Best Route Planning Software For Delivery Businesses in 2026

Is daily route planning stressing you out? Are you hitting the limits of what you can do with excel spreadsheets and Google Maps? If so, it’s time to try out proper route optimization software that can handle the challenge of planning several multi-stop routes each day with ease.

We tested several different route planning software solutions for businesses. We looked at how easy they were to use, how good the routes were, and how well they handled multiple routes. We also looked at their user ratings on the Capterra independent review site, and their pricing. Our most recent information is from late 2025 and early 2026.

Our top route planners for businesses are:

• Routific: Best for medium-sized local delivery businesses
• Spoke Dispatch: Best for small businesses with simple routing needs
• Onfleet: Best for mid-market and enterprise
• OptimoRoute: Best for field sales and service businesses
• Route4Me: Best if you need maximum flexibility

The second tier includes:

• MapQuest
• RoadWarrior
• RouteXL
• Upper

(If you're a solo driver looking for a mobile app, rather check out our review of mobile route planner apps for drivers).

1. Routific

Routific is route optimization software that’s built to be user-friendly and powerful.  It’s used by delivery operations ranging from a few vehicles to complex, multi-depot fleets. Most Routific customers deliver anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of orders per day.

For example, fresh-pressed organic juice maker Greenhouse Juice accepts orders up to midnight each day, then uses Routific to plan scheduled delivery routes that get its fleet of drivers on the road early in the morning. 

“There are some instances where customers get their orders even faster than Amazon Prime,” — Brian Zaffuto, Greenhouse Juice

Routific has all the standard features for business route planners:

• Route optimization
• Dispatch to a free mobile driver app 
• Real-time tracking 
• Automated customer notifications
• Proof of delivery
• Barcode scanning

Unlike most route planners, Routific also includes a number of features that make a dispatcher’s job easier:

• Simple drag-and-drop route editing, within and between routes, making adjustments intuitive. This is difficult or impossible in most other delivery route planning software.
• A patent pending “draw route” feature that allows users to tell the algorithm what they want their routes to look like.
• A timeline view that shows all routes across the day and updates in real time to show progress. Drag and drop works in timeline view too. 

What sets Routific apart is the quality of our route optimization algorithm, which is constantly being improved to avoid tangled and criss-crossing “spaghetti routes” that drivers hate. We optimize routes for both pure efficiency (shortest distance) and driver acceptability. 

Driver retention is a big issue for many businesses, so working conditions and route quality are important. We make it easy to schedule flexible driver breaks, reassign stops between drivers and send updated route details if anything changes.

Our algorithm takes typical traffic patterns into account when estimating travel times.

“Routific has taken the job of one person and an entire day and transformed it into a 10 to 15 minute process.” — Hamu Sydney, Jason Windows

We also have great customer support. Our support team is 100% in-house (we don’t outsource) and run by actual humans.

Route quality: In our tests Routific’s routes were up to 15% shorter than competitors. On a typical 100-mile daily route, that's 15 miles saved—roughly 30-45 minutes of drive time and several gallons of fuel.

We also had by far the cleanest routes, with little overlap and criss-crossing between routes.

Capterra rating: 4.9 (140+ reviews)

💡Test Routific for yourself. It’s free to try for 7 days.

Pricing

As of mid-2024, Routific switched from a per-vehicle pricing model to a more flexible per-order model with a free tier:

• Up to 100 orders a month: Free
• 101 to 1,000 orders a month: $150
• 1,001 to 2,000 orders a month: Add 15c per order
• 2,001 to 3,000 orders a month: Add 13c per order
• 3,001 to 5,000 orders a month: Add 10c per order
• 5,001 to 10,000 orders a month: Add 8c per order
• 10,000 to 20,000 orders a month: Add 5c per order
• 20,001 to 50,000 orders a month: Add 3c per order
• Above 50,000 orders a month: Talk to us!

What’s included

Every Routific customer gets:

• Multi-vehicle route optimization
• Separate workspaces for routing out of multiple depots or locations
• Unlimited drivers, vehicles, and dispatchers
• Dispatcher tools including a timeline view of all routes, easy drag-and-drop route editing, lasso and move stops, draw routes, and more. 
• Dispatch to a free mobile driver app 
• Real-time GPS tracking
• Photo and signature proof of delivery
• Email customer notifications

SMS customer notifications are an add-on, since they involve third-party message service providers that charge per message. 

When is Routific not a good fit?

