We Tested 3 Routific Competitors. Here's What We Found

Do you think Routific is terrific?

Or you need some other route planning software with a little bit more edge?

We’ve recently analyzed 40K route optimization software reviews:

And now we've put Routific up against its three best competitors.

We’ve scored them against five sets of criteria and explained who we think they’re suitable for.

Key Takeaways

• We’ve scored Routific, eLogii, Tookan, and OptimoRoute out of 5 for Core Functionality, Customisability, Integrations, User Satisfaction, and Looks
  

• We’ve also examined pricing, separately from the score

• Routific scored 15.75 out of 25: It’s good for small businesses with simple needs but has some major omissions in live driver tracking and barcode scanning

• eLogii scored 23.9 out of 25: It’s feature-rich yet simple, powerful, fast, and highly customisable - making it perfect for growing and scaling businesses in all verticals

• Tookan scored 15.3 out of 25: Basic functionality that can be enhanced from a whole ecosystem of add-ons - at a price. Tookan offers its best value to micro-business users

• OptimoRoute scored 20.65 out of 25: Good functionality and some handy features, but per driver pricing will make the cost rack up for all but the smallest businesses

What Is Good About Routific?

Routific is very popular with its users: it scores 4.9 out of 5 on Capterra and 4.6 on G2. We’ll average that out to give 4.75.

But what is it that they like?

#1 Simple, Robust Platform

If your delivery management and route optimisation needs are simple, then Routific does those basics well. It’s easy to set up and manage, and the driver app is equally user-friendly.

It does the basics well and has a clean, intuitive user interface.

#2 Engine API

Routific’s Platform API is designed simply for transferring data from your backend to the Routific app. It’s accessible to all Professional users.

More interesting, however, is the Engine API - which lets developers integrate Routific’s functionality into their stacks, bypassing the web app. It’s a RESTful interface and has extensive documentation available.

However, access to the Engine API is billed separately and pricing information is not made public. It’s just shown as two tiers.

What Is NOT Good About Routific?

However, Routific has some serious drawbacks that limit its value.

#1 No Live Driver Tracking

Routific does not track the location of vehicles in real-time. It can only relay the last delivery point a driver reached on their route.

This is a huge obstacle for businesses looking to squeeze every bit of efficiency out of their operations and save customer service time:

• ETAs cannot be adjusted on a live basis - resulting in longer waiting times for customers
• Rerouting drivers mid-journey - for example when there is an unexpected road closure - is likely to result in unnecessary delays
• This lack of flexibility means Routific is not suitable for on-demand delivery services

Nor does it support multi-day routing or return to depot functionality.

#2 No Barcode Scanning

Barcode scanning is a central part of many logistics businesses’ supply chain and inventory management processes. It shows where any given package is at any time and provides the most secure Proof of Delivery method.

Routific doesn’t provide it.

#3 It Gets Expensive, Fast

Routific’s Essentials package omits (i) Proof of Delivery collection (barcode or not), (ii) API access, and (iii) even the “last delivery point” level of driver tracking. Realistically, the vast majority of delivery businesses would need to opt for the Professional tier.

At $59 per vehicle per month, Routific is a cheap option for businesses managing only a handful of vehicles. For bigger firms, it quickly becomes extremely expensive - especially as customer notifications via SMS and email cost an extra $19 per vehicle per month. And those alerts are not customisable!

Taking those points into consideration alongside the lack of core functionality, Routific is unsuitable for all but the smallest and simplest of businesses. Here’s our score:

Routific Competitor #1: eLogii

eLogii is a Routific alternative for optimal scalability and customisability

eLogii is a cloud-based route optimisation and delivery management platform that offers exceptional functionality, massive scalability, and next-generation algorithms.

It’s built for businesses of any size, in any vertical, that want to get the most out of their fleets at the lowest cost. By providing an almost-limitless array of choices around special delivery conditions, eLogii promises to create efficiencies that less advanced tools just can’t match.

