Courier Software Pricing in the UK: What to Compare Before You Choose

Courier software pricing is best compared on five checks: the billing model, stop or driver limits, included features, contract length and setup fees. For UK van fleets, weigh every quote against running costs. The government's weekly road fuel prices put diesel at 199.52p a litre in the week of 5 October 2026, up from 142.92p in the week of 6 October 2025.

The subscription is one line in the budget. Fuel, driver hours and the time spent building tomorrow's rounds sit right next to it, and those are the costs good courier software is there to bring down.

Planning time is a sensible place to start, because it is easy to measure on an ordinary day. SuperPharmacy's case study reports that daily route planning at the Australian online pharmacy, which once took up to one hour, now takes just 10 minutes.

What shapes the price of courier software for a UK van fleet

Start with the unit the supplier bills on. A plan might be charged per user, per driver, per vehicle, per stop or as one flat fee.

Each of those grows differently as your fleet does. A fleet where part-time drivers share weekend vans can cost very differently on a per-driver plan than on a per-vehicle one.

Vans are a large part of the road picture in Great Britain. The Department for Transport's road traffic estimates for 2025 put van traffic at 58.8 billion vehicle miles, a change of +0.5% on 2024, with vans accounting for 17% of all motor vehicle traffic.

With van traffic showing little change, the gains worth paying for come from what each van achieves on the miles it already covers. More drops per round. Fewer miles between them. Less time at a desk planning.

Beyond the billing unit, four things shape the final number:

• Feature tiers: route optimisation, proof of delivery, customer tracking links and the driver app may sit in one plan or be spread across several.
• Limits: caps on stops, orders, drivers or vehicles, and what happens when a busy month goes past them.
• Contract terms: monthly or annual billing, notice periods, and whether you can change tier mid-term.
• One-off costs: setup, data import, training and onboarding.

A mixed van fleet adds one more question. If small vans run alongside larger panel vans, check that the plan lets you set a different capacity for each vehicle, so every van is loaded sensibly.

A quote checklist covering billing model, stop limits, contract length and setup fees

Quotes are far easier to compare when every supplier answers the same questions.

Send each one the same list and ask for the answers in writing.

Check	What to ask	Why it matters
Billing model	Per user, per driver, per vehicle, per stop or a flat fee?	Shows how the bill moves when you add a van or a part-time driver
Stop or order limits	Is there a monthly cap, and what is charged above it?	Keeps a busy month from bringing an unplanned charge
Driver and vehicle limits	Is there a minimum count, and can seats be added for a few weeks?	Lets a small fleet pay only for the seats it uses
Included features	Are route optimisation, proof of delivery, tracking links and the driver app in the base plan?	Add-ons change the real monthly total
Contract length	Monthly or annual, and what is the notice period?	Sets how easily you can change tier as work changes
Setup and onboarding	Is there a one-off fee for setup, data import or training?	Belongs in your first-year cost
Exports and reporting	Can delivery records and reports be exported at no extra cost?	Keeps your records usable outside the platform

Two rows deserve extra attention. Stop limits shape what a good month costs. Setup fees shape what the first year costs.

A simple way to see the whole picture is a first-year total for each supplier: twelve months of the quoted plan, plus any setup or training fee, plus the add-ons you will actually switch on. Work it out on your own fleet size.

For Locate2u, current plans and what each includes are set out on the UK pricing page, so the plan and feature rows can be filled in before any call.

How higher diesel prices raise the value of route optimisation

Fuel is where the quality of a route shows up on the bill.

According to the government's weekly road fuel price series, the UK average diesel pump price was 199.52p per litre in the week of 5 October 2026, against 142.92p per litre in the week of 6 October 2025.

Put simply, a van that buys the same amount of diesel in both of those weeks pays more for every litre in October 2026.

Nothing about the van or the round changed. Only the price did.

So a mile taken out of a round is worth more to the business in October 2026 than it was in October 2025.

Delivery work covers a lot of ground, too. In the Department for Transport's van statistics for 2019 to 2020, published in April 2021, vans used for delivery or collection of goods had the highest average annual mileage of any use, at 21,200. The survey is dated, so treat it as a reminder that delivery rounds are mileage-heavy rather than as a current benchmark.

This is the part of a quote to test hardest. Locate2u's route optimisation builds routes from your delivery locations, time windows and driver availability, so each van's stops are in an efficient order before the round starts.

To check any supplier, give them one real day of your stops and ask for the planned routes back. Compare total miles and finish times with what your vans drove that day.

That comparison, on your own work, says more about value than any feature list.

Matching a plan to tight city rounds and longer rural drops

A busy town-centre round and a long rural run ask different things of the software. They can suit different pricing, too.

In cities, the work is dense: narrow streets, timed loading, short delivery windows and many drops close together. A plan billed per stop can climb quickly on a round like that, while a per-vehicle plan stays the same however many drops each van makes.

Some city operators are also looking at cargo bikes. CILT UK reports that industry and policy studies show almost half of motorised goods trips in cities could be transferred to eCargo bikes under the right conditions.

If bikes are part of your plans, ask two things. Can bikes and vans, with their different capacities, be planned on the same board? And does a bike count as a full vehicle or user on the bill?

If your rounds enter London, check the current ULEZ, Congestion Charge and Direct Vision Standard requirements with Transport for London when planning those routes.

Rural rounds look very different. Defra's Statistical Digest of Rural England reports that in mid-2024, 9.7 million of England's 58.6 million residents, or 17%, lived in rural settlements.

Serving those settlements can mean fewer drops spread over more miles. On a round like that, a per-stop plan may look modest, and route quality matters most for fuel.

