Best Courier Software: Find The Right Solution For Your Business

Choosing the best software solution for a last-mile courier business is tough. Software review sites like G2, Capterra and GetApp offer dozens and sometimes hundreds of options, many of them irrelevant. So where do you start?

We’re here to help! We actually understand courier business models, unlike massive review sites which cover everything from email marketing to accounting to workforce management. In this review we’ll look at the best options for two main types of courier business:

1. On-demand delivery: Customers use on-demand delivery services when speed is the most important thing. They could be sending lab samples or legal documents, or need a critical machine part at the last minute. On-demand couriers need software that can help them schedule pickups and deliveries across a city, and get from place to place as quickly as possible. 
2. Batched deliveries: When there’s time to assemble a group of orders, it’s sensible to batch them so that one vehicle can make a series of deliveries along a pre-planned route. This is much more cost-effective, especially if the delivery business uses route optimization software to increase deliveries per route — which lowers cost per delivery. 

Batched deliveries are usually next-day or later. But with the right delivery management system, it’s possible to do same-day batched deliveries as well. For example, Routific’s customer Trunkrs in the Netherlands picks up parcels in the morning, optimizes routes around midday, then delivers in the afternoon and evening.

We’ve set this article up in two main parts:

1. A decision framework with a set of questions to help you define your delivery process and identify your software needs.
2. Detailed software reviews with information about features, pricing, and what kind of use case is the best fit. We’ve based these reviews on a combination of our own tests (using free trial versions), what our customers have told us, and what we’ve learned from reading independent reviews on the big review sites. 

If you just want to skim the reviews, jump ahead to that section. Otherwise, let’s take a look at how to choose courier software:

How to choose courier software: A decision framework

Last-mile delivery software has become increasingly specialised for different use cases in the past few years, and there’s no best option for all cases. To help narrow down your options, ask yourself these five questions:

1. What's your delivery model?

• On-demand/same-day delivery → Prioritize auto-dispatch and real-time tracking.
• Scheduled delivery → Route optimization quality is paramount.

2. How many vehicles do you run?

• <5 vehicles → Look for software that is easy to implement and use, with a low entry cost and flexible pricing to accommodate growth.
• 5-15 vehicles → You need a good balance between features, simplicity, and cost.
• 15+ vehicles → Advanced features may justify higher monthly costs.

3. What systems do you already have?

• Starting from scratch → An all-in-one solution is worth considering.
• Existing order management → Look for integration, not duplication.
• Custom tech stack → Look for APIs to add specialist functionality, like route optimization, that is expensive or difficult to develop in-house.

4. What pricing model fits your business?

• You employ a consistent number of drivers and spread work between them → A per-driver pricing model is a good fit. 
• Your driver numbers scale up and down according to demand → You’ll need a per-task or per-stop pricing model.

5. What's your budget? 

Route optimization typically saves 15-20% on fuel and time costs. If you run 50 routes daily at $30 average cost per route, that's $225-450 potential daily savings. Software that costs less than $2,000 per month will pay for itself. 

Calculate your own numbers: [daily routes] × [cost per route] × 0.15 = daily savings potential.

Courier software features: Dealbreakers vs nice to haves

Whatever kind of courier you are, there is some software functionality that is non-negotiable:

1. Real-time driver tracking: Knowing where your vehicles are via phone-based GPS tracking, without drivers needing to call in, makes for much more efficient scheduling and management.
2. Customer notifications: Delivering a great customer experience is a competitive advantage. Ideally, you should be able to let them know when their delivery is arriving, within a 60-minute window or even less. If there’s a delay, they’ll need updated ETAs. 
3. Proof of delivery: You need to be able to prove the package was delivered to the customer in good order. Signatures and photographs are the most commonly used proofs of delivery.
4. Reporting: End-of-shift or end-of-day reports are essential for billing and payroll management.  

