10 Best Delivery Route Planner Apps for 2024

keyTL;DR:
  • The blog reviews 10 delivery route planner apps, evaluating them based on user interface, route quality, and user ratings.
  • Upper is highlighted for its features like route optimization, real-time tracking, and automated notifications for businesses of all sizes.
  • Other notable apps include DynoRoute for solo drivers, Routific for small to medium businesses, and Onfleet for enterprise-level companies.

Is planning your daily delivery routes getting out of hand?

Are you overwhelmed with frequent manual routing inefficiencies?

Or are you hitting the wall while using Google Maps or Waze for multi-stop route planning?

If so, it is time to switch to a delivery map maker and end all your routing woes.

However, finding the right app from a plethora of options available on the market can be hard, especially when they all claim to be the ‘best.’ 

This is why we have compiled a list of the 10 delivery route planning apps in this blog to help you make the right choice. , as follows.

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How We Evaluated These Delivery Route Planner Apps for You?

delivery route planner
Best Route Planning Apps

We understand the challenges delivery drivers face because we’ve been in the industry for years. That’s why we’ve curated a list of the 10 best delivery route planning apps designed to simplify the delivery routes.

To finalize our selection, we conducted extensive research across review platforms, forums, social media, and articles. We also tested each delivery driver app ourselves by signing up for free trials and evaluating key features like route optimization, quick dispatch, GPS tracking, and delivery notification software.

Our evaluation criteria included:

  • User Interface: How easy is it to use the app effectively?
  • Route Quality: Are the routes straightforward and easy to navigate?
  • User Ratings: We considered independent reviews on platforms like Capterra.

1. Upper

Best for: All types and sizes of delivery businesses, ranging from startups to enterprises

User rating: 4.5/5 (37)

route planning app
Upper’s Ecosystem

Upper Route Planner for Teams

Upper New Route Plans
Upper for Teams Intuitive Dashboard

Upper is a comprehensive delivery route planner app focusing on accuracy, speed, timeliness, and adaptability. 

For accuracy, our route planner app enables importing up to 500 stops from the Excel spreadsheet and flags incorrect or duplicate addresses. This solves the problem of manual routing errors and makes a driver’s job easier.

For speed and timeliness, we provide sophisticated routing algorithms to create the shortest and most efficient routes based on delivery time windows, traffic, or drivers’ availability. 

For adaptability, our platform allows mid-route edits to handle priority changes, emergencies, last-minute orders, or cancellations. 

We prioritize drivers’ well-being to boost their retention. This is why we facilitate reassigning the remaining stops along a route to another available team member when a delivery driver calls in sick.

Here are a few more features that you’ll love.

  • One-click dispatch to minimize the time spent on sending routes to drivers one by one
  • Driver real-time tracking software to achieve last-mile visibility
  • Automated delivery notifications to keep customers engaged
  • Verification of successful deliveries by capturing e-signatures and photos
  • Actionable reports & insights to evaluate and improve your delivery performance

Pricing for Teams: 

Upper’s pricing for teams starts at $40 per user per month, with a minimum charge of $120 per month, which includes access for up to 3 users.

Upper Route Planner for Solo Drivers

If you’re an independent delivery driver aiming for the shortest, most cost-efficient routes to ace your daily deliveries, Upper Solo is your go-to solution.

Whether you’re navigating city streets or rural routes, Upper Solo is one such delivery driver app that empowers you to plan smarter, save time, and reduce costs with ease.

With Upper Solo, you can:

  • Slash your planning time to just 5 minutes. 
  • Maximizes your delivery efficiency and minimizes fuel costs.
  • Handle traffic jams and last-minute changes seamlessly. 
  • Capture and store delivery proofs effortlessly
  • Gain valuable insights to make informed decisions
upper solo app
Upper for Solo Drivers

User Interface: It is easily navigable and has clear instructions to guide first-time users through how it works and help them utilize the features efficiently. 

