Play called "Carburant : essence moins cher" (Fuel: cheaper gasoline) suddenly multiplied. On the evening of September 19, someone gave it 5 stars: "Très pratique, surtout en ce moment et la flambée des prix" (very handy, especially now with prices soaring). Another on September 14 wrote: "En cette période de précarité, votre application est plus que nécessaire" (in these hard times, your app is more than just useful).

The negative reviews are about the same thing. On September 30, one user gave 1 stars: the app said a station in Colmar still had fuel, so he drove 20 km and arrived at 5 a.m. to find it empty. "Apart from wasting more fuel, it's useless."

Whether the reviews are good or bad, people want the same thing: where fuel is available right now, and where it's cheapest.

### What it is

The store name in English is Gas Prices & Fuel Finder, the brand is FuelSaver, the FR-store title is "Carburant : essence moins cher", and the iOS FR title is "Prix Essence & Carburant". Opening it shows a map: fuel prices at nearby stations, cheap ones marked green and expensive ones red. You can sort by price or distance, filter by brand, calculate what a full tank costs, and navigate there in one tap. The store description says it covers 30 countries, while the website fuelsaver.one says 45.

The Play developer account is APPVERSE, and the developer email belongs to Codelio, an independent mobile studio in France. The biggest app under that account is Room Temperature Thermometer, 6.98M installs, ranked #2 in the France Weather chart. The store also shows its flashlight, notepad, and sleep utilities. This is a studio that churns out utility apps in bulk, not a mobility company.

The iOS version launched Apr 2026 21; the Play version launched around May (earliest reviews in June).

### How big it is now

| Metric | Metric | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Play global installs | 10-29 to 213,435 in 11-05 days, +236,520,7 for 23,085 | Google Play store page |
| Rating | 4.9 stars, 3,550 reviews | Play France page, 11-06 |
| France Maps & Navigation free chart | 10-29 #6 → #11-04 from #2 | Google Play charts |
| France Top Free overall chart | 11-01 charted at #200 → 11-04 at #38 → 11-06 at #57 | Same as above |
| Maps charts in other countries | UK 24–29, Australia 45–51, Canada 54–76, Spain 55–72, Italy from 62; Netherlands, Mexico, Poland 96–190 | Same as above, 10-29 to 11-06 |
| iOS | France navigation #31, rating 176 → 240 (10-28 to 11-06) | App Store |

Compare it with the older rivals on the France Maps chart on the same day (11-06):

| App | Chart position | Play cumulative installs | New in the last 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| FuelSaver | 2 | 237k | +23k |
| SLMC – Station La Moins Chère | 9 | 2.18M | +8.8k |
| Essence&CO | 11 | 4.21M | +6.5k |
| Essence / Gasoil Now | 21 | 3.84M | +5.1k |

Cumulative installs are only a tenth to a twentieth of the established players, but its new installs in the last week are 2.5 to 4.5 times theirs. Most people in France who installed a fuel price app during this stretch chose this one. On iOS it added only 58 ratings in a week; the growth is almost all on Android.

### Why now: two fuel crises in 2026

The first wave came in spring. The Strait of Hormuz was closed in 3 April, fuel prices in France rose, some stations ran dry, and Paris-Normandie published a piece on Apr 6 titled "Out of stock: these five apps are a must-install." Two weeks later FuelSaver's iOS version launched.

The second wave came in September, the stretch described above: prices rose again, 15% of stations were short of fuel, and on Sep 22 the government announced it would extend the summer diesel sales period to Nov 15 (actu.fr). The average diesel price in October was about 2.35 €/L (supercarbu.fr). Review counts began surging in mid-September, with phrases recurring like "vu la flambée des prix" (given the price spike), "vu le contexte actuel" (given the current situation), and "avec les temps qui courent, le moindre centime est important" (these days every cent matters).

By Nov 6 it still wasn't over. The community shortage map penurie.mon-essence.fr showed as of that early morning 1,302 stations partially out and 473 stations fully out. Demand was still there, which explains why it kept climbing into early November.