How does eLogii outperform Routific?

eLogii is a far more sophisticated tool than Routific in almost every respect.

While Routific offers customisation in line with only a basic range of operational parameters (vehicle start/end locations, maximum vehicle capacities, overtime allowances, traffic conditions, etc), eLogii goes much further:

• Product categories (ambient, frozen, fragile)
• Driver skills (customisable - you can specify a particular territory, preference to heavy or light deliveries, language, etc)
• Planning vehicle loads by volume, weight, pallet number - and allowing for loading/unloading equipment

• Set driver break times and actions on delivery
• Share a single fleet across multiple depots
• Pick-up only tasks without corresponding drop-offs
• Late and early delivery tolerances
• Multi-day routing (long haul routes)
• Date-range routing (you can plan weeks ahead)

By controlling all these variables, even the most complex delivery needs can be accounted for in the optimisation process.

While you might expect this to translate into complexity, it doesn’t. eLogii has been designed with non-expert users in mind, and it is remarkably simple to grasp.

Critically, eLogii doesn’t suffer from Routific’s two biggest weaknesses:

• It provides live driver tracking, which enables manual and automated adaptation to changing needs within the day on the one hand, and dynamic updates to ETA for customers. If despatchers want to see any given driver’s location and upcoming route at any time, one-click shows it on a live map overlay

• As well barcode scanning, eLogii offers the widest range of Proof of Delivery methods - including signature, photo, QR code,alphanumeric code scanning, and even cash on delivery which is still required in many markets. Combined with time and geo-stamping on collection, you can have total visibility over any package’s journey

One of eLogii’s greatest strengths is the ease of integration with other applications offered through its RESTful API and webhooks (see the documentation here). Compared to some of the older APIs on the market, eLogii’s is considerably more elegant and well-designed.

The technology it is built on has been designed to handle massive numbers of tasks without losing speed. You can expect even the biggest task list to take little more than 15 seconds to optimise. This is a vital factor for growing and bigger businesses, which frequently run up against capacity constraints and loss of performance with older platforms.

On Capterra, it’s rated at 4.9 out of 5.

How do Routific and eLogii compare on price?

eLogii doesn’t publish off-the-peg pricing. After a demo and discussion about your needs, an eLogii product expert will quote a price.

The entry-level Starter package (2,500 actions per month and unlimited drivers) typically costs around $359 per month.

All packages include key features including:

• Automated route optimisation via a state-of-the-art algorithm
• Return-to-depot capabilities (making eLogii suitable for on-demand delivery businesses)
• Multi depot optimisation
• Live route management and rerouting
• All major Proof of Delivery methods
• SMS and email customer notifications
• Options for optimising different vehicle capacity measures, setting required driver skills, etc
• API access

Some of the other features we’ve mentioned are only available on the higher tiers.

Task-based pricing, however, is far more suitable for large businesses than the per driver pricing offered by Routific and OptimoRoute. That, combined with the advanced functionality, makes eLogii the best Routific alternative for companies running moderate to large-sized fleets. Pricing, as well as technology, makes eLogii ideal for scaling businesses.

Routific Competitor #2: Tookan

Tookan is a Routific alternative for micro-businesses with modular needs

Tookan from Jungleworks is a delivery operations platform that lets you choose exactly what features you need from a massive range of add-ons and other products from the Jungleworks suite.

How does Tookan outperform Routific?

In terms of its core functionality, Tookan is comparable to Routific:

• Automated route optimisation (although this is charged extra)
• Delivery and despatch management
• Reporting and analytics
• SMS and email customer alerts

Where it excels is in the degree to which it can be customised with add-ons and integrations (although many of these, as we will see below, cost extra). For example:

• Barcode creation and scanning
• Automation of payments to drivers
• White-labelling of agent applications
• Vertical-specific off-the-peg platforms (eg laundry services, catering, cannabis, waste collection, etc)

Users can also create their add-ons and add them to the Tookan marketplace, which is a nice touch. There is also a well-documented API and webhooks to help integrate Tookan with third-party tools.