Route Quality: Upper may take a little time to generate routes, especially if you have many stops. However, the end result is worth your wait as it not only creates 20% more efficient routes but also avoids crisscrossing and ‘spaghetti’ paths that may be shorter but messier. 

Free Trial: 3-days

Platforms: 

Android & iOS

Pricing for Solo Drivers: 

Upper for Solo drivers starts at $4.99/week with options on monthly and yearly plans.

Pros:

  • Simple and bulk address upload through the spreadsheet import
  • High routing accuracy with address validation ability
  • Robust live tracking, offline navigation, and extensive integration capabilities
  • Excellent customer support during onboarding 

Cons:

  • No barcode scanning
  • Limited features in the free trial version

Effortless Delivery Management for All

From solo hustlers to growing teams, Upper empowers efficient deliveries for all. Optimize routes, track drivers, and slash delivery time & costs.<br />

2. DynoRoute

Best for: Independent or solo drivers who need an optimal multi-stop route planner

User rating: 4.9/5 (71)

Download DynoRoute!

If you are looking for a flexible pricing model for planning multi-stop delivery routes, DynoRoute can be a good option. Every credit you buy strengthens your claim for better rates. 

DynoRoute credits
DynoRoute Credits

We also loved the freedom it provides to customize stops by adding special instructions or delivery preferences. It can be the best multi-stop route planning app for drivers working as independent contractors looking to simplify daily routing.

Their latest version has also introduced support for two more languages, Spanish and Portuguese, increasing its cross-border usability.  

User interface: Clean and user-friendly navigation that doesn’t require a steep learning curve.

Route Quality: Straightforward and driver-friendly routes with no overlapping and crisscrossing.  

Pricing:

Starts at $9.99 and provides 500 credits

Platforms:

iOS

Pros:

  • Intuitive interface to ensure smooth onboarding
  • Detailed reporting to expedite data-driven decisions
  • Enhanced route visualization for better analysis

Cons:

  • Not available for Android users
  • Doesn’t function without stable internet 

3. Routific

Best for: Small to medium-sized local delivery businesses

User rating: 4.9/5 (126)

Small to medium-sized local delivery businesses

Routific stands out for its real-time traffic-based routing, which optimizes routes based on up-to-the-moment traffic patterns, which OptimoRoute doesn’t do. We also loved the timeline view it offers to track the route progress throughout the day.

If drivers are well-acquainted with a region, they can complete deliveries faster and more efficiently. Routific takes care of this by letting you define and assign territories to drivers based on their knowledge of local routes. 

Everything was smooth until we tested customer notifications. As Routific allows limited characters and logos, it restricts their customizability. If order-taking and barcode scanning are deal-breakers for you, this app lacks them. 

Did you know?

There are alternatives to Routific that outperform it significantly.

User interface: The interface appears clean but has too few instructions to guide users, especially first-timers.

Route Quality: Adequate but not outstanding. While it helped shorten delivery distances, overlapping or crisscrossing between routes was noticed.

Free Trial: 7 Days

Pricing:

Routific’s pricing starts at $49 per vehicle per month

Platforms:

Android, iOS

Pros:

  • Predefined route templates to define constraints faster
  • Bulk delivery address import to accelerate routing

Cons:

  • Integration problems hampering workflows
  • Missing in-app chat that limits mobile communication 

4. Circuit

Best for: Small businesses with basic routing requirements

User rating: 4.8/5 (99)

Small businesses with basic routing requirements

Circuit Route Planner lets you upload delivery destinations from a CSV file via postcodes, camera scan, and voice search. This allows you to add stops the way you like and expedites address entry (unless you choose to enter stops manually!).

You can also set priority stops to plan routes accordingly and use the “vehicle loading” functionality to note the position of each package in the vehicle. This saves you time finding and unloading the desired parcel at the intended delivery destination. 

While Circuit Route Planner allows for modifying routes in real-time, this app may feel like a drag without a high-speed cellular data connection.

Want to know about Circuit in detail? We spent our time and tested all Circuit features, so you don’t have to. Read our complete Circuit Review to get a better idea of the tool.