### Why the data costs almost nothing

It doesn't collect a single price itself. The official site says plainly: France uses data.economie.gouv.fr, Germany uses Tankerkoenig, Austria uses E-Control, and the UK uses the GOV.UK Fuel Finder, all public data from government or authoritative bodies. The French dataset is free for anyone to pull, and the government's own site prix-carburants.gouv.fr uses it too. Codelio even registered FuelSaver on data.gouv.fr as a "reuse" case of that dataset.

The UK dataset only became mandatory to open in 2026 Feb 2 (the Fuel Finder scheme, fuelsindustryuk.org). A freshly opened dataset, plus map code that was already written, pushed it into the UK Maps top 30 quickly.

So the cost of this app is basically a map interface plus a data connector for each country. A team that builds utilities can cover dozens of countries in a few weeks (estimate).

### Where users come from: the store, not social media

We searched "carburant moins cher" and "fuelsaver" on TikTok and found no videos promoting it. The French-language TikTok recommendations surfaced Essence&CO, Gasoil Now, and TotalEnergies promotions. On X, no one has mentioned FuelSaver in the last 60 days, and the recommendation lists in French media only name the established players. Its traffic comes almost entirely from the Play Store, and it rests on three things.

**1. A local search term per country as the title.** France: "Carburant : essence moins cher", UK: "Petrol Prices & Fuel Finder", US: "Gas Prices & Fuel Finder", iOS France: "Prix Essence & Carburant". The title is the words users actually type into the search box.

**2. Ratings pushed up to 4.9.** Paris-Normandie cited Gasoil Now at roughly 4.0 and Essence&CO at roughly 3.5. FuelSaver's update notes say "rating requests are shown at most once per launch," and a big share of its reviews are one- or two-word 5-star ratings ("Super", "top", "très bien"). In the same search results, a 4.9-star newcomer sits next to a 3.5-star veteran, and people naturally tap the newcomer.

**3. Probably running paid acquisition (inferred, not verified).** On Oct 24, one review with 2 stars opened with "Digne d'un résultat sponsorisé sur le Play Store" (roughly: "Looks like a sponsored result on the Play Store"). An app that's been live for half a year, with an install base an order of magnitude smaller than its rivals, adding three to four times as many users a week as they do, and climbing into the overall French app chart at #38, looks like Google App Ads are pushing it. We can't verify whether it's spending, or how much.

Meanwhile the veterans are losing reputation. One reviewer says "après ce qu'est devenue gasoil now ça change" (after what Gasoil Now has become, this is a breath of fresh air), another says "pire que gasoil now" (worse than Gasoil Now), and another "je garde slmc" (I'm sticking with SLMC). Users are unhappy about the same thing: the established apps keep getting heavier with ads. A new app that just looks a bit cleaner can catch the people who want to switch.

### Where the money comes from

The Play listing says "Contains ads" plus in-app purchases at $1.99–$9.99. What's being sold is an ad-free subscription, and the paywall's pitch is "rentabilisé dès le premier plein" (paid off with the first tank), a line paraphrased from an Oct 24 one-star review. The user's words: ads everywhere, a premium upsell after a few taps, and "in the end I didn't see anything more than the other apps."

It hasn't charted on any top-grossing list, and on iOS it has no grossing rank. Revenue likely comes mainly from ads, with subscriptions as a supplement (inferred). No revenue figures are public. This "free tool + ads + ad-free subscription + rating prompts at launch" playbook is the same one behind the 7M-install thermometer, and the studio already has it ready to go.

### The product has no moat

The complaints in the one-star reviews apply to the veterans too, because the data source is the same:

- "pas a jour du tout" (not updated at all), "je viens de l'installer, prix carburant 16 septembre" (just installed it, it shows prices from Sep 16);

- missing stations: "Pourquoi n'y a-t-il pas les stations Leclerc ?" (why are there no Leclerc stations?), and some say TotalEnergies stations are sparse;

- shortage info lags behind, as in the Colmar review above; one user said the only drawback was not being able to report a station as out, "which would have saved me a wasted trip." After the developer replied, that user changed their review to "super parfait" and gave 5 stars.

Essence&CO's strength is exactly community shortage reporting, the part FuelSaver hasn't built yet.