If one depot runs both kinds of work, ask each supplier to price a typical week that includes your city and rural rounds together, not one or the other.

Locate2u's routing engine takes account of vehicle types and driver availability when it builds schedules. That helps when a single depot sends vans of different sizes into very different areas.

Checking the driver app works smoothly from depot to final drop

The driver app is where the plan meets the road, so it earns a place in any pricing comparison.

Walk through a normal day with each supplier, from the depot to the final drop. Can a driver see the day's stops in order before leaving? Can they move from one drop to the next without switching tools? Can proof be captured at the door in a few taps?

Locate2u includes a dedicated driver app as part of its platform. Proof of delivery captures photos, signatures and timestamps at each drop, and customers can follow a live tracking link so they know when to expect the van.

Signal is worth asking about. If your rounds cross remote countryside or hills, ask how the app behaves when coverage drops for a while, and how records sync once the connection returns.

Then confirm how the app is billed. Per-driver licences, per-vehicle access and bundled access each change the total as your team grows.

Sizing your plan for a longer peak season

Online demand keeps building through the year. The Office for National Statistics reports that online spending values in Great Britain in the three months to August 2026 were 10.1% higher than in the same period of 2025.

November tells a different story. IMRG's Online Retail Index showed UK online sales in the first week of November 2025 at -1.6% year on year, the second week almost flat at -0.2%, and the third week at -1.9%.

A practical response is to size your plan for growth through the year and for several busy weeks, rather than for one peak day.

Ask each supplier:

• Can drivers or vehicles be added for a few weeks, then removed without a penalty?
• Do stop or order caps rise in busy months, or does extra volume carry a separate charge?
• Can dispatchers move work between drivers during the day?
• Is support available through your busiest weeks?

Locate2u's dispatch planning gives your team a live view of every vehicle. If a round runs behind, a dispatcher can see it straight away and reassign the next job to another van.

The busy season also runs into winter. If your rounds climb onto higher ground in Scotland or northern England, ask how quickly routes can be re-planned on a morning when ice or snow makes a road a poor choice.

What one delivery team's case study shows about planning time saved

SuperPharmacy's case study reports that the business has operated as an online pharmacy in Australia since 2000, delivering prescription medications, over-the-counter products and health essentials to customers nationwide.

As customers increasingly expected same-day delivery for prescriptions, the delivery team was spending up to one hour every day planning routes by hand.

The process was also hard to change. If an urgent prescription came in or a delivery needed rescheduling, the whole route had to be generated again.

SuperPharmacy brought in Locate2u's route optimisation to automate daily planning. Routes are now generated from delivery locations, time windows and driver availability.

What once took an hour of manual work now takes just 10 minutes. The case study describes this as cutting route planning time by 83%.

Just as useful is what happens after the routes go out. New prescriptions can be slotted into existing routes during the day without disrupting other deliveries, which enabled SuperPharmacy to offer same-day prescription delivery as a core service.

As the case study puts it: "Before Locate2u, we had to generate new routes if we wanted to change anything. Now we can adjust the day's deliveries on the fly."

This is one Australian business's result, measured in its own planning minutes. It is not a forecast for a UK van fleet.

What it offers is a clear measure to bring to your own comparison. Time how long tomorrow's routes take to build across a normal week, and note how often a plan is rebuilt during the day. Then ask each supplier to plan those same days and show how changes are handled.

Questions to ask about automation and integrations before you sign

Automation is becoming a normal part of running a business. The Office for National Statistics found that self-reported AI use among UK businesses with 10 or more employees has risen from around 12% to around 35% since late 2023, with larger firms more likely to have adopted AI.

For a courier comparing plans, the useful question is simpler than any AI label. Which manual jobs does this plan take off your team's desk, and which tier are they in?

Start with orders. If they arrive from an online shop or an order system, ask whether they flow straight into planning or need re-keying, and whether each connection is included or priced as an extra.

Locate2u can pull orders from a connected online store, group them by delivery window and build routes for each driver run. Its integrations page lists the available connections, and an API is available for systems that need a custom link.

Next, look at the jobs that happen after dispatch. Automated customer notifications, proof of delivery records and the weekly reports your office relies on each either sit in the plan or add to the bill.

Ask too whether API access carries its own fee, and whether there is a monthly limit on orders coming through it.

Then add every answer to the checklist. With each supplier's automation and integrations laid out against the same rows, the best-value quote becomes much easier to spot than the cheapest-looking one.

Frequently asked questions

Is the driver app included in courier software pricing, or charged separately?

Ask each supplier whether driver app access is counted per user, per vehicle or bundled into the plan, because this changes the total for a growing team. Locate2u includes a dedicated driver app as part of its platform, and current plan details are on its UK pricing page.

Can courier software connect to an online shop or existing order system?

Many operators want orders to flow in without re-keying, so ask whether connections are included or priced as extras. Locate2u lists its available connections on its integrations page and offers an API for systems that need a custom link.

What should a courier with only a few vans check first on a quote?

Check for minimum user or vehicle counts, and whether you can move up a tier mid-contract without penalty. A plan that suits a few vans today should still fit if you add more drivers next season.

Can courier software plan routes for eCargo bikes as well as vans?

If you run cargo bikes, or plan to test them in a city centre, ask whether the platform lets you set different vehicle types and capacities on the same plan. That way bike and van rounds are planned together rather than in separate tools.

Courier software earns its price when the billing unit fits your fleet, the plan has room for a long busy season and the routes it builds take miles off every round. Bring a week of your own stops and planning times to each conversation, fill in the checklist, then see how Locate2u's UK plans line up against the same rows.