User Interface: Clean and intuitive interface – good for even beginners.

Route Quality: While the routes are not bad, they are not as acceptable and navigable as desired. Also, in some cases, we had to calculate the length of routes manually, as the system failed to show their length. We couldn’t edit in-progress routes, which was aggravating our inconvenience.

Free Trial: 7 Days

Pricing:

It includes 10 free stops, and then Circuit pricing starts at $20 per month for up to 500 stops. The price varies by country.

Platforms: 

Android, iOS customer satisfaction delivery services fastest route

Pros:

  • Detailed delivery analytics to evaluate overall performance
  • Multi-depot management to manage multiple depots efficiently

Cons:

  • Missing CSV file upload function for iOS users
  • Occasionally, messy and tangled routes frustrate drivers

Upgrade from Basic Routing Apps!

While Circuit Route Planner is user-friendly, Upper offers superior AI-powered route planning, real-time tracking, and customer notifications.

5. Route4Me

Best for: Large delivery businesses looking for flexible pricing models

User rating: 4.5/5 (388)

Large delivery businesses looking for flexible pricing models

Route4Me is a feature-rich stand-alone delivery app for drivers best known for its customizability. Unlike other software like Routific or Circuit, this cloud-based route planning solution offers add-ons to meet your unique business needs. 

We could easily resequence our routes anytime using it, making navigation flexible and adaptable to real-time changes. 

Equipped with features like geocoding and territory mapping within the app, Route4Me helps save you the hassle of entering stops manually and making territories out of them to distribute them among drivers. 

However, testing revealed serious issues with its speed as it slows down due to the continuous collection of data. Customers also found the process of marking a route ‘Complete’ tedious in their latest app update as they had to press multiple buttons for it (as our tests revealed).

If Route4Me’s limitations are a deal-breaker for you, consider exploring alternatives to Route4Me.

User Interface: A little clunkier compared to apps like Routific or Upper

Route Quality: Routes may be shorter than Upper but with many overlapping instances. Moreover, journey times are mostly underestimated, leading to inaccurate ETAs.

Free Trial: 7 Days

Pricing:

Route4Me’s pricing starts at $49 per month

Platforms: 

Android, iOS

Pros:

  • Free 10 stops per route
  • In-app voice navigation

Cons:

  • Driver tracking and delivery analytics are absent 
  • Frequent messy and tangled routes

6. RoadWarrior

Best for: Independent drivers and courier services

User rating: 4.5/5 (52)

Independent drivers and courier services

Equipped with robust routing, RoadWarrior offers both a mobile app for drivers and the RoadWarrior Flex web app for teams, making it suitable for individuals and businesses alike. The ‘drag-and-drop’ functionality to move stops for route adjustments is pretty cool. 

We also liked how it allows for merging different routes into one to ensure deliveries within stipulated time windows.

Though the RoadWarrior Flex web app supports uploading manifests from FedEx, UPS, OnTrac, and Amazon, that doesn’t match the convenience of spreadsheet upload that Route4Me, Circuit, or Upper offer. 

Interested in learning more about RoadWarrior? But don’t have enough time to exre ploand test its all features? Don’t worry, we have done the lifting for you. Just dive into this RoadWarrior review.

User Interface: Cluttered and unintuitive, making it hard to navigate.

Free Trial: 7 Days

Route Quality: It facilitates considering multiple variables, including traffic, school zones, tolls, or one-way trips, while optimizing routes, making route optimization mostly reliable. However, it doesn’t flag duplicate or incorrect addresses that may lead to routing inaccuracies.

Pricing: 

Starts at $14.99 per month per team member, includes 200 stops per route, and allows 500 optimized stops daily per driver

Platforms:

Android, iOS

Pros:

  • Efficient route optimization 
  • Bulk order import/export to 

Cons:

  • Confusing interface making navigation challenging
  • Expensive add-ons starting at $10 for as important functionality as Proof of Delivery

7. Zeo

Best for: Driver fleet management 

User rating: 4.6/5 (29)

Driver fleet management 

Zeo has the potential to manage last-mile deliveries end-to-end. The flexibility to edit, delete, or reroute your dispatched routes is simply great.