### Who it's competing with

| Competitors | What it is | How it differs from FuelSaver |
|---|---|---|
| Essence / Gasoil Now(2013) | French veteran, Play 3.84M, iOS France 175k ratings | Ads getting heavier; users compare it most often |
| Essence&CO(2011/2012) | French veteran, Play 4.21M, top pick in media | Community shortage reporting, more useful in a crisis |
| SLMC(Station La Moins Chère) | France only, Play 2.18M | List-style price board, can hide out-of-stock stations |
| Fuel Flash(2014) | German veteran, multi-country, Play 11M | Covered many countries early, but ranks lower than it in France |
| PetrolPrices(2016) | UK veteran, Play 1.92M | Strong in the UK locally |
| GasBuddy(2010) | North American crowdsourcing plus payment cards, Play 32.9M | FuelSaver has almost no US traffic |
| prix-carburants.gouv.fr | Government website, same dataset | Free, no ads, but not an app |
| Waze / Google Maps | Navigation shows fuel prices as a side feature; Google Maps has shown them in the UK since 2026 | Big-platform traffic, not focused on price comparison |

The more telling story is the copycats from the same year. From April to November 2026, at least eight new fuel price apps launched in France: Pump Me, Prix Essence Diesel, Je Carbure Malin, Rifuel, Prix Carburant France, Fuelza, Jauge, and Carburant : à plein pot. They use the same data. Je Carbure Malin has only 4,700 installs on Play, and the rest have almost all fewer than 50 iOS ratings. Same crisis, same data, and only FuelSaver broke out. The difference is distribution: multi-country, local titles, high ratings, a ready-made monetization template, and possibly paid acquisition.

### If it were you

**The takeaway** : don't build another fuel price app in France. The market is already crowded with veterans and copycats who never broke out. What's worth copying is the playbook: ride a breaking news event, build on an open government dataset, ship a utility app within weeks, use local search terms as titles in each country, and capture traffic in the store.

**Who it suits** : a team of 1–3 people that already has one or two utility apps, an ad SDK, a subscription paywall, and a multilingual release process in place, that understands ASO, and ideally has run Google App Campaigns before.

**Who it doesn't suit** : anyone starting from zero with no monetization template; anyone hoping to win on product features (anyone can build those, and the data is the same); anyone unwilling to touch ads and rating prompts who only wants to build a clean paid tool; anyone counting on TikTok or Xiaohongshu-style content channels to bring users (nobody talks about this category on social platforms).

**How to do it** , three directions:

- Switch countries: look for countries that recently mandated open fuel price data and lack a strong local app. The UK's Fuel Finder in 2026 February is one example, and it's how FuelSaver reached the UK top 30. Whether other countries have newly opened data, you'll need to check one by one.

- Switch categories: apply the same playbook to other needs that combine "sudden spike + official data," such as electricity prices, water and power outages, drug shortages, air quality, and disaster alerts. The data is free, and news can light up demand overnight.

- Do what it hasn't done well: real-time shortage reporting. In a crisis, the most painful thing for users is driving over and finding no fuel, and government data lags, and so does FuelSaver. Community reporting plus "someone confirmed fuel in the last 1 hours" is why Essence&CO keeps its users.

**How to get users** : store search is the main channel. Use the words locals actually search as titles; prompt for ratings at launch and get the score above 4.7 first; when a crisis hits, immediately turn on Google App Campaigns and bid on terms like "cheap fuel prices" (inferred that this is what it does). Localize the title, screenshots, and description for each country; don't cover the world with one English version.

**When to be ready before** : this kind of opportunity follows the news, and the window is measured in weeks. Before the next fuel price or shortage crisis, the app has to be live, rated, and ready for ads. Starting once the crisis is here is too late, as those eight copycats in France show. In this French wave, the summer diesel extension runs to Nov 15, and demand may fall off afterward.

**What would mean you read it wrong** :

- FuelSaver drops out of the top 10 on the France Maps chart before December, with weekly new installs falling to a few thousand: that means demand only followed the crisis, retention couldn't hold it up, and this approach can only ride one wave;

- Your new app has been live for a month with ratings over 4.7, but without ads it never ranks in the top 5 in search: that means its traffic was mostly bought, organic traffic isn't working, and you need to work out whether paid acquisition pays back first;

- Google Maps spreads fuel price display from the UK to France and other European countries: standalone price-comparison apps get squeezed.

