How To Plan A Delivery Route With Multiple Stops In 6 Easy Steps

Manually planning delivery routes, even with just a few stops, is time-consuming, error-prone, and inefficient. Once you scale up to dozens or hundreds of addresses, planning by hand becomes nearly impossible. That’s where a multiple stop route planner comes in. With the right software, you can map, optimize, and dispatch delivery routes in minutes. Route planning tools help increase delivery speed, cut costs, and give you the ability to compete with last mile giants like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS. This guide shows you how to plan smarter, faster delivery routes in six simple steps.

This guide shows how to plan optimized delivery routes with multiple stops using software that saves time and improves efficiency.

 

Table of Contents

 

How Do You Organize a Delivery Route?

Planning a delivery route requires more than plotting points on a map. You need to account for such concerns as customer availability, traffic slowdown, order priority, vehicle carrying, and loading capacity.

A multi-stop route planner makes this process simple. It automatically factors in real-world conditions, helping you create efficient delivery routes that reduce delays, improve customer satisfaction, and minimize costly errors.

 

What’s The Best Way To Plan A Multi-Stop Route?

The most effective way to plan a delivery route with multiple stops is to use dedicated and reliable routing software. A delivery route planner can process millions of scenarios in seconds to find the fastest, most efficient sequence of stops—even for hundreds of addresses.

The result: shorter routes, reduced overtime, higher fleet utilization, and more deliveries completed per day.

 

Is There an App for Delivery Routes?

Yes. Several apps are designed for planning and managing delivery routes. When choosing one, focus on value. You don’t need to pay for features your business won’t use.

While free tools like the Google Maps route planner allow multiple stops, they don’t optimize stop sequences and limit you to 10 addresses. A professional delivery route planner like Route4Me removes these restrictions, letting you scale your operations effectively.

Here’s how to plan a delivery route in six easy steps using a multi-stop route planner:

 

1. Choose A Route Planner That Fits Your Business

Paper-based planning is outdated and inefficient. Instead, invest in a delivery route planner built for businesses. Not all solutions are equal. Google Maps, for example, lacks advanced optimization features.

Look for flexible pricing and industry-specific options. With Route4Me, you can customize features to match your delivery needs.

Route4Me customer success plan types and premium support subscription plans.

 

2. Input Customers’ Delivery Addresses

Once you have your software, import your customers’ addresses into the route planner. With Route4Me, you can import thousands of delivery addresses from spreadsheets, cloud storage, or integrations with your eCommerce platform or CRM platform.

This ensures all delivery information is centralized and ready for routing.

Automatically geocode and autocorrect route addresses using the interactive map.

 

3. Plan And Optimize A Delivery Route

Next, select the addresses you need to deliver to. If you have multiple drivers, the software can balance workload automatically.

A delivery route planner like Route4Me will instantly optimize routes, giving you the fastest, shortest path to serve all customers.

DSD route planning - optimize best sequenced Direct Store Delivery routes for multiple drivers.

 

4. Set Routing Rules And Optimization Constraints

For maximum efficiency, factor in business rules like delivery time windows, vehicle loading capacity, traffic, and weather. Ignoring these variables can cause delays and dissatisfied customers.

With Route4Me business route planning software, you can fine-tune delivery routes to match your fleet’s limitations and customers’ needs.

 

5. Dispatch Planned Routes To Delivery Drivers

Once routes are optimized, dispatch them directly to your drivers’ mobile devices. The Route4Me iOS and Android apps provide:

Both dispatchers and drivers can manage delivery routes seamlessly from the app.

Dispatch routes to drivers.

 

6. Track Driver Progress In Real Time

After dispatching, track each delivery route live on a map. You can monitor driver locations, identify detours or long breaks, and review route history afterward.

This visibility helps you spot inefficiencies, improve accountability, and ensure packages arrive on time.

Tracking en route field service technicians and field service officers on a live map with route planning software

 

Start planning smarter delivery routes today!

With Route4Me’s 7-Day Free trial, you can start planning optimized delivery routes today. No upfront investment required.

 

Last Updated:

About author: Daniel Archer

With a background in pedagogy and writing instruction, Daniel is a former tenured English Instructor who, after nearly 20 years of teaching, transitioned into content strategy and leading writing teams for global brands. Now, as Technical Documentation Manager at Route4Me, he translates complex logistics technology into clear, accessible content that empowers users.

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Route4Me

About Route4Me

Route4Me has over 40,000 customers globally. Route4Me's Android and iPhone mobile apps have been downloaded over 2 million times since 2009. Extremely easy-to-use, Route4Me's apps create optimized routes, synchronize routes to mobile devices, enable communication with drivers and customers, offer turn-by-turn directions, delivery confirmation, and more. Behind the scenes, Route4Me's operational optimization platform combines high-performance algorithms with data science, machine learning, and big data to plan, optimize, and analyze routes of almost any size in real-time.