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Petrosoft, a leading provider of technology for gas stations and convenience stores, has addressed these exact questions in recent articles (specifically their April 2026 updates).
Here is a summary of the insights from their blog regarding high gas prices and how station owners are actually making money.
Are gas station owners making more money from high prices?
According to Petrosoft, the short answer is no – at least not from the gas itself. Petrosoft points out that the average fuel margin for a U.S. convenience store typically hovers between 8 and 14 cents per gallon. Once you subtract credit card processing fees (which rise as the total price of gas rises), that margin shrinks even further.
- The “Door Handle” Theory: They describe the gas pump as just the “door handle” to the business. Owners often lose money or barely break even on fuel to remain competitive and draw drivers into the lot.
- The Squeeze: When gas prices stay high for a long time, operating expenses (like labor and electricity) usually rise as well, meaning owners’ “take-home pay” is often squeezed rather than increased.
How are the successful owners actually making money?
While they aren’t getting rich off the gas, “top-performing” operators are using specific strategies to find profit elsewhere. Petrosoft identifies several ways they do this:
- The “Inside” Game: The real profit is made inside the store. Successful owners focus on high-margin items like coffee, fountain drinks, and prepared foods, which have much higher profit margins than a gallon of gas.
- Automated Fuel Pricing: Owners who make money in a high-price environment have stopped “guessing” or checking competitors manually once a week. They use automated tools to pull real-time data and adjust prices multiple times a day to find an extra 2 – 4 cents of margin per gallon.
- Plugging “Invisible Leaks”: Petrosoft highlights that many stores lose thousands a month to “silent leaks” – manual data entry errors, uncollected tobacco rebates, and inventory shrinkage (theft or loss). Profitable owners use back-office software to track every scan against every delivery.
- Data-Driven Loyalty: Instead of just giving a random discount, successful owners use loyalty programs to collect data and “nudge” customers to buy specific items inside the store where the margins are better.
See if you are Positioned to Profit from Gas Price Spikes?
Where can you learn how they do it?
Petrosoft points to several resources on their blog for owners looking to “fix” their margins:
- CStoreOffice: Their cloud-based back-office software that automates fuel pricing and inventory.
- Loss Prevention Analytics: Tools that link POS data with video to stop internal theft.
The Takeaway: If a gas station owner looks like they are “winning” during high gas prices, it’s usually because they’ve mastered the technology of the back office and the retail sales inside the store, not because they are overcharging at the pump.