---

Data and sources: Google Play store pages, charts and reviews (10-29 to 11-06, reviews 2026-07 to 10-31); App Store FR and UK storefront charts and ratings (10-28 to 11-06); fuelsaver.one official site FAQ; data.gouv.fr reuse registry; TF1info, Le Parisien (09-20), La Montagne (09-22), Le Monde (09-24), actu.fr (09-22), Paris-Normandie (04-06), supercarbu.fr (October); penurie.mon-essence.fr (11-06); fuelsindustryuk.org (UK Fuel Finder); cartecarburant.com 2026 review. Where we write "inferred", "estimated" or "unverified", it is inference or estimation.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fuelsaver.gasprices.stationfinder)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essence / Gasoil Now | Android | 2013 | Play 3.84M installs, iOS French store 175k ratings, #21 on the French maps chart | Incumbent, with increasingly heavy ads; FuelSaver has a newer interface, 4.9 stars and multiple countries, but also ads + paywall |
| Essence&CO | Android | 2011/2012 | Play 4.21M, iOS 48k ratings, #11 on the French maps chart | Community reports on shortages, media pushes it first; FuelSaver mainly uses official data and doesn't rely on community input |
| SLMC – Station La Moins Chère | Android | Not verified | Play 2.18M, #9 on the French maps chart | List-style price boards, can hide shortage stations, France only; FuelSaver has map + list and 30+ countries |
| Fuel Flash(Benzinpreis-Blitz) | Android | 2014 | Play 11M | German incumbent; FuelSaver ranks higher in France and has stronger localized titles |
| GasBuddy | Android | 2010 | Play 32.9M | North American crowdsourcing + payment cards; FuelSaver has almost no traffic in the US |
| PetrolPrices: UK and France | Android | 2016 | Play 1.92M | UK incumbent; FuelSaver entered the UK on the Fuel Finder open data that launched in 2026-02, ranking #24–29 on the maps chart |
| Fuelio | Android | 2011 | Play 6.44M | Focused on fuel logs and fuel economy; FuelSaver only does finding cheaper stations |
| prix-carburants.gouv.fr and the government shortage map | Web | long-standing | Government official | Same data, free and no ads; FuelSaver is its app shell plus navigation |
| Waze / Google Maps fuel prices | Big-company features | Waze has had it for years; Google Maps UK from 2026 | 100M-scale | Navigation that happens to show fuel prices; FuelSaver is dedicated to price comparison, per-tank pricing, and multi-fuel filters |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **Timing or platform event: the fuel crisis** : 2026-04 Hormuz blockade causes French shortages (Paris-Normandie 04-06), iOS version 04-21 launches; 2026-09-20 15% of French stations run out of fuel (TF1info/Le Parisien). Mid-September reviews spike and frequently mention "vu la flambée des prix" and "en ce moment"

- **Verified** **Store search (ASO)** : local-keyword titles per store: French store "Carburant : essence moins cher", UK store "Petrol Prices & Fuel Finder", iOS French store "Prix Essence & Carburant"; Play 4.9 stars, 3.55k ratings, higher than the incumbents

- **Verified** **Prompting for ratings** : the update notes say "rating request shown at most once per launch"; the review sample has many one- or two-word 5-star ratings, while 1-star reviews concentrate on complaints about ads and paywalls

- Inferred **Google Play paid acquisition** : a user review says "Digne d'un résultat sponsorisé sur le Play Store"; with only 1/10 installs for the incumbent, yet new installs over 7 days were 3–4 times higher, it pushed to 38 on the overall French chart; the ad library doesn't track this advertiser, so it can't be verified

- **Verified** **Resource-driven: the studio already has a matrix of tool apps** : the same account's Room Temperature Thermometer has 6.98M installs, APPVERSE totals 7.22M (googleplay.developer); ad and subscription templates are reused

- Inferred **TikTok / X / media** : searches for "carburant moins cher" and "fuelsaver" on TikHub and for FuelSaver on x-radar returned nothing relevant; French media recommendation lists only mention the incumbents

## Gas Prices & Fuel Finder (French name "Carburant : essence moins cher" / FuelSaver): why it could break out

Package com.fuelsaver.gasprices.stationfinder; Play developer account APPVERSE (developer email contact@codelio.fr, = French indie mobile studio Codelio); same iOS app id 6761938959 (seller Codelio). Research date 2026-11-06.

