10 Best Apps for Delivery Drivers to Consider in 2024

TL;DR:

• The blog reviews 10 mobile apps designed to help delivery drivers streamline their work, covering various aspects like route planning, fuel savings, navigation, and wellness.
• Apps discussed include route planners (Upper), gas price finders (GasBuddy), navigation tools (Waze), communication platforms (WhatsApp), and gig economy apps (Amazon Flex, Dumpling).
• The list also includes lifestyle apps for drivers, such as fitness (8fit), mental health (Headspace), and entertainment (Spotify) options.
• Each app is evaluated based on its key features, pros and cons, and potential benefits for delivery drivers.

As a delivery driver, you’re no stranger to the daily hustle. From navigating tricky traffic to searching for the cheapest gas, juggling multiple tasks can quickly feel overwhelming. But what if there was a way to make your job easier at your fingertips?

With the right mobile apps, you can take control of your day, streamline your workflow, and even boost your earnings with less effort. These apps are designed to reduce the headaches of route planning, fuel hunting, and stress management—giving you more time to focus on what matters.

Whether you’re an independent contractor or working for a primary delivery service, this curated list of the 10 best apps will transform how you work. From influential route planners and gas savers to mental health and entertainment apps, we’ve covered every aspect of your day.

Ready to elevate your delivery game? Let’s dive into the top apps that will have you driving smarter, saving money, and reducing stress in 2024.

Top Delivery Driver Apps At a Glance

10 Best Delivery Apps to Consider in 2024

1. Upper

Delivery drivers need efficient routes to ensure timely deliveries, minimize failed delivery attempts, and reduce reverse logistics costs. Upper’s route planning and optimization app comes in handy here, enabling the creation of efficient routes that don’t overlap, facilitating seamless and convenient navigation for drivers.

This helps save time and fuel on the road and maximizes the number of delivery locations per route, boosting overall delivery efficiency. Another worthwhile aspect is that Upper respects data privacy and doesn’t collect data on locations.

Moreover, Upper’s delivery route planner app helps you customize your pin colors based on stop types, such as deliveries and pickups, enhancing visualization. You can also export completed routes to your employers or clients to build their trust and credibility.

Key Features

1. Multi-stop route planning: Upper’s multi-stop route planner app helps plan routes with hundreds of stops, making it a go-to solution for businesses with multiple destinations.
2. Address import accuracy: This helps avoid incorrect/wrong or duplicate addresses or zip codes while importing your list of stops through address validation capabilities.
3. Advanced route optimization: It lets you consider various delivery constraints, including traffic and delivery time windows, while optimizing routes. It also allows you to edit in-progress routes by dragging and dropping stops to change their sequence and handle last-minute orders or cancellations.
4. Customization excellence: It provides extensive customization options to set priority stops, time windows, and other distance—and time-based constraints to meet specific delivery requirements. 
5. Route analytics: Offers detailed summary reports that include the details of stops covered, scheduled date, and start, as well as the end time of the route, to analyze delivery performance.
6. Automated delivery notifications: This helps inform customers of their order statuses via real-time ETAs to ensure last-mile visibility and high transparency.
7. Delivery/pick-up optimization: It helps you plan a route that includes deliveries and pickups to reduce delivery journeys and operational costs.

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2. GasBuddy

Are you looking for the cheapest gas stations near you? GasBuddy can be your go-to app by letting you search for gas stations by city, state, or brand name along your route. 

You’ll love this app, which relies on crowdsourcing to find the prices of all fuel types, including Regular, Midgrade, and Premium, along your route. However, people sometimes complain about the differences between actual and displayed gas prices at some gas stations.

Key Features: 

• Fuel log: This lets you record fuel expenses to track your fuel economy. 
• Vehicle recall: Enables tracking open recall notices. 
• Outage tracker: Enables finding fuel stations with no power and limited fuel options

On comparing it with Upside, another prominent name in this field, GasBuddy, is accessible on both its website and app. Moreover, GasBuddy offers in-app linking to financial accounts, providing a more convenient user interface than Upper.

3. Flush

Want to find a restroom quickly? Enter Flush, the double-sided marketplace for restrooms that lets business owners register their toilets for those seeking them on their journey. 

Whether you are a long-haul driver seeking directions to nearby restrooms or want a pit stop, Flush can help you. However, as our internal testing revealed and some users reported, the locations of toilets on the map may be inaccurate at times.

Key Features:

• Massive Database: Has over a database of 200,000 restrooms worldwide.
• User Reviews: Displays user reviews to help determine whether to book a restroom or not.
• Offline Functionality: Works offline, making it more beneficial for drivers in far-flung delivery areas with poor cellular network

We compared Flush with Bathroom Scout Pro and found it offers a larger database of restrooms including private ones as well, making it a clear winner. When compared with another restroom finder app Sit or Squat, we found Flush has more filter options, including location data and accessibility, facilitating quick decision-making.

4. WhatsApp

As a delivery driver, it is essential to have a reliable method of communication with your customers and employers. With over 5 billion downloads, WhatsApp has become the most popular messaging app worldwide.

The best part is that it is free to use and equipped with end-to-end encryption for all users. Plus, we loved the freedom of customization it provides regarding background or notification alerts. However, as documented and reported sometimes, you may want to beware of vulnerability and data leak concerns.