Talking of the features, it lets you:

  • Upload stops from a spreadsheet along with stop-specific notes, 
  • Navigate routes using your preferred GPS app
  • Capture the digital signatures or photos of delivered items
  • Note the position of each parcel to expedite its unloading at the desired destination.

However, we faced difficulty uploading delivery manifests automatically, forcing us to upload them manually. Despite signing up for a premium subscription, the app prompted us to pay again when trying to navigate, revealing the flaws in using the free trial. 

Feel free to explore alternative options to Zeo that surpass its limitations.

User Interface: A little more complex to use than Upper or Routific.

Route Quality: Despite being adequate, it gave problems that required us to add a fake address when rerouting. We also faced some bugs that led us to restart the app a few times to continue navigation.

Free Trial: 7 Days

Pricing:  

Zeo Route Planner’s pricing starts at $11.97 per seat per month

Platforms: 

Android, iOS

Pros: 

  • Extensive feature set good for versatility
  • Ease of editing stops

Cons:

  • Confusing interface
  • Occasional bugs and glitches

8. Onfleet

Best For: Mid-market to enterprise-level companies 

User rating: 4.6/5 (93)

Mid-market to enterprise-level companies

Onfleet bills itself as a “complete last-mile delivery solution” that can handle your end-to-end delivery processes. Testing this claim revealed that route optimization was satisfactory but offset by the inability to flag duplicate addresses while importing stops in bulk. 

We found solace in the auto-assign functionality that forms a perfect fit for on-demand businesses, though. This feature auto-allocates tasks to drivers based on availability, location, or skills, to save time and increase fleet dispatching efficiency. 

Unlike Routific or Circuit, Onfleet provides more features, including barcode scanning, but may be more expensive, especially if you have a small delivery business with a handful of customers. 

If Onfleet’s features aren’t meeting your needs, explore superior Onfleet alternatives tailored to your specific requirements.

User interface: Complex at first glance. Onfleet consolidates dispatching and routing operations to give a unified view that may simplify delivery management, though arguably. This is because we found it cluttered with many features that confused us.

Route Quality: Routes created are okayish, if not bad, but there is no color coding to indicate stops along different routes, making it hard to distinguish them. 

Pricing: 

Launch Plan of Onfleet pricing starts at $550/month, which is ideal for small teams, and the Scale Plan starts at $1,265/month, which is suitable for growing operations.

Platforms: 

Android, iOS

Pros:

  • Integrated forms to collect customers’ feedback
  • Real-time visibility into drivers’ locations

Cons:

  • Missing route visualization to tell routes apart
  • Address import inaccuracies causing routing errors

9. OptimoRoute

Best for: Businesses with extensive multi-day routing needs

User rating: 4.6/5 (153)

Businesses with extensive multi-day routing needs

If you seek flexibility in setting up multi-day routes to handle a high volume of pickups and deliveries, OptimoRoute may come in handy for you. The speed of planning – around 1000 routes in minutes, as it claims and our tests found, is really impressive. 

What came as a dampener was criss-crossing and overlapping between routes that were a little beyond ‘acceptable’ (at least that’s what we felt) and inaccurate ETAs to make matters worse.

The’ Return to Depot’ functionality is quite valuable for businesses with multiple stops to cover daily and need drivers to restock their vehicles at least once a day. It allows you to add the depot automatically as a stop on a driver’s route. 

You can also input the number of minutes your delivery driver needs for reloading to plan routes accordingly. However, we couldn’t find geofencing or cash-on-delivery options.

Explore OptimoRoute alternatives that offer more robust features and flexibility

User interface: A little clunky but packed with powerful features at first sight.

Route Quality: While OptimoRoute plans routes in the blink of an eye, some routes were longer than normal, and there was evident crisscrossing in quite a few places, which repulsed us.