### Bottom line

A French utility-app studio (which already has a room thermometer with 7M installs) launched a fuel-price map app timed to the 2026 April Hormuz blockade and the spike in European fuel prices. All data comes from government open-data sources (France data.economie.gouv.fr, UK GOV.UK Fuel Finder, Germany Tankerkoenig, and others); it doesn't collect data itself. In 2026 September, France's second wave of "fuel prices spike + stations run out" boosted demand again. Using keyword titles, 4.9-star ratings and suspected Google Play paid acquisition, it climbed to #2 on the French Play maps & navigation free chart, ahead of the decade-old incumbents Essence&CO, Gasoil Now and SLMC. Revenue comes from ads plus an ad-free subscription.

### Data (from our library)

- Cumulative Play global installs: 2026-10-29 213,435 → 11-05 236,520,7 days up 23,085 (about 3.3k/day) (googleplay.app_day). The store page shows 4.9 stars, 3,550 ratings, "100k+" (French Play page, read on 2026-11-06).

- Rankings (googleplay.chart_rank): French maps & navigation free chart 10-29 #6 → from 11-04 at #2 (just behind Waze); French overall app chart entered at #200 on 11-01 → #38 on 11-04 → #57 on 11-06. UK maps 24–29, Australia 45–51, Canada 54–76, Spain 55–72, Italy from 11-05 at 62–118, Mexico, Netherlands and Poland at 100–190.

- Same-day rivals on the French maps chart (googleplay v_chart, 2026-11-06): SLMC #9 (2.18M installs, +8.8k over 7 days), Essence&CO #11 (4.21M, +6.5k), Fuel Flash #19, Essence / Gasoil Now #21 (3.84M, +5.1k). FuelSaver's absolute installs are only 1/10–1/20 of theirs, but its new installs over the last 7 days are 2.5–4.5 times theirs.

- iOS (appstore.app_day): French store name "Prix Essence & Carburant", 2026-04-21 launch; #31 in the French navigation category, ratings 176 (10-28) → 240 (11-06), +58 in one week; 45 ratings in the UK store. iOS is far behind Play, so the growth is mainly on the Android side.

- Launch date: the library has released=2026-05-15 (released_reset=true, earliest review is June); the 2026-09-14 on the data card is the date the store reset after an info update, not the real launch.

- Monetization: Play lists "Contains ads + in-app purchases $1.99–$9.99"; the update notes (2.1.51) say "rating request shown at most once per launch" and "consent prompt takes effect per ad partner."

- Same developer (googleplay.developer): APPVERSE's library has 2 apps in total with 7.22M cumulative installs, most of it from Room Temperature Thermometer (6.98M, #2 on the French weather chart). The developer page also shows tools like a flashlight, notepad, AI mini-game generator and sleep recovery. Codelio's website also lists VPN, recording and private-messaging apps (codelio.fr).

### Why it took off

1. **Timing: the 2026 European fuel crisis, in two waves.**
    - Wave one: 2026 3–April, Hormuz blockade; French fuel prices rose and some stations ran dry (Paris-Normandie 2026-04-06 "Pénurie de carburant : ces cinq applis indispensables…"). FuelSaver's iOS version launched 2026-04-21, Play version in May, right on the timing.
    - Wave two: 2026 September, French fuel prices spiked again with widespread shortages. On 20 September, 15% of stations were missing at least one fuel type (TF1info, Le Parisien 2026-09-20). The government 9-22 extended summer diesel sales to 11-15 (actu.fr), and by October diesel averaged about 2.35 €/L (supercarbu.fr). Le Monde 2026-09-24 published a shortage map.
    - The reviews show the cause and effect directly: review volume surged from mid-September, with many saying "indispensable en 2026 surtout actuellement", "vu la flambée des prix", "en cette période de précarité" and "il indique … si il y a des ruptures" (googleplay.review, 2026-09-10 to 10-28).

