A cardlock site is a fuel island with no cashier and no candy aisle, open all night, built for a truck and nothing else. For commercial fleets it is the fast, controlled way to fuel. For the jobber who runs one, it is a business built on cards, authorizations, and clean billing.
What cardlock is
Cardlock is a network of unattended, 24/7 fueling sites for commercial vehicles. There is no store and no attendant. A driver pulls up, uses a dedicated fleet card to unlock the pump, and fuels. The sites are designed around trucks: tall canopies, wide turning room, high-flow pumps, and often diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) on the island.
How a fill-up works
The flow is quick by design:
- The driver swipes the cardlock card at the pump.
- The system prompts for what the card requires: a vehicle ID, an odometer reading, a driver code.
- It authorizes the purchase against that card's rules, then releases the fuel.
- Every gallon is logged to the card, the driver, and the vehicle.
The networks: CFN and Pacific Pride
Two networks dominate North America: CFN (Commercial Fueling Network) and Pacific Pride. CFN lists about 3,000 cardlock locations and Pacific Pride about 1,400. Both can extend a card beyond the cardlock map: Pacific Pride shares a parent company, Corpay, with the Fuelman retail network, which puts tens of thousands of staffed stations within reach of one account. That reach is what lets an independent jobber offer a regional fleet national-scale coverage without owning every pump.
Why fleets prefer it
- Speed. Commercial-only sites are less crowded, so trucks fuel and leave.
- Control. Each card can be capped by time, location, and amount.
- Always open. 24/7 access fits routes that do not run nine to five.
- Clean reporting. One itemized invoice replaces a glovebox of receipts.
The back office behind it
For the jobber, a cardlock program means tracking authorizations, pricing, and settlement across many cards, vehicles, and sites, then turning all of it into accurate, itemized billing. FastDragon Fleet is built for exactly that: card and site management, purchase controls, and consolidated invoicing, tied into the same back office that handles your IFTA reporting and accounting. It is one animal in the family, alongside the Fuel Jobber platform.
Questions people ask
Is cardlock fuel cheaper than retail?
It is priced differently rather than always lower. Most cardlock accounts buy on cost-plus pricing tied to the wholesale rack price, not the posted street price, which makes the cost steadier and easier to budget. For high-volume fleets that usually beats paying retail, though a street-corner price war can undercut it on any given day.
Who can use a cardlock station?
Commercial accounts only. A business opens an account with a network member, usually a local fuel marketer, gets cards issued under its own purchase rules, and can then fuel anywhere that network reaches. The general public cannot swipe an ordinary credit card at a cardlock island.
What is the difference between a cardlock card and a fleet card like WEX or Fuelman?
Fleet cards such as WEX, Fuelman, and Comdata run at staffed retail stations on ordinary payment terminals. A cardlock card is what unlocks commercial sites, and its purchase rules live at the pump itself. Many fleets carry both so drivers have a retail fallback when no cardlock site sits on the route.
Why do cardlock sites sell DEF at the pump?
Most diesel trucks built since 2010 use selective catalytic reduction and consume diesel exhaust fluid as they run, so fleets buy it constantly. Pumping DEF in bulk at the island costs far less per gallon than buying jugs at retail, which makes it a standard fixture at truck-oriented sites.
Can cardlock data feed IFTA reports?
Yes. Each transaction is stamped with the site, state, date, gallons, and vehicle, which is the exact detail an IFTA quarterly return is built from. Fleets that fuel mainly on cardlock can pull jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction gallons from their statements instead of chasing paper receipts.