Routific is good for situations where delivery routes are scheduled in advance: For example, when a manufacturer or distributor loads trucks at their depot every morning, and drivers deliver to each customer in turn. It’s not a good fit for:

• On demand delivery, where each order is dispatched directly to the customer as soon as it’s received. This is typical for restaurant delivery. 
• Multi-day delivery planning. For example, a business that needs to complete 1,000 stops during the week might want their route planning software to suggest which deliveries should go on which days — for example, by automatically grouping all the deliveries to the east side of the city on Tuesdays. Then a new order for the east side will automatically be planned for Tuesday. This is not something Routific can do easily right now.
• Return to depot: This is when drivers need to make multiple trips to and from a depot or warehouse to complete their delivery routes. It’s common for businesses that use small vehicles like cars, bikes, scooters, and e-bikes.

2. Spoke Dispatch

Spoke (formerly Circuit) began as a popular standalone route planner app for single drivers, well reviewed in both the iOS and Android app stores. Later they expanded their offering to include Spoke Dispatch (formerly Circuit for Teams), which enables multi-stop route planning and dispatch for multiple vehicles. 

Their browser-based app is impressively easy to use. This makes it a good match for small businesses where one person might have to handle multiple roles, including route planning, dispatch and delivery management.  On the downside, in our testing we saw a lot of messy, tangled spaghetti routes. This is a common problem across most route optimization platforms.

With Spoke Dispatch it’s difficult to edit routes or view overall distance and time metrics, which makes it less attractive for route managers who have to track multiple routes and vehicles at the same time.

Route quality: Spoke Dispatch doesn’t show how long its routes are each day, so we had to manually add up the numbers for each individual route. Overall, in our tests the routes are 15% longer than Routific’s and much messier. Our options for editing routes before dispatch were very limited. 

Capterra rating: 4.8 (100+ reviews)

Pricing

Spoke Dispatch offers three price tiers:

• Starter: $125 a month for up to 1,000 stops, then 4c per stop.
• Premium: $200 a month for up to 2,000 stops, then 6c per stop.
• Expert: $1,000 a month up to 12,000 stops, then 7c per stop. 

Spoke Dispatch vs Routific

• Choose Routific if you’re managing multiple routes and drivers and need map and timeline visibility with easy cross-route editing.
• Choose Spoke Dispatch if drivers work more independently and you want a very simple, mobile-first experience with minimal dispatcher oversight.

Bottom line: Routific is stronger for route managers; Spoke Dispatch suits lean teams where drivers largely self-manage.

3. Onfleet

Onfleet bills itself as a “complete toolkit for last mile delivery”. They offer the full set of features you’d hope to find in delivery management software, as well as an automatic driver assignment feature that makes it a good option for on-demand courier businesses. There’s also a live chat option inside the driver app, which dispatchers and drivers love. 

Onfleet’s route planning functions are powerful, but also difficult to use. The interface doesn’t show actual routes, just a collection of pins; and there’s no color coding, so users can’t tell one route from another. Combined with the lack of metrics, this made it impossible for us to tell how good Onfleet’s routes actually were. The lack of a timeline view also makes it difficult for dispatchers to monitor progress in real time. 

Onfleet does have excellent analytics and some unique features like ID verification for regulated deliveries like alcohol or cannabis. But overall the steep learning curve, combined with its high cost, make Onfleet more suitable for mid-market to enterprise-level companies. 

For standard delivery operations, Routific provides the same core capabilities (including real-time tracking, proof of delivery, customer notifications, and a mobile driver app) with significantly better usability and route quality.

Route quality: Onfleet doesn’t show data on route length or indicate actual routes, so there’s no way to tell.

Capterra rating: 4.6 (90+ reviews)

Pricing 

Onfleet’s pricing is pitched at mid-size and larger businesses:

• Starts at $599 per month with a limit of 2,500 pickup or delivery tasks. 
• Barcode scanning, age verification and 5,000 pickup or delivery tasks start at $1,299 per month.
• Enterprise pricing for 10,000+ tasks per month starts at $2,999.

Onfleet vs Routific

• Choose Routific if route quality, planning speed, and dispatcher usability matter more than enterprise workflows.
• Choose Onfleet if you run on-demand or courier-style operations and need advanced task handling, automation, and compliance features.

Bottom line: Routific focuses on efficient planned routing for growing delivery businesses with up to a few thousand orders per day; Onfleet is built for operational complexity at scale.

4. OptimoRoute

OptimoRoute is a powerful routing app with a lot of flexibility and control for you to set up your routes exactly as you wish. It does, however, take some time to learn and understand.

You can set up individual driver profiles with their own shift schedules (including breaks and overtime), start/end locations, skills (if you’re in the field service industry), vehicle types, service areas you want them to stay in, and even cost and speed settings. You can also set up multiple capacity constraints (e.g. weight & volume). OptimoRoute doesn’t include barcode scanning or order taking functionality. 

