Advanced route optimization software — route optimisation software, in UK spelling — solves the constrained vehicle routing problem: which vehicle takes which stops, in what order, under hard time windows, shift limits, service durations, vehicle capacity and a multi-day horizon. EfiRoute runs that solve on the Google Cloud Route Optimization API, the same fleet-grade engine behind enterprise logistics platforms, and prices it per optimization run instead of per driver: free to start, then $29/month (Pro) or $49/month (Business) plus $1 per courier per run.
The dividing line is not interface polish — it is whether the product solves a constrained vehicle routing problem or just sorts stops by proximity. A 40-stop day has more possible orderings than there are atoms in the observable universe, so no tool evaluates them all; what separates an advanced optimizer is that it searches that space under your real constraints and returns a provably good answer in seconds, rather than a greedy nearest-neighbour chain that looks tidy on a map and overruns by two hours.
EfiRoute does not hand-roll that solver. It delegates optimization to the Google Cloud Route Optimization API — the same fleet-grade engine Google licenses to enterprise logistics platforms — which handles multi-vehicle assignment, time windows, capacities, shift limits, service durations and multi-day horizons simultaneously. The practical consequence is that a two-courier operation gets the same optimization quality as a 200-vehicle one; the only thing that differs between them is the invoice.
The second half of "advanced" is what happens after the solve. A plan is worthless if the dispatcher cannot act on it, so the engine sits behind the operational layer: Excel/CSV import with automatic geocoding, per-courier loading lists in route order, a courier app with turn-by-turn navigation, live GPS tracking, proof of delivery, cash-collection recording, customer tracking links and dispatcher-to-courier chat with voice notes.
A stop that is only reachable 14:00–16:00 is a hard constraint, not a preference. The solver plans around every window at once rather than sequencing stops and hoping the times land — and tells you when a window is genuinely infeasible instead of silently breaking it.
Each courier has a start point, a start time and a maximum working day. Routes are built to fit inside the shift, including service duration per stop, so a plan that needs nine hours never gets handed to a courier on an eight-hour contract.
Weight, volume or crate count per vehicle, enforced as a real limit. A cargo bike and a van in the same run get loads that each can actually carry, rather than an even split of the stop list.
The hard half of the problem is not sequencing one route — it is deciding which vehicle takes which stops. Advanced optimization solves assignment and sequencing together, which is why a 10-courier day cannot be approximated by running a single-route planner ten times.
When the work does not fit in one shift, stops roll into the following days with their windows and priorities intact, instead of being dropped from the plan.
Travel times come from Google's road and traffic model, not straight-line distance. The difference shows up most in cities, where the shortest route and the fastest route are rarely the same sequence.
| Capability | Basic route planner | Advanced optimization (EfiRoute) |
|---|---|---|
| Stop sequencing | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-vehicle assignment in one run | No — one route at a time | Yes — all couriers in a single solve |
| Hard time windows | Usually not | Yes, with infeasibility reported |
| Shift limits & service duration | No | Yes |
| Vehicle capacity (weight / volume / crates) | No | Yes |
| Multi-day horizon | No | Yes |
| Waypoint ceiling | ~10 (Google Maps) to 20–30 (basic apps) | No stop metering — stops do not affect the price |
| Re-optimization mid-day | Manual re-entry | One run, with the day's completed stops respected |
| API access for your own systems | No | Yes — Public REST API v1 |
"Basic route planner" here means the class of single-driver planners and navigation apps — Google Maps, free courier apps, solo subscriptions — rather than any one named product.
If you searched for advanced route optimisation software with an "s", you are on the right page — "optimisation" (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) and "optimization" (US) describe exactly the same category, and this page uses the US spelling only for consistency. EfiRoute is used the same way on either side of the Atlantic: the interface is available in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Turkish, and the engine covers UK and European road networks including left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive geographies.
Two practical notes for UK and EU operations. Prices on this site are published in US dollars; Swiss and Liechtenstein visitors see the same figures labelled in CHF, and billing is handled through Stripe in your own currency. On data protection, EfiRoute processes courier location and customer address data under GDPR with data processing agreements in place with every sub-processor, and the full list of providers and where they process data is set out in the privacy policy — worth reading before a vendor review rather than after it.
This page covers the advanced end of the category — the constraints and the solver. For the broader picture, including where route optimisation is used across fleet, delivery and transport work, the 2026 pricing models and a buying checklist, see route optimisation software.
Fleet-grade optimization has historically been priced for fleets that can absorb a per-seat subscription. EfiRoute charges for the run: $1 per courier included in an optimization, on top of a $29/month (Pro) or $49/month (Business) plan, with the monthly credit applied first and a permanent free plan to start on. A five-courier operation optimizing every weekday is about $110/month; optimizing weekly it is about $20/month. Stops are never metered, so a 400-stop day costs the same as a 40-stop one.
Advanced route optimization software solves a constrained vehicle routing problem rather than sorting stops by proximity: it decides which vehicle takes which stops and in what order, while simultaneously respecting time windows, driver shift lengths, service duration per stop, vehicle capacity and — when the work does not fit in one day — a multi-day horizon. The test for whether a tool qualifies is simple: can it plan all your vehicles in one run, and does it tell you when a constraint is infeasible instead of quietly violating it? EfiRoute does both, on the Google Cloud Route Optimization API.
No — only the spelling differs. "Optimisation" is the British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand form and "optimization" the American one; both name the same category and the same products. EfiRoute serves UK and European operations identically to North American ones, with six interface languages and Google's European road and traffic data behind the solver.
A route planner sequences a list of stops for one driver and typically caps you at around 10–30 waypoints. An advanced optimizer additionally decides the assignment across vehicles and enforces constraints — time windows, shift limits, capacity, service times, multi-day. That assignment step is why running a single-route planner once per courier does not reproduce the result: the stops each courier should be given depend on what every other courier is given, which is exactly the part a solver optimizes and a human estimates.
Fleet-grade optimization is normally sold at enterprise prices: per-driver subscriptions of $25–89 per driver per month, stop or task packages from $125 to $1,000 per month, or dispatch platforms from about $619 per month. EfiRoute prices the computation instead of the seat — free to start with no credit card, then $29/month (Pro) or $49/month (Business) plus $1 per courier included in each optimization run, with the monthly credit applied first. A five-courier operation optimizing every weekday is about $110/month. The engine is the same whichever plan you are on, including the free one.
Yes. The EfiRoute Public REST API v1 covers projects, customers, couriers, optimization runs and route retrieval with API-key authentication, so an ERP, WMS or e-commerce backend can create a project, push the day's stops, trigger an optimization and read the resulting routes without anyone opening the web app. There are also native integrations for the common e-commerce platforms. See the developers page for the endpoint reference and rate limits.
The solver reports it rather than silently breaking one. If a time window is unreachable within a courier's shift, or the total load exceeds the available capacity, the run comes back with the conflict identified so you can add a courier, extend a shift or move a stop to the next day. EfiRoute also has an AI diagnosis button that reads the failed run and explains in plain language which constraint made the plan infeasible — usually a window that is too narrow or a depot start time that is too late.
No, and that is the usual misconception. The gain from optimization grows with the number of stops per route and the tightness of the constraints, not with the number of vehicles: a single courier with 60 time-windowed stops benefits more than ten couriers with six easy stops each. What has historically ruled it out for small fleets is pricing, not value — per-driver and per-stop models make fleet-grade software uneconomic below about 15 vehicles, which is the specific problem usage-based pricing removes.