Delivery management software for businesses that deliver their own orders

What is delivery management software?

A route planner answers “what order do we drive the stops in?” Delivery management software answers everything after that: who is driving which route, where they are right now, which stops are done, which failed and why, what the customer has been told, and whether your store knows. It is the difference between a plan and a delivery day that ran.

For a small business the two are one product. You plan in the morning, dispatch, watch the board, answer the odd question from a driver, and by the afternoon every order in your store says delivered, with a photo attached, without anyone typing it in.

• Dispatch: assign routes to drivers and get the plan onto their phones.
• Live operations: see every route on a timeline and a map, with each driver's position and progress.
• Execution: drivers mark each stop delivered, failed or skipped, with proof and reasons.
• Customer communication: texts, emails and a tracking page, in the business's name.
• Record and report: every outcome written back to the order system, plus a summary of how the day went.

Who needs it, and when?

The signals are familiar. Drivers phone the office to ask what's next. Customers phone to ask where the truck is. Someone spends the evening updating order statuses in the store by hand. A box is reported missing and there is no photo. Any one of those means the plan is fine but the day is not managed.

It matters most for perishable goods, where a failed delivery is a lost product rather than a redelivery, and for businesses whose orders live in another system — a farm platform, a Shopify store, a marketplace — that needs to know the truth about each order without a person copying it across.

What should delivery management software do?

How does Porch Route do each?

Dispatch in one step

The day board lists every route with its driver, vehicle, stops, distance and savings. Dispatching a route sends the driver a link by text or email and sends customers their scheduled notice. The link opens one route and nothing else; it stops working two days after the route date and can be revoked at any moment. A printable manifest PDF, with every stop and line item, is there for the loaders.

A dispatch board that shows the day happening

The dispatch board puts every route on a timeline and a map. While a route runs, the driver's phone shares its position, so the office sees where each vehicle is, which stop is next and what has been delivered, without a phone call. Times are labelled actual, planned or estimated, so nobody mistakes a guess for a fact.

Drive mode built for a phone in a truck

Drive mode shows the current stop — name, address, delivery instructions, what's in the box — in type big enough to read at arm's length, with one button. Delivered, couldn't deliver or skip, with quick reasons like “Nobody home” or “Gate locked” and room for a note. Anything done without signal waits in a retry queue and syncs when the phone reconnects; a small counter shows how many updates are still waiting. When the last stop is done, the driver sees a summary of the route.

Proof, stored privately

Photos and signatures are captured in drive mode and attached to the stop. You decide whether a photo or a signature is required before a stop can be finished. Proof sits in private storage and is shared only through links that expire — on the customer's tracking page and in the webhook to your system.

The undo window

When a driver marks a stop delivered or failed, the customer's notice and the webhook to your system wait for a number of minutes you set. Inside that window the driver can undo the stop and nobody is told anything. After it, the notice goes out and the webhook fires. Set it to zero if you would rather send straight away.

Customers kept in the loop, under your name

Texts and emails go out under your business's name, never Porch Route's, each with a link to a live tracking page showing the truck's position while it's on the way, a progress timeline, and the proof photo once the box has landed. Customers can rate the delivery from 1 to 5 stars. Every message is in a log — what it said, who it went to, whether it was sent. Texts start once your business's carrier registration is approved; email and tracking links work from day one. See text message rules for delivery notifications.

The loop closes with your order system

Your store sends deliveries with one API call keyed by its own order number. Porch Route sends back a signed webhook for each event — scheduled, on the way, delivered, failed, skipped, undone, route completed — carrying that same number, with retries for a day and a reconciliation sweep that reports anything still owed. A delivery log shows every attempt and lets you retry one by hand. See the API documentation.

Roles for the whole team

Invite teammates by email and give each a role. Owners see everything; admins handle settings, integrations and the team; dispatchers plan, dispatch and watch the day; drivers see and drive their own routes. Four weekend drivers do not cost four seats — plans are priced by orders.

What does delivery management software cost?

Porch Route's plans differ only by volume, included texts and support; the product is the same on all of them. Porch Light is free up to 150 orders a month on one vehicle. Starter is $39 a month for up to 500 orders with unlimited vehicles and drivers and 750 texts; Porch is $79 for up to 1,000 orders and 1,500 texts; Route is $189 for up to 5,000 orders and 7,500 texts; Fleet is priced for your volume. Pay for a year and get two months free. Every new business starts with 14 days of Porch's allowances, no credit card.

The category ranges from free tiers to more than $600 a month for a fleet product; the units — per order, per driver, per stop, per task — decide what you actually pay. The comparison, with sources, is in how much delivery route software costs in 2026.

How does a managed delivery day run?

1. 1

   Orders arrive

   From your store over the API, from a CSV, or typed in. Each carries the customer's window, temperature and what's in the box.

2. 2

   Routes are built

   Across the whole fleet at once, by what each vehicle can carry. Lock or reorder anything you know better; read the savings against the order the orders came in.

3. 3

   Routes are dispatched

   Drivers get a link; customers get a scheduled notice; loaders get a manifest.

4. 4

   The office watches the board

   Every route on a timeline and a map, with live positions and each stop's status as it changes.

5. 5

   Drivers work stop by stop

   Navigate, deliver, photograph, or say why it couldn't happen. Dead spots don't stop the day.

6. 6

   Customers and your store hear the outcome

   After the undo window, the delivered notice goes out and the signed webhook fires. The route summary shows how the day compared with the plan.