For last-mile delivery operations that do batched deliveries, route optimization is also critical. Gross margins for batched deliveries are massively impacted by routing efficiency, so the right routing engine can make a big difference to profitability.

Optional courier software features

Depending on your business model and what other software you are using, you may or may not need your courier management system to include:

• Order taking
• Label printing
• Customer management
• Barcode scanning
• Billing and invoicing
• Third-party integrations

Every feature you add will add to the cost of your system. The ideal is a courier dispatch software solution that is scalable with your business, but doesn’t include unnecessary features or ones that duplicate what you already have. 

How route optimization impacts ROI for courier software

Cost per delivery directly determines profitability, and is one of the most important metrics for any courier business to track.

The main components of cost per delivery are fuel costs, vehicle costs, and driver wages. Fuel prices are given, vehicle costs are largely fixed, and cutting driver wages isn’t a great idea if you still want drivers! That leaves route efficiency as the most important influence on delivery profit margins: the more deliveries you can make per route, the lower your cost per delivery. 

Route optimization is the most effective way to increase route efficiency. It uses smart algorithms to quickly sort through thousands of routing options and find the most efficient ones. 

The most efficient route is not necessarily the shortest one. For real-world businesses, an optimal route is one that that meets constraints like:

• Delivery time windows: For example, customer A needs their delivery before noon while B doesn’t want it before 3 pm.
• Vehicle capacities: How many units can each vehicle take?
• Vehicle types: For example, some loads are only suitable for refrigerated vehicles and cargo e-bikes may be able to use bike-only routes.
• Driver territories: Do drivers need to stay within particular areas? 
• Driver schedules: When and where do drivers start their routes, when do they get breaks and how much overtime is allowed?
• Driver acceptability: Routes need to look efficient as well as be efficient. Drivers often resist routes that overlap or criss-cross.

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Now that we’ve established a decision framework and what features to look for, let’s turn to the reviews! We’ll look first at software suitable for batched delivery routes, then at the options for on-demand deliveries.

For small courier operations (under 5 vehicles)

• Routific: Best route optimization for the price
• Track-POD: Best all-in-one for beginners

For growing businesses (5-15 vehicles)

• OptimoRoute: Best feature balance
• Workwave: Best if you need barcode scanning

For larger operations (15+ vehicles)

• Onfleet: Best for high-volume on-demand
• OnTime 360: Best full-featured platform

Best courier software for batched deliveries

1. Routific: Best for route optimization and ease of use

Routific’s standout feature is its route optimization algorithm. When people switch to us from a competitor, this is usually the reason. We put a lot of effort into constantly improving our core algorithm, using AI and machine learning to refine the results. We focus on:

• Driver-friendly routes that need very little manual editing. That means we avoid criss-crossing spaghetti routes, doubling back, and other things that annoy drivers.
• Simple drag-and-drop route editing, for those times when a manual adjustment is needed. We make it easy with a choice of map or timeline view, and a batch editing feature. 
• Super-accurate traffic prediction and ETAs. 
• Customer experience: We supply a live tracking link so your customers can prepare for their delivery.

Our customers also love that Routific is easy to use, and our friendly and accessible support.

Overall, Routific is a good option for courier services that have some flexibility to batch their deliveries and plan routes in advance. Most of our customers have 1-50 vehicles.

Routific APIs

Routific offers two APIs:

1. The Platform API enables two-way integration with e-commerce systems like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Zoho, BigCommerce, and others.
2. Our Engine API is for companies that prefer to build their own systems. It’s an easy way to build top-notch route optimization in an existing tech stack. Read our case study about Dutch courier Trunkrs to learn more. 

Routific shortcomings

There are some features Routific doesn’t offer, or which are still in development:

• Barcode scanning
• Real-time chat inside the app
• Label printing
• A customer portal 
• Built-in order management

Routific pricing

Routific’s freemium pricing model is based on the number of orders scheduled.

