The third delivery on a route is almost always cheaper than the first. That is not a pricing trick; it is geometry. Whoever is paying for a delivery pays for the same driving three ways: getting to the neighbourhood, moving between the stops, and coming back. A single delivery bears all three. A route spreads the first and last across everyone on it.
This is the arithmetic behind that, using a deliberately simple example, followed by the conditions that make a route work and the ones that quietly undo the savings.
The cost nobody counts is the drive home
Imagine a shop with five customers to deliver to today. All five live in the same part of town, about 15 minutes from the shop and about 6 minutes from each other. Each hand-off takes around 5 minutes at the door.
| Part of the job | Five separate trips | One route |
|---|---|---|
| Drive out | 5 × 15 min = 75 min | 15 min, once |
| Between stops | none | 4 × 6 min = 24 min |
| At the door | 5 × 5 min = 25 min | 5 × 5 min = 25 min |
| Drive back | 5 × 15 min = 75 min | 15 min, once |
| Total | 175 min | 79 min |
| Per delivery | 35 min | about 16 min |
The door time is identical. Almost all of the difference is the two drives that the route does once instead of five times. In this model, a route beats separate trips whenever the gap between stops is less than twice the distance from the shop. It does not need to be a big cluster; it needs to be a cluster that is closer to itself than to the shop.
What makes a route dense enough to work
- Stops close to each other. The savings depend on the gap between stops, not on how many there are. Five stops spread across the whole island save less than three stops in one borough.
- Orders ready at the same time. A route leaves once. If one order is still being packed, the choice is to wait, to leave without it, or to send it separately, and each has a cost.
- Predictable door time. A stop with a staircase, a concierge or a signature takes longer than one where the parcel is left at the door. A route that ignores this runs late in the second half. See delivering in Montréal for the usual culprits.
- A realistic vehicle load. Bulky or fragile items limit how many stops fit in a single run, and a route that is over capacity stops being one route.
Windows: the price of precision
Everything above assumed the driver could visit the stops in any order. The moment customers are promised windows, that freedom shrinks. The narrower the window, the more the order of stops is dictated by the clock instead of the map.
| Window offered | How the route is built | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Four hours or the whole afternoon | Stops are ordered by geography, with the clock as a loose check. | The most compact route and the lowest cost per stop. |
| Two hours | Mostly geographic, with some stops placed early or late to fit. | A small amount of backtracking. A good balance for most customers. |
| One hour | The clock sets the order. Neighbouring stops may be separated by an hour. | More driving per stop, and less room to absorb a slow door. |
| A fixed time | Each such stop anchors the route around itself. | Close to a separate trip. Reserve it for deliveries that truly need it, such as a catering order. |
This is why the cheapest delivery promise is usually the widest one the customer will accept, and why offering a choice, a standard window and a premium narrow one, is often better than offering one narrow window to everybody. It is also the other side of setting a same-day cutoff, since the cutoff has to leave time for the route the window requires.
Sequence matters more than count
Two routes with the same stops can differ substantially in length depending on the order. A few rules of thumb hold up almost everywhere:
- Time-critical and temperature-sensitive stops first. Ice cream and a flower arrangement should not be the last drop of a ninety-minute run.
- A loop, not a there-and-back. A good route goes out along one side of the cluster and returns along the other, instead of doubling back over the same streets.
- Pickups before drop-offs, if there is a return leg. Collecting a return on the same visit as a delivery avoids a second stop, but only if the order of operations is planned. See how the returns process works.
- Group by building, not just by street. Two orders for the same tower are one stop.
Who this helps most
Routes pay off most for businesses with recurring volume to several places. Retailers restocking several locations can send one driver around instead of three staff members in three cars. Suppliers delivering to restaurants and specialty grocers can run one early-morning circuit, as discussed in how to set up grocery receiving. And a business comparing its own delivery vehicle to a courier will find that the real cost of DIY delivery depends heavily on how well its own trips are grouped.
If your volume is regular, a standing route removes the booking step as well as the extra driving. If it is unpredictable, same-day delivery covers the exceptions; same-day versus scheduled explains how to divide the work.
Questions worth asking a courier about routes
- Who sequences the stops, and what do they optimize for: distance, time, or promised windows?
- What happens to the rest of the route when one stop takes longer than expected?
- Is the same driver on a standing route, so that they know the doors?
- Can I see that a scheduled run actually happened, and when each stop was completed?
Have several deliveries going to the same area? Tell us your stops and rough volume when you request a quote and we will explain how a route would work for you.