We couldn’t test as thoroughly as we would have liked, because OptimoRoute limits free trials to 250 stops. Given that limitation, the route optimization was fast — but there was lots of overlap between routes, and it was difficult to edit the routes. 

Route quality: Lots of overlapping and criss-crossing routes.

Capterra rating: 4.6 (200+ reviews)

Pricing

Unlike Routific or Spoke Dispatch, OptimoRoute charges per driver rather than per order or stop. This is helpful if you’re a simple operation with a fixed number of drivers. But if you’re running different numbers of routes or drivers at different times (for example if your business is seasonal), you can end up paying for capacity you’re not using. 

If you sign up for a full year, OptimoRoute’s pricing tiers are:

• $35.10 per driver per month with a limit of 700 orders.
• $44.10 per month for up to 1,000 orders, real-time tracking and proof of delivery. 
• Custom pricing for more complex needs is also available.

OptimoRoute offers a generous 30-day free trial, but the trial is limited to 250 stops so it’s hard to assess how performance will scale.

OptimoRoute vs Routific

• Choose Routific if you want fast setup, clean routes, and tools dispatchers can use confidently every day.
• Choose OptimoRoute if you need deep configuration—driver skills, cost modeling, and highly specific constraints—and can invest time in setup.

Bottom line: Routific prioritizes usability and route acceptability; OptimoRoute prioritizes configurability.

5. Route4Me

Route4Me is one of the original route planning and route optimization tools, with a well-developed marketplace of add-on features so that you customize it to your needs. For example, you can add on support for curbside pickup, avoiding left or right turns, or for allocating stops to time windows. 

There are some things about it we found strange, though. Route4Me automatically optimizes its routes to use the smallest possible number of vehicles, and this setting can’t be changed. This makes things awkward if you have your own fleet and drivers — Route4Me could leave one driver sitting idle while another works overtime. We also found their ETA estimations unrealistic. For example, on one route section that Routific and Google Maps both estimated would take 18-19 minutes, Route4Me estimated just 10 minutes. Journey times are routinely under-estimated, which can lead to lots of late deliveries and a very poor customer experience. We found we needed to do lots of extra work to get realistic routes ready for dispatch. 

Route quality: Slightly shorter routes than Routific’s, but with lots of overlapping spaghetti routes.

Capterra rating: 4.4 (380+ reviews)

Pricing

As of January 2026, Route4Me’s pricing is not publicly available, and they no longer offer a 7-day free trial. You will have to contact their sales team to discuss pricing, and to test the software. 

These are the three Route4Me pricing tiers that were published before January 2026:

• Basic route optimization started at $400 a month for a 5-user plan. This allowed optimization for one driver or route at a time, but not across routes or depots.
• Multi-driver and multi-depot optimization started at $600 per month.  

Additional modules like SMS customer notifications, curbside delivery, or field service routing are add-ons that will increase the cost. 

Route4Me vs Routific

• Choose Routific if you need realistic ETAs, balanced workloads across drivers, and routes that dispatchers and drivers can trust without heavy manual cleanup.
• Choose Route4Me if you want maximum flexibility through add-ons and don’t mind paying a premium for the ability to configure the system to fit your operation.

Bottom line: Routific emphasizes clean, driver-acceptable routes out of the box; Route4Me offers broad flexibility, but may require more setup to produce workable daily routes.

Second-tier route planning software

These apps don’t make our list of the best delivery route planning software, but they are a good option for some use cases. One of these might be right for you if:

• You’re a micro business or charity
• You don’t have many stops to make
• You don’t need to plan multiple routes each day
• You need a free or very low-cost option

SoloRoute

SoloRoute is a Routific side project, created when we realized there was a need for a genuinely free mobile route planner app. There are two versions:

1. SoloRoute Mobile is a mobile driver app that allows optimizing up to 20 stops per route for free, with unlimited routes available. It includes basic functionality like navigation between stops, and the ability to mark stops as complete. 
2. SoloRoute Web allows you to optimize up to 25 stops at a time in a browser for free. The optimized route can be sent to Google Maps for navigation. 

RouteXL

RouteXL is one of the oldest route optimization apps around, and it shows. The interface feels a little old and clunky, and it can only optimize one route at a time, which means you miss out on the benefits of multi-vehicle optimization. That said, if you’re a one-vehicle business with a limited number of stops to handle, this is an option worth testing. It’s also free up to 20 stops per day. 

Route quality: Difficult to assess because of the 20-stop limit. Can only optimize one route at a time.

Capterra rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Pricing: Free up to 20 stops, or from €35 EUR/month (around $40) for a 100-stop package. 

