Best route planner apps for delivery drivers in the UK: an honest comparison

Search for "route planner app" and you get dozens of results, most of them written by the companies selling the apps. This guide takes a step back. Instead of ranking products, it sorts the options into a few types, explains what each type is good at, and shows what to check before you pay for anything. Where we mention a vendor's price or plan, it's what their own pricing page said when we checked in October 2026, with a link so you can see the current version.

A quick declaration: we make a free route planner and RoundSorted, which is listed below. We've tried to describe every option fairly, including where something else is a better fit.

First, what problem are you solving?

"Route planning" covers three different jobs, and most frustration comes from using a tool built for one job to do another:

1. Navigating from one stop to the next. Any sat nav or maps app does this well.
2. Ordering the stops so the whole run is as quick as possible. This is the "optimisation" part, and it's where maps apps fall short.
3. Knowing which stops are on today's run in the first place. For parcel drivers the depot decides this. For a bakery, milk round or log merchant with regular customers, working out today's list from standing orders and changes is often the bigger job.

Be honest about which of these is costing you time. If your stops are the same every day, you may only need to order them once. If they change daily, the list matters as much as the route.

Type 1: Google Maps (and other maps apps)

Most drivers start here, and for navigation it's hard to beat. For multi-drop planning it has two limits worth knowing:

• Stop limit. Google's help page says you can add up to nine stops, which includes the final destination (Google Maps Help). Multiple destinations aren't available for public transport or flights.
• No automatic ordering. You can drag stops into a different order, but Google Maps follows the order you give it. It won't work out the best order across your whole run.

Good for: short runs, navigating each leg, drivers who already know the best order. Not good for: 20+ drops that change day to day. We've written a whole guide on the Google Maps multiple stops limit and workarounds.

Type 2: Free web route planners

A free route planner takes a list of addresses, puts them in a sensible order and gives you the result, usually in a browser with no app to install. Our own multi-drop route planner is one example: it takes up to 60 stops, uses real road travel times rather than straight lines, does round trips or one-way runs, lets you rearrange the order by hand, and gives each stop a "Take me there" button that opens Google Maps directions. It's free with no account.

Good for: planning a day quickly, checking whether your usual order could be better, small rounds that don't need customer records. Not good for: live tracking, proof of delivery or managing a team, because free planners don't usually store anything between days.

Type 3: Driver apps for multi-drop routes

These are phone apps aimed at individual drivers, often couriers doing a different set of parcels each day. You import or scan the addresses, the app orders them and hands each one to your navigation app.

One well-known example is Spoke's route planner (the Circuit route planner website now redirects to Spoke). Its pricing page lists a free plan that it describes as allowing routes with up to 10 stops, and paid individual plans priced in US dollars per month (Spoke pricing). Check the current plans, the stop limits on each and the currency you'll be billed in before signing up.

Good for: drivers whose drop list arrives fresh each day, especially parcels. Less suited to: businesses that need to know who's due today from standing orders, what to load, and who owes what.

Type 4: Routing and dispatch software for fleets

These are planning systems for a business with several vehicles: an office plans routes across the fleet, drivers get them on their phones, and the office sees progress. Two widely used examples:

• OptimoRoute prices per driver per month, with Lite, Pro and Custom plans, and offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, according to its pricing page (OptimoRoute pricing). Prices were shown in US dollars when we checked.
• Routific prices by the number of orders you deliver rather than per driver. Its pricing page lists a free plan for up to 100 orders a month and a paid plan starting at $150 a month for up to 1,000 orders (Routific pricing).

Good for: multi-vehicle operations with a planner in the office, time windows and capacity limits. Worth checking: whether the per-driver or per-order cost works at your volume, and whether you'll still need a separate system for customers, orders and invoices.

Type 5: Round management software (routes plus orders)

For businesses with regular customers, the route is only one part of the day. You also need to know who's due, what they've changed, what to bake or load, and who to invoice. Round management software puts those together.

RoundSorted is built for this kind of business: customers on standing orders or ordering through their own link, a daily run sheet and load list, routes ordered by real road times, a driver phone view with "Take me there" for each stop, photos, cash and notes at the door, and invoices customers can pay by card through your own Stripe account or by bank transfer or cash. It runs in the browser on any phone; there's no native app. The Free plan covers 5 customers and 1 round; Solo is £29 a month for one van and Team is £59 a month for up to five vans (see pricing).

Good for: bakeries, milk rounds, veg wholesalers, water, laundry and log rounds with regular customers. Not the right fit for: parcel couriers whose stops come from someone else's system, or large fleets that need detailed dispatch features.

Quick comparison

Type	Orders stops for you	Stores customers and orders	Typical pricing model
Google Maps	No (manual reorder)	No	Free
Free web route planner	Yes	No	Free
Driver apps (e.g. Spoke)	Yes	Limited	Free tier, then monthly per driver
Fleet routing (e.g. OptimoRoute, Routific)	Yes, across vehicles	Orders, not usually invoicing	Per driver or per order
Round management (e.g. RoundSorted)	Yes	Yes, plus load lists and invoices	Monthly per business

What to check before you choose

• Stop limits on the plan you'd actually use, not the headline plan.
• Currency and VAT. Some tools bill in US dollars, so the sterling cost moves with the exchange rate.
• UK addresses and postcodes. Test with your real addresses, especially rural ones and business units.
• Return to base. Can it plan a round trip back to the depot as well as one-way?
• Driver hand-off. How does the driver get the route, and does it open their preferred navigation app?
• Exports. Can you get your data out if you change your mind?

The best test is a real day. Take yesterday's drops, put them through two or three options and compare the planned time with what actually happened. Our delivery cost calculator will turn any time you save into a cost per drop, and the multi-drop route guide covers the planning habits that matter whichever tool you use.

Safety note

Whatever you use, set the route up before you drive. Gov.uk is clear that it's illegal to hold and use a phone or sat nav while driving, including when stopped at lights or in a queue; devices must be hands-free and must not block your view of the road (gov.uk: mobile phones and driving).

If you run a round with regular customers, try the free route planner first and see whether RoundSorted fits the rest of your day.