Start by hand in Google Maps
On a small route, this is a fine way to start. Google Maps takes up to 9 stops, including the final destination, so a longer route has to be split into legs. Google's help page says nothing about putting stops in the best order for you, so plan on doing that yourself.
- Sort your stops by area. Group them by zip code or neighborhood first. This gets you most of the way.
- Build each area as its own leg of up to 9 stops, starting from where the last leg ended. Your first and last stops matter most, so choose them on purpose.
- Drag the stops around and watch the time. Look for places where the line crosses itself.
- Send the driver a link to each leg, and print a list with names and notes as a backup for dead spots.
Try a route planner when hand-sorting takes too long
A planner takes your whole list of addresses and puts it in order. Here is what we read on each company's own pages in November 2026. Prices change, so check them before you sign up.
- RouteXL: free for up to 20 stops a route. Up to 100 stops costs €5 a day or €35 a month, a good fit if you deliver one day a week.
- Routific: free for up to 100 orders a month. The next plan is $150 a month, for up to 1,000 orders.
- MyRouteOnline: from $19 a month for 50 address credits. It imports from Excel and includes a driver app.
- OptimoRoute: from $35.10 per driver a month, billed yearly, with a 30-day trial.
- Upper: from $50 per user a month, with up to 250 stops a route and CSV import.
- Spoke Dispatch, from the makers of Circuit, and Route4Me (from $199 a month) are aimed at larger teams, with proof of delivery and more.
If you have one driver, start with the free ones. Under 20 stops, try RouteXL. Under 100 orders a month, try Routific. At 40 stops a day on one day a week, RouteXL's €5 day rate is hard to beat if it does what you need.
The stop limit is only one thing to compare. Check whether it really reorders your stops, whether you can upload a spreadsheet, how the driver gets the route, and whether it handles time windows if you promise them. Try one real delivery day on a free tier or a trial before you pay.
What makes a good route
- Plan the end as well as the start. If your driver ends near home, the last stop is a saving. If they must come back to the kitchen, plan for that drive.
- Load in reverse. The last stop goes in first. This makes for fewer minutes with the van door open and the coolers exposed.
- Keep it cold. FDA's model Food Code (section 3-501.16 in the 2022 edition) holds cold food at 41°F or below, and your state or county sets the rule that binds you. Ask them what they expect during delivery. Check a cooler with a thermometer at the end of a long route, on a hot day.
- Send the notes with the route. A gate code that lives in your inbox doesn't help a driver at the gate.
- Plan for no-shows. Decide where food goes when nobody is home, and say so before customers order.
- Time a real run. Write down when the driver left and when they finished, a few weeks in a row. Promise a delivery window from those numbers, not from the map's estimate.
What goes wrong
The most common trouble is copying. Each time you retype an address from an order to a sheet to a planner, you can get a digit wrong, and you find out from a hungry customer. Copy and paste from the source, and don't retype. Late address changes are the other one: agree on one place where changes go after cutoff, and make sure the driver sees them.
If you use contract drivers, they are on their own phones, and they won't install three apps for you. Keep it simple for them: one link and one list. Whether someone counts as a contractor is a legal question with its own tests. The IRS and the Department of Labor each explain theirs, so ask your accountant.
Think about fewer stops as well. A pickup location at a gym can replace many doors, and no planner can beat a stop you don't have to make.
The Eat Fresh Tech way
Here's how we handle delivery routes.
The stops come straight from the orders, so nobody retypes an address. Pick the menu, the schedule and the locations, say how many drivers you have that day, and run the route.
- Delivery Routing groups stops by area, puts them in order and splits them between drivers on a map. It plans around where each driver ends as well as where they start.
- You make the final call. Move a stop to another driver or swap two stops in one click. The site warns you if an address has changed since you ran the route.
- Each driver gets a sheet, with stop, customer, order and a check-off box. There is also a sheet for kitchen pickups, and one for tips by driver.
- Drivers log in on their phone's browser, with nothing to install. Their login opens delivery pages only, so a contract driver never sees your payments, sales or settings. They see the day's stops, and they can send "delivered" notices.
- Prefer your own planner? Delivery exports give you CSV files, including one shaped for OptimoRoute.
You enter how many drivers you have, rather than naming them. If you need live GPS tracking or proof-of-delivery photos, a dedicated delivery tool is the better fit, and the exports above can feed it. Each route optimization run is billed, and delivery confirmation and the driver login work without it.