Mapquest

Mapquest Route Planner, another veteran site, is a simple but effective route planning app that is free up to 26 stops. It’s quick and easy to use for basic route optimization, although there are no extra delivery management features like dispatch to a driver app, customer notifications or tracking. 

Once your route is optimized you can print out the directions, or send them via SMS or email. But when we tried the share option it rejected our mobile phone number as invalid, and the email never arrived, so we wouldn’t rely on this. 

Mapquest is ad-funded, so if you find intrusive advertising annoying this won’t work for you. 

Route quality: Difficult to assess because of the stop limit. Can only optimize one route at a time.

Capterra rating: Not reviewed by Capterra. 

Pricing: Free but limited to 26 stops.

RoadWarrior

RoadWarrior is mainly a mobile route planner app that recently added a “teams” feature, called RoadWarrior Flex, aimed at dispatchers managing multiple drivers. It has moderately good reviews. It’s popular with courier drivers because it gives the ability to upload a Fedex manifest directly. 

We didn’t directly test RoadWarrior because we didn’t feel comfortable giving our credit card details before signing up for the free trial. Judging by other reviews, though, it’s best suited to solo drivers.

Capterra rating: 4.5 (50+ reviews)

Pricing: From $49 per month.

Upper

Upper is easy to use, with a friendly web-based route optimization tool that can handle up to 500 addresses. It doesn’t really have anything to make it stand out from the competition, though: it’s slower and offers fewer features than Routific for a similar price, it’s less easy to use than Circuit, and it can’t match the feature set of Onfleet or Optimoroute.  That said, there’s no reason not to use Upper if you like the interface and it works for you.

Route quality: Spaghetti routes with lots of overlap and criss-crossing.

Capterra rating: 4.6 (40+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $40 per month per driver on an annual plan, or $50 per user per month paid monthly. The starter plan includes route optimization, but not any other features a delivery operation might need like live tracking, proof of delivery, or customer notifications. 

What’s the difference between route planning and route optimization?

Do you need a route planner app, or a route optimization app? What’s the difference, anyway? We’ve written a whole article about the difference between route planning and route optimization, but basically:

1. Route planning is the part of delivery operations that starts with collecting orders and addresses, and continues through optimizing routes, inspecting and editing those routes, dispatching the routes to drivers, communicating ETAs to customers, and confirming final delivery. ‍
2. Route optimization is the process of arranging route plans to find the most efficient, cost-effective sequence of stops for completing all deliveries on time.

Route optimization exists because planning efficient multi-stop routes is really, really hard. Experienced drivers know the best routes for getting from one place to another in their cities. But with every stop you add, creating an efficient sequence gets more difficult. With 20 or more stops, there are hundreds or thousands of good-enough routes to choose from — so how do you choose the best? Route optimization algorithms can compare billions of possibilities to come up with the most efficient routes. It takes a lot of computing power, though — which is why it’s only in the past decade or so that route optimization has become accessible to small and medium-sized businesses.

The benefits of route optimization

The main reasons to use route optimization are related to efficiency gains:

• Shorter routes means less distance driven, which means lower operating costs because you’re using less fuel and fewer driver hours.
• Less time spent in the back office on route planning means drivers can get on the road faster.
• Accurate ETAs increase the number of on-time deliveries and boost customer satisfaction. 
• Real-time tracking, combined with daily, weekly or monthly analytics, makes both driver management and fleet management easier. 

How we tested delivery route planners for this review

We tested all these apps ourselves in free trial mode:

• We used the same stop data for each test, covering the same metro area.
• Depending on the limitations of the trial, we test each app with 250-700 stops, with time windows.
• This is a fair representation of the workload a typical small to medium-sized delivery business would face in a day.

Every app in our list has these key features:

• Route optimization: Quickly find the fastest routes for multiple vehicles.
• Dispatch management: One-click dispatch to a driver mobile app (either Android or iPhone), and real-time tracking through the day.
• Customer management: Send customer notifications about ETAs and completed deliveries.

A route planner is not the same thing as a navigation app, so none of these apps include driving directions. Instead, they all give drivers the option to use Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze for actual turn-by-turn directions and real-time traffic updates.

All these features are fairly standard across all the delivery route planners we tested. So we looked at the features which distinguish one route planning solution from another:

• Ease of use: How easy is it to get started and figure out how to use the software productively?
• Speed: How long did it take to get routes ready for dispatch?
• Route efficiency: What’s the total length of all the optimized routes? Shorter driving distance means lower fuel costs and wage bills, so route efficiency is a critical metric. 
• Route acceptability: Do the routes make sense to dispatchers and delivery drivers?
• User ratings: We looked at ratings on Capterra, an independent software review site owned by Gartner. 

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