Key Features:

• Voice messages: This lets you record and send voice messages to eliminate the need for long messages.
• View once: Allows for sending photos, voice messages, or videos that disappear from a chat after the recipient opens them once, making it beneficial for sensitive messages that may not be for saving or sharing across people.
• Edit chats: Enables editing messages within 15 minutes of sending them

We pitched WhatsApp against other messaging apps, including Telegram and Signal to find out how they compete. While Telegram is more secure, it doesn’t provide stable group video calls and end-to-end encryption of messages. Signal, on the other hand, despite being highly secure, doesn’t provide broadcasting capabilities, unlike Whatsapp.

5. Amazon Flex

Amazon Flex is for you if you have a vehicle and want to deliver packages as an independent contractor. This delivery app pays you based on the number of delivery assignments you complete and provides flexible working hours.

These assignments involve picking packages from designated Amazon warehouses in your vicinity and delivering them to customers’ delivery addresses. However, reported incidents of non-payments for previous delivery journeys may be a cause of concern, especially for full-timers.

Key Features: 

• Amazon Flex Rewards: This lets you earn points to access exclusive discounts on gas, roadside assistance, and car maintenance.
• Flexible working hours: Provide greater autonomy over delivery jobs and don’t require adherence to Hours of Service regulations.

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6. 8fit

Prioritizing health and quality diet is imperative for delivery drivers but may become tedious due to their hectic schedules. This health and fitness app offers efficient workouts, customized meal plans, and meditation training to facilitate their overall well-being.

This ease of use makes it a popular app among delivery drivers, who use it to incorporate fitness into their daily routines. However, a paid version is required to unlock exclusive videos and complete meal plans.

Key Features:

• Workout videos: Provides quickly consumable exercise and workout videos for drivers to follow.  
• User-friendly interface: Offers an easy-to-use interface, eliminating the need for a steep learning curve.

When compared to other fitness apps like BoostCamp, 8Fit emerged as the winner as it has shorter and easy-to-follow training sessions.

7. Headspace

With over 70 million downloads across 200 countries globally, Headspace helps support people’s mental health, making it ideal for those working in stressful fields. 

It lets you choose from kid-friendly and family-friendly options and lengths of videos. You can also try it out on a 14-day free trial before purchasing a subscription. However, occasional glitches caused meditation videos to stop loading, as our testing revealed and users reported.

Key Features:

• Short and beginner-friendly videos: Provides shorter and more easily accessible videos catering to beginners and advanced users.  
• Variety of options: You can choose from different meditation lengths and topics, including focus exercises, meditations, and sleep casts.

Headspace outperforms Calm, Insight Timer, and Ten Percent Happier as it has an easy-to-use interface and offers content for both beginners and experienced people.

8. Dumpling

The Dumpling app is an online platform that enables individuals to start and manage their grocery shopping and delivery business. It provides different tools based on business types, including vacation rental, vacation grocery or alcohol delivery company, or repeat business.

This can be a great side hustle for drivers, as the delivery fee covers everything from the time taken to shop for the listed items to delivering them. However, unwanted auto-cancellation of orders after dispatch may ruin the customer experience.

Key Features:

• Flexible pricing: This lets you set your prices and manage your earnings efficiently.
• Customer engagement tools: These help you establish a strong connection with your customers through personalized offers.

As Dumpling allows for choosing the shoppers of their choice every time and charges in-store prices unlike Instacart, it offers a potential Instacart alternative to combat high prices and inconsistent shopping experiences.

9. Spotify

Listening to podcasts or tunes on a long trip can help relax drivers, making their driving experience enjoyable. Spotify helps you out as the largest music streaming service provider by catering to all their audio needs. 

It features a massive library of audio content in different formats, including songs, tunes, and podcasts. However, you may need to switch from the free version to Spotify Premium for additional benefits, like ad-free listening, unlimited skips, and offline playlists.

Key Features:

• Massive library: Has millions of audio content pieces, including songs, tunes, and podcasts
• Personalized recommendations: Allows finding new music based on your preferences and needs

Unlike Amazon Music, another popular music streaming app, Spotify’s algorithms are more precise and recommend better playlists and artists. It also outperforms Apple Music when it comes to navigation and social integration.

10. Waze

With over 100 million users, Waze is a community-driven navigation app that provides real-time traffic information, accidents, police, or speed cameras based on drivers’ continuous inputs.

In short, it informs you of all the factors that can cause potential delays and helps you avoid them strategically to reach destinations faster. However, unlike Google Maps, which restricts its usage in restricted areas, it doesn’t have offline capabilities.

Key Features:

• Speed limit alerts: Deploys speed cameras to record your vehicle’s speed to send you an alert on the map if you are overspeeding.
• Police presence: This feature allows users to report police sightings on the road, helping improve the driving experience for other users.

Upper - Best App Any Delivery Driver Can Have

Create and navigate the most efficient routes effortlessly with Upper. Reduce your time and distance on the road to maximize stops per route and get back home faster.

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Choose the Right App to Power Up Your Deliveries

Delivery applications have completely changed the way drivers work, offering essential support to make their busy schedules easier. To handle the demands of the delivery job features like intelligent navigation and optimized routes are essential. 

Upper is one such delivery driving app that offers special features to make deliveries easier for drivers. Its powerful features and easy-to-use interface enable drivers to navigate more effectively and improve their work-life balance.