Tookan also has excellent onboarding documentation to help get you started, although a lot of users have complained about unresponsive customer support.

Tookan’s user satisfaction is a bit lower than the other Routific competitors we’re looking at. On Capterra it scores 4.4 out of 5 and 4.2 on G2. That’s an average of 4.3.

How do Routific and Tookan compare on price?

Tookan is priced on tasks per month (pickups and deliveries) rather than vehicles or drivers, which makes comparison tricky. For the smallest of businesses, Tookan is extremely cheap - with prices starting at $29 per month for 200 tasks.

However, this is just the base platform. Other features that you might expect as standard have to be paid for on top of this. For example:

• Route optimisation - 12 cents per task
• ETAs for tasks - $49 per month
• In-app messaging between dispatchers and drivers - $11.99 per month

So, Tookan’s entry prices belie how much you would have to pay to build up functionality comparable with Routific or any of the other Routific alternatives.

Routific Competitor #3: OptimoRoute

OptimoRoute is a Routific alternative for SMEs handling lower volumes

OptimoRoute is first and foremost a route optimisation tool, as the name would suggest!

That means it’s useful for a lot of sectors that make service calls (eg pest control, appliance technicians, plumbers, etc) as well as those making deliveries. But it also means it’s missing a few features specific to delivery firms, particularly concerning wider supply chains.

How does OptimoRoute outperform Routific?

Unlike Routific, OptimoRoute enables you to see the precise location of drivers in real-time via data collected in the mobile app. That means it can also provide live rerouting, dynamic ETAs, and notifications.

But just like Routific, it does not support barcode scanning. The only Proof of Delivery methods OptimoRoute provides are signature and photo.

However, OptimoRoute does offer some features that will attract certain types of business:

• Weekly planning
• Co-ordinated orders, where multiple drivers are needed to work together on a job
• Away-from-depot pickup (for on-demand services) and multi-day long-distance route planning (also available from eLogii), in beta

OptimoRoute has more options for customising delivery needs than Routific (eg driver skills can be specified for particular tasks, vehicle loads can be optimised based on weight or volume, etc), but these are not as extensive as those offered by eLogii.

The tool has a thoroughly documented HTTP API that uses JSON for structured data exchange.

In terms of looks, OptimoRoute’s UI is attractive but a little crowded - as you might expect from something dealing with a lot more variables than Routific.

And finally, OptimoRoute has a pretty good rating on the main review sites: 4.5 out of 5 on Capterra and 4.8 on G2, giving us an average of 4.65.

How do Routific and OptimoRoute compare on price?

OptimoRoute charges on a per driver basis, just like Routific. Its Pro package is not only cheaper than Routific’s equivalent ($44.10 per driver per month versus $59) - it’s also got better features.

What’s the catch? Well, OptimoRoute does impose a cap on the number of orders (a pickup or a delivery) that can be planned and stored at once - which will be a nuisance for bigger businesses, as that the cap is just 1,000.

The more serious issue for bigger companies is that - just as with Routific - per driver pricing becomes extremely costly, fast. A moderate-sized fleet of 25 drivers, for example, would cost $1,102.50 per month, and at that size the order limit becomes problematic.

Bottom Line: Best Routific Competitors

If we compare all the scores, then eLogii comes out as the most powerful and advanced of the Routific alternatives.

Although it hasn’t scored particularly well here, Routific is still an excellent product, with a nice interface, and it is the right choice for some businesses: primarily those with small numbers of vehicles to manage and which don’t need to optimise on a minute-by-minute basis. Tookan is also worth considering for small firms.

OptimoRoute is a more advanced option, but - like Routific - its pricing means it’s likely to be uneconomic when you’re managing multiple vehicles with extensive itineraries.