2. **Data costs are close to zero.** The fuelsaver.one website says fuel prices for 45 countries come from government open data and authoritative sources (France data.economie.gouv.fr, Germany Tankerkoenig, Austria E-Control, UK GOV.UK Fuel Finder). Codelio also registered it as a "réutilisation" on data.gouv.fr. The UK's mandatory Fuel Finder open data took effect 2026-02-02 (fuelsindustryuk.org, petrolprices.co.uk), which let it bring the same code to the UK. A tool studio can roll out to 30+ countries within a few weeks.

3. **Store distribution approach (mostly inferred).**
    - Each store gets a local keyword title: FR store "Carburant : essence moins cher", UK store "Petrol Prices & Fuel Finder", US store "Gas Prices & Fuel Finder", iOS FR "Prix Essence & Carburant". They catch searches like "carburant moins cher" and "prix essence" directly.
    - Ratings: Play 4.9 stars (3.55K reviews), while the older rivals sit around 4.0 (Gasoil Now) and 3.5 (Essence&CO), per Paris-Normandie. Many reviews are one- or two-word 5-star posts ("top", "super", "très bien"), while the 1-star reviews cluster on "pub pub pub" and "appli payante". The update notes admit to a rating prompt at launch. High rating plus keyword titles means high conversion in store search.
    - Paid acquisition: one user review reads "Digne d'un résultat sponsorisé sur le Play Store" (2026-10-24). An app listed for half a year, an order of magnitude smaller than its rivals, is adding 7 days' worth of new installs at 3–4 times their pace, and it also reached #38 on the overall charts. It looks like Google App Campaign spend. But our Google and Meta ad libraries don't track this advertiser (not found means not on our list, not that it isn't advertising). **Unverified.**
    - Content and creators: searching TikTok for "carburant moins cher" and "fuelsaver" (TikHub) turned up no videos promoting it. On French TikTok, the recommended apps are Essence&CO, Gasoil Now, and TotalEnergies deals. On X (x-radar, last 60 days), "FuelSaver" got 0 posts. No media coverage of it either. The French press recommendation lists are all the established names.

4. **The gap left by the incumbents is the opening.** Reviews name them directly: "après ce qu'est devenue gasoil now ça change", "pire que gasoil now", "je garde slmc". Gasoil Now's ads have been getting heavier (a cartecarburant.com review 2026 years ago said the same). A new user who sees a 4.9-star, French-language app with a fresh interface in search results taps it. But its own ads and paywall draw plenty of complaints too, so it isn't fundamentally different from the incumbents.

5. **Why people pay or stay.** The subscription pitch is ad removal and "pays for itself on the first tank" (a user review quotes the paywall copy). Retention is unknown. The negative reviews complain about inaccurate data, missing Leclerc and Total stations, and lagging prices. The data comes from the same government open data as its rivals, so its accuracy is limited in the same way.

### Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essence / Gasoil Now | iOS + Android (FR) | 2013 | Play 3.84M installs, iOS FR 175K ratings | Established, heavy on ads. FuelSaver has a fresh interface, high ratings, and multiple countries. |
| Essence&CO | iOS + Android (FR) | 2011/2012 | Play 4.21M, iOS 48K ratings | Community outage reports (red markers), top media picks. FuelSaver relies mainly on official data. |
| SLMC – Station La Moins Chère | Android (FR) | Not verified | Play 2.18M | List-style price board, can hide out-of-stock stations. FuelSaver has map + list and multiple countries. |
| Fuel Flash / Benzinpreis-Blitz | iOS + Android (mainly DE) | 2014 | Play 11M | Established German app, multiple countries. FuelSaver ranks higher in the FR store. |
| GasBuddy | iOS + Android (US/CA) | 2010 | Play 32.9M | North American crowdsourcing + payments. FuelSaver is nearly absent in the US store. |
| PetrolPrices(UK & France) | Android/iOS (UK) | 2016 | Play 1.92M | Established UK app. FuelSaver ranks #24–29 on the UK maps chart. |
| Fuelio(Sygic) | iOS+Android | 2011 | Play 6.44M | Leans toward fuel logging + fuel economy. FuelSaver only does finding cheap stations. |
| Prix carburant (Clément Béchu), Prix Carburant - France, Mon Essence, and others | iOS/Android (FR) | 2018–2023 | iOS 0.5–16K ratings | Small French open-data apps, no paid acquisition |
| Official site prix-carburants.gouv.fr / government outage map | Web | long-standing | Government | Free, no ads. FuelSaver is an app shell on the same data. |
| Waze / Google Maps fuel prices | Big-company features | Waze has had it for a while. Google Maps has shown fuel prices in the UK since 2026 (Daily Mail on TikTok). | 100M-scale | Navigation with fuel prices on the side. FuelSaver specializes in price comparison. |
| 2026 new copycat small apps: Pump Me (04-08), Prix Essence Diesel (05-13), Je Carbure Malin (05-14, Play 4.7K installs), Rifuel (07-15), Prix Carburant France (08-10), Fuelza (09-01), Jauge (10-21), Carburant : à plein pot (11-02) | iOS/Android (FR) | 2026 | Almost all under 50 ratings | Same government data. FuelSaver is the only one that broke out. |

### Differentiation

The product itself has almost no differentiation. The data is the same government open data, and the features (map/list, sort by price, navigation, full-tank cost) are all things the incumbents already have. The real difference is **distribution** : one codebase across multiple countries, a local keyword title in each store, very high ratings, and (likely) paid acquisition, plus a studio behind it that already runs a working model of "free tool + ads + ad-free subscription". It broke out mainly on timing (the fuel crisis) and store tactics, not product differentiation.

### Visibility

Still few people know about it. Revenue is not public. No media, X, or TikTok coverage turned up, and the French press lists only the established names. The only public traces are the data.gouv.fr reuse listing and the store pages.

### Takeaways

- "News event → government open data → a tool app in a few weeks → local keyword titles across every country with data." Any sudden demand backed by official data (fuel, electricity prices, outages, weather disasters) can be done this way.

- Teams that already have tool apps turn the ad SDK, subscription wall, rating prompt, and multilingual setup into a template, so each new product only swaps the data layer.

- In a category where the incumbents' ads keep getting heavier, a new interface plus high ratings captures users in store search.

### Uncertain

- Whether it advertises on Google and how much: unverified (ad libraries don't track it).

- Subscription revenue: not on the Play grossing chart, no iOS grossing ranking. Revenue is probably mostly ads, scale unknown.

- Retention after fuel prices fall: demand depends heavily on the crisis, and it's unknown whether it can hold after late October. Complaints about data accuracy in the reviews show the product has a weak moat.

- How much of the 4.9 stars came from the rating prompt can't be quantified.

### Sources

- Databases: googleplay (app, app_profile, app_day, chart_rank, v_chart, review, developer, 2026-10-29 through 11-06), appstore (app_day, app_profile), googleads/metaads (not found).

- [www.fuelsaver.one/](https://www.fuelsaver.one/); [codelio.fr/](https://codelio.fr/); [www.data.gouv.fr/reuses/fuelsaver-carte-et-comparaison-des-p…](https://www.data.gouv.fr/reuses/fuelsaver-carte-et-comparaison-des-prix-des-carburants-1); Play page [play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fuelsaver.gasprice…](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fuelsaver.gasprices.stationfinder&hl=fr&gl=fr); iTunes lookup id6761938959 (fr/gb/us).

- Fuel crisis: paris-normandie.fr 2026-04-06; tf1info.fr, leparisien.fr 2026-09-20; actu.fr 2026-09-22; lemonde.fr 2026-09-24, 2026-10-01; supercarbu.fr 2026-10.

- UK Fuel Finder: fuelsindustryuk.org, petrolprices.co.uk (2026-02-02 in effect).

- Gasoil Now ads getting heavier: cartecarburant.com 2026 review.

- TikTok (TikHub search), X (x-radar) queries: 2026-11-06, no content from it.

This article was written by AI from public data and the store data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.