Free trial: 30 Days

Pricing:

The Lite Plan’s monthly fee is $39, and the Pro Plan’s fee is $49, with custom options available in OptimoRoute pricing.

Platforms: 

Android, iOS

Pros:

  • Efficient route scheduling capabilities
  • Multiple driver management

Cons: 

  • Unintuitive interface confusing users
  • Imprecise ETAs causing customer dissatisfaction

10. Logistia

Best for: Businesses requiring core route management functions

User rating: 4.7/5 (15)

Logistia route planner

Logisita simplifies and optimizes delivery route planning using intelligent algorithms. It also helps define delivery areas to ensure focused and efficient routing for each. 

Customizing routes based on unique driver preferences or familiarity with areas can help ensure better delivery management with minimal issues. 

We liked how it allows for adding product details to drivers’ orders to help them verify their contents before heading out for the day. Financial reports that display the total amount received and payment methods can also be an asset in monitoring financial performance. 

However, loading maps when in use didn’t work well for us as it was too slow. Moreover, picking one order at a time instead of moving all the desired orders to the next day tested our patience. 

The base plan is expensive, considering it doesn’t provide live tracking and ETA notifications.

User Interface: Quite modern and interactive with instructions but has a few glitches and bugs here and there, especially in real-time driver tracking.

Route Quality: Overall, it’s decent, but there are some issues loading and displaying generated routes (and that’s a problem if we prioritize high speed).

Free Trial: 14 Days

Pricing:

Starts at $19 per driver per month (250 addresses/driver), doesn’t provide tracking

Platforms: 

Android, iOS

Pros: 

  • Flexible route management 
  • Proof of delivery

Cons: 

  • Glitches with live tracking 
  • Slow loading of maps hampering operational speed

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Frequently Asked Questions

A multi-stop delivery route planner is software that helps businesses plan the most efficient routes for their delivery drivers. It may also provide advanced features like route optimization, live tracking, live driver tracking, delivery notifications, and proof of delivery.

A route planning & route scheduling software solution considers constraints like time windows, stop duration, drivers’ working hours, break durations, and traffic to create the most efficient routes. This helps complete deliveries on time while reducing the extra miles and time wasted on the road, maximizing profit margins, and keeping customers happy.

All delivery route planners must provide multi-constrained route optimization to create the most efficient sequence of stops based on delivery distances, business hours, drivers’ start and end times, or priorities. Advanced delivery apps for drivers like Upper also provide vehicle capacity optimization, live tracking, and proof of delivery.

Yes, there are several free route planner apps available that can help you plan your journeys effectively. For instance; Google Maps, Waze, MapQuest, etc. Each of these apps has unique features, so you can choose one that best fits your needs.

You can use a multi-stop route planner app to plan and create optimized routes. You input the addresses of your stops, and the app optimizes the route for the most efficient path, considering factors like traffic, time windows, speed limits, business availability, school zones, and specific delivery options and constraints.

Upper is one of the best apps for delivery drivers that allows businesses to plan, optimize, and schedule unlimited routes with up to 500 stops. The driver app allows you to manage routing operations with simple taps, saving time, effort, and fuel costs.

Streamline Your Daily Delivery Operations with Efficient Routes

Before you complete your daily delivery schedules, you can lay the groundwork for a successful day by choosing the most optimal routes. Using a delivery map maker can help here.

While several apps are available on the market, your choice of a mobile delivery driver dispatch app depends on your company size, unique feature requirements, budget, and how it helps you address your pain points. 

One thing you must consider is that not every mathematically efficient route turns out to be a practically ‘good’ route. It may involve lots of tangling, overlaps, and crisscrossing, causing drivers to keep circling in the same areas without progress.

Author Bio
Rakesh Patel
Rakesh Patel

Rakesh Patel, author of two defining books on reverse geotagging, is a trusted authority in routing and logistics. His innovative solutions at Upper Route Planner have simplified logistics for businesses across the board. A thought leader in the field, Rakesh's insights are shaping the future of modern-day logistics, making him your go-to expert for all things route optimization. Read more.