• The first 100 orders every month are free, to accommodate the needs of very small businesses, non-profits, and occasional users.
• 100-1,500 orders: $150 a month.
• Above 1,500 orders we charge a few cents per stop. Pricing starts at 15c a stop up to 2,000 orders a month, going down to 3c a stop for more than 20,000 orders a month.

2. OptimoRoute: Best for reloading at depot

OptimoRoute has a number of standout features:

• Return to depot: OptimoRoute gives route planners and dispatchers the ability to schedule routes that include trips back to the depot for reloading during the day. 
• Customer feedback: OptimoRoute has a feature that allows customers to rate their delivery experience. 
• Breadcrumb trails: This feature tracks vehicle movements so that dispatchers can compare actual vs planned routes. 
• Individual driver profiles: OptimoRoute’s detailed driver profiles include information like shift schedules (including breaks and overtime), start/end locations, skills, vehicle types, service areas they should stay in, and even cost and speed settings. This makes OptimoRoute a good option for field sales and service organizations. 
• Barcode scanning: Enables drivers to scan barcodes or QR codes for proof of delivery.
• Weekly planning: This features allows customers to plan routes up to five weeks ahead NOFOLLOW, and allocate stops automatically to the most appropriate days and times.

OptimoRoute shortcomings 

OptimoRoute’s feature list is extensive, but they’re not alway smoothly implemented. Based on conversations with customers and our own tests, these are the areas where OptimoRoute may fall short:

• Route quality: OptimoRoute’s routes show a lot of criss-crossing and overlap. This may be mathematically efficient, but drivers often find it annoying.

• Route editing: Experienced dispatchers often see opportunities to make small tweaks that will improve a route – but OptimoRoute’s routes are difficult to adjust after optimization.
• Inflexible start locations: Customers have told us that OptimoRoute makes it difficult to adjust start locations. This can make life difficult for dispatchers who work with contract drivers, where route starting points can change from day to day.

OptimoRoute pricing

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

• $35 per vehicle per month with a limit of 700 orders.
• $44 per month for up to 1,000 orders, real-time tracking, and proof of delivery. 
• Custom pricing for more complex needs is also available.

The limit of 1,000 orders per day is low for a medium-sized business — and would require many drivers, with additional cost for each one.

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.

3. Route4Me: Best for customization

Route4Me is one of the original route planning and route optimization tools, and it has a well-developed marketplace of add-on features that make it very customizable. Some of its most notable features are:

• Truck routing: If your fleet includes trucks that can’t go on all roads or fit under all bridges, Route4Me’s mixed vehicles routing NOFOLLOW and commercial vehicle routing NOFOLLOW add-on components handle these scenarios.
• Territory assignment: Route4Me users can carve their delivery or service area up into different zones and assign each to a regular driver. This helps drivers become familiar with their territories and delivery routes.
• Recurring routing: Route4Me has an add-on component that makes it easy to handle regularly recurring routes.NOFOLLOW 
• Integrations: Route4Me offers integrations with e-commerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.

Route4Me shortcomings

Cost and route quality are the two major shortcomings of Route4Me. Looking at the cost factors:

• Route4Me is expensive. Its base tier costs $400 a month — and that’s without only the most basic route optimization.
• The cost of extra modules can also add up fast. Many of the add-ons are features that come standard in other routing software — with Route4Me, they cost extra. The curbside delivery module, for example, is $799 a month. 

The added cost doesn’t necessarily mean better route optimization. Our tests found a number of problems — depending on your business, these may or may not be dealbreakers:

• There are lots of criss-crossing routes that loop back on themselves, or routes where two addresses on the same block will be served by different drivers.

• Route4Me assumes that all routes are the same: starting from the same point, with the same start and end times, identical vehicles, and so on. So if you have morning and afternoon routes, or routes starting from different depots, it won’t serve you well. There is a “mixed vehicles” add-on, but it doesn’t solve the whole problem.  
• In our testing, Route4Me made inaccurate ETA estimates. For example, on one route section that Routific and Google Maps both estimated would take 18-19 minutes, Route4Me estimated just 10 minutes.
• Route4Me automatically optimizes its routes to use the minimum 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.

