How free routing software can help your delivery business

Here’s a universal truth: people love getting free stuff, and free software is abundant on the Internet these days. And the thing is, we’re used to it and we expect it. Some people even demand things for free, not knowing that they are always some trade-offs where you either need to expose yourself to ads or you can only access a limited set of features on the free plan.

Free software is great for businesses just starting out where needs are simple. For a delivery business, there are a number of free routing options like RouteXL, SpeedyRoute, Mapquest. Of the free solutions, Google Maps is the most popular by far. However, it can only really help for a very small limited number of orders, and it’s a very manual process.

Here is a more in-depth look at how to create a delivery route with Google Maps. In it we outline the steps you need to perform in order to create a route:

1. Process your addresses
2. Manually enter your addresses
3. Re-order your stops in the order you want to complete them
4. Give your drivers their delivery instructions
5. Keep building routes in batches of 10 stops
6. Dispatch your routes to your drivers

And of course you have to repeat that list over and over for as many routes as you need.

Free routing software is hard to find!

So it turns out the best free route planning software with unlimited stops is hard to find, and most free software don’t allow you to route with unlimited stops. You may be able to make things work for you if your business is small.

However, if your business is growing and you need to deal with more than 10 stops at a time, you will quickly learn of the limits of free routing software and should consider upgrading to a paid offering. That’s why EasyRoutes offers a free 7-day trial, so you can harness its full power to help with your deliveries. We’re confident you will see the value of using EasyRoutes for planning local delivery routes and will decide to stay on.

Some common limitations of free routing software are:

• Routes can only be 10 stops or less.
• You can only plan for a single driver, not multiple drivers.
• You can only plan a single route at a time.
• You need to figure out the order of your stops manually
• You cannot input constraints like delivery time windows, driver breaks, vehicle load capacity, etc. Those are things you will have to factor in yourself.

Another thing to consider for free routing software is that you likely won’t get the full customer support attention you need if any issues or confusion arises.

So if you are just starting a delivery business with a limited number of stops and a one delivery driver, you might be able to get by using some free delivery routing software.

But as your business starts to grow, you will need to think about using something more sophisticated like the EasyRoutes local delivery route planner.

Having said all this about other free route planning software solutions, EasyRoutes actually has a free plan too! Like the others, we allow you to create unlimited optimized routes with up to 10 stops. However, we also include drive times, route history, and printable routes!

EasyRoutes takes the headache out of figuring out the most cost-effective route to deliver your products. It’s extremely easy to use and will save you time and money.

Check out both EasyRoutes' free plan and the 7-day free trial of all our premium features on the Shopify App Store to start streamlining your local deliveries today.