Route4Me pricing

There are three Route4Me pricing tiers:

• Basic route optimization starts at $400 a month for a 5-user plan. This allows optimization for one driver or route at a time, but won’t optimize across routes or depots.
• For multi-driver and multi-depot optimization, you’ll need the $600 per month plan.  
• Custom configuration and pricing for enterprise customers is also available.

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

There is a 7-day free trial with unlimited functionality.

Best courier software for on-demand dispatching

On-demand delivery is convenient for customers, but more expensive and difficult to manage for couriers — and it’s much more difficult to batch orders for efficient deliveries. Customer self-service and automatic driver assignment are key software features for on-demand courier service providers.

4. Onfleet: Best for mid-market and enterprise

Onfleet started out as an on-demand dispatch solution, and their auto-assign feature enables fast turnaround times. Communication is also easy — dispatchers and drivers particularly like the live chat option inside their driver app. 

Onfleet’s standout features for couriers include: 

• Automated driver assignment and dispatch for on-demand deliveries. This enables a customer self-service option.
• In-app chat: Onfleet’s team chat function enables drivers to communicate securely with both dispatchers and customers, directly from the driver app. There’s no need to share phone numbers or open other apps. 
• Barcode scanning.
• Age verification: In-app age verification at the point of delivery is a dealbreaker for companies that deliver alcohol or cannabis.
• Customer feedback: Like OptimoRoute, Onfleet has a feature that lets customers rate their delivery experience.
• Integrations with Zapier, Shopify, Square, GigSmart and many other e-commerce partners.
• Driver analytics give insights into performance metrics like on-time vs delayed deliveries.

Onfleet shortcomings

The major pain points with Onfleet relate to route optimization, ease of use, and cost:

• Route quality: Most of the complaints we hear from Onfleet users are about poorly optimized routes, with lots of criss-crossing and inaccurate addresses. 
• Route editing: It’s difficult to make changes to Onfleet’s routes.
• Ease of use: Onfleet’s platform is not very user-friendly, and it needs some training to help people get started. Onfleet doesn’t display actual routes — only individual location pins. You can view individual routes, but not the whole day’s routes at once. There’s also no timeline view, which can make a dispatcher’s job more difficult.
• Cost: Onfleet is one of the more expensive courier software solutions, so it’s not as suitable for small businesses. We also found the route planning functions very difficult to use. The interface doesn’t show actual routes, and you can only view one route at a time so it’s hard to make changes. There’s also no timeline view.

Onfleet 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.

5. OnTime 360: Best for those who want all-in-one courier management software

OnTime 360 is the only solution in this list that does it all:

• Order taking
• Label printing
• Barcode scanning 
• Billing and invoicing (a lot of users mention the integration with QuickBooks). 
• A customer web portal so customers can create their own orders and log in to check progress.

Users also mention ease of use and good support as benefits of using OnTime 360. 

OnTime 360 shortcomings

• OnTime 360’s per-shipment pricing is very expensive.
• Some customers complain they end up paying for features they don’t use.
• The routing functionality is pretty basic.
• OnTime 360 is not cloud-based software and requires download and installation. It’s also only available for Windows.

OnTime 360 pricing

OnTime 360 offers 4 separate pricing tiers, based on a per-shipment pricing model:

• Start: $99 per month for up to 250 shipments, then 40c per shipment.
• Grow: $249 per month for up to 700 shipments, then 35c per shipment. 
• Scale: $499 per month for us to 1600 shipments, then 30c per shipment. 
• Custom: Customers with very high volumes can negotiate discounted shipment rates. 

There’s a once-off $249 activation fee that applies to all tiers.

The Quickbooks integration is only available for the Grow plans and higher. 

6. Track-POD: Best courier system for small business

Track-POD offers the same features as OnTime360 except for billing and invoicing. 

Users rate it higher than OnTime 360 for ease of use and value for money, which makes it a better bet for smaller courier delivery companies who need on-demand dispatch features. Users also mention Track-POD’s:

• Route visibility
• Notifications
• Live tracking
• Proof of delivery features. 

It’s an integrated solution that makes it easy for small couriers to automate and streamline their workflows. 

Track-POD shortcomings

Users mention a number of shortcomings with Track-POD:

• It’s hard to edit routes.
• The driver mobile app can be confusing, with different Android and iOS mobile versions.
• The driver apps also come at an extra cost, where most of their competitors offer these free.
• It’s expensive, although not as expensive as OnTime 360.

Track-POD pricing

Track-POD is unique in offering its users a choice between per-driver and per-order pricing. Here’s how the plans compare:

Per driver pricing

Their website shows the price per driver but there’s a minimum of three drivers, so we’ve used the real prices:

• Advanced (very limited functionality): $147 per month for three drivers, $49 per extra driver. 
• Advanced Plus: $207 per month for three drivers, $69 per extra driver.
• Ultimate: $267 per month for three drivers, $89 per extra driver.
• Enterprise: Negotiable.

Proof of delivery and route planning are only available on Advanced Plus and higher plans. Driver apps and live tracking are only available on the Ultimate plan.

Per order pricing

• S Plan: $285 per month for up to 1,500 orders, then 19c per order.
• M Plan: $510 per month for up to 3,000 orders, then 17c per order.
• L Plan: $900 per month for up to 6,000 orders, then 15c per order
• XL Plan: $1440 per month for up to 12,000 orders, then 12 per order

Other courier software options to consider

Bringg: For enterprise-scale management of multiple carriers

Bringg is geared towards large, complex businesses that manage extensive supply chains, from initial shipping to last-mile delivery.

Bringg's standout features for larger operations include:

• End-to-end logistics management: Bringg offers a comprehensive system to oversee the entire supply chain, including reverse logistics. This is especially useful for geographically dispersed companies with complex logistical needs.
• Salesforce integration: The Zenkraft (Bringg on Salesforce) product integrates delivery management directly into the Salesforce CRM, streamlining the process from order to fulfillment for Salesforce users.
• Third-party carrier network: Bringg’s Delivery Hub partners with over 250 carriers like FedEx, Uber, DHL, UPS, Aramex, DoorDash, and Deliveroo. This is ideal for businesses that outsource portions of their deliveries. In-house deliveries are managed with the separate ROAD product, which includes standard last-mile features.
• Support for on-demand delivery: Provides auto-dispatch for quick turnaround times, which is essential for on-demand delivery services.

Bringg shortcomings

Bringg's broad scope and complexity come with some downsides:

• Implementation and management: Despite being a cloud-based platform, Bringg is complex to implement and manage, potentially requiring outside consultants. The system can be unstable and difficult to use.
• Cost: Pricing is custom and not publicly available, but feedback from former Bringg customers we have spoken to suggests it can be expensive.
• Route optimization: Bringg's route optimization capabilities are mediocre, which can impact efficiency gains.

Bringg pricing

Bringg does not disclose their pricing. Custom quotations are provided after a demo with their sales team. The pricing model is tailored to each client based on their specific needs and scale of operations.

Tookan

We used to recommend Tookan as a viable option for more price-sensitive users, but we no longer feel comfortable doing that. Their customer service has always been a weak point, and recently there’s been an uptick in independent reviews using words like “nightmare” and “scam”. It doesn’t look like this is a company with a promising future.

Workwave

WorkWave is sometimes included in reviews of courier software, but it’s actually a field service management system. It does have a Route Manager product to support field workers, but its main expertise is in cleaning and janitorial service, lawn